pointwest outing

we were invited to participate in our company's annual team-building outing held in the 8 waves resort, bulacan. although as a whole it remained, as one ojt-er remarked, a "pointless outing", a few salient moments are worth mentioning:

i. breakfast of champions

i woke up at 4:30 in order to leave the house at 5:30 and arrive at 6am, which gave me 30 minutes to enjoy a couple of jollibee's breakfast sausage burger thingees. unfortunately, they were out of stock so i had to order a rice-and-corned-beef combo instead.

moral lesson: don't.

ii. let's get retarded

as if the tuxedo wasn't inane enough, the people at the front of the bus switched to dora the explorer to 'entertain' the kids on board. words cannot express the extent of cerebral damage dished out by its sinister scriptwriters. in the last 15 minutes before i finally lost consciousness, i witnessed dora and that rat-ass monkey of hers help king "i love to swing" bobo [not kidding, that was his name] locate his crown in a patch of santan, stop swiper the fox from stealing it by shouting out "swiper stop swiping!" four times in a row, disable killer turkeys with the 'funny' word "bananapants", open a gate by stomping on a triangular rock, figure out that one must run through a timed sprinkler to cross it without getting drenched, scare off crocodiles by imitating their snapping jaws with his forearms, and open a second gate with five buttons, this time by pressing the said buttons one by one [no fucking duh].

moral lesson: don't buy a tv; instead, download reruns of takeshi's castle and the crystal maze for your kids to watch.

iii. what's in a name

all employees [and trainees] were divided into three groups for the team-building exercises. my team called itself "the champions". driven by this warcry, we won the first two events easy. then we lost the next three to the same group, earning us a second-place finish.

moral lesson: "the champions" is only a good name if you win. otherwise, it's jologs.

iv. eight-wave workout

being of the adventurous sort, us ojt-ers stuck mostly to the wave pool, which is subject to 20 or so waves every two minutes. the waves add between a foot and two to the slowly sloping depth, and drowning is avoided by jumping just before the crests hit you. most of the day was spent here, discussing either the theories behind the wave system time or the possibility that 8 waves will market said pool as an aerobics facility. to wit:

time theory one: the pool is battery operated and runs down every two minutes, at which point an employee runs out to the nearest 7-11 to buy new ones.

time theory two: the pool is batter operated and runs down every two minutes, at which point an employee has to replace all 1024 d-sized batteries.

possible voiceover from aerobics system: "ok girls, remember, it's 'step, step, step, jump'. if you miss a beat, you die!"

moral lesson: chlorine is as good an intoxicant as alcohol.

v. sun-worship

the pool's floor wasn't tiled, and therefore proved hazardous to any body part not buffered by clothing. since i [like most people] was clad only in a pair of trunks, this made sunbathing on the 'shore' lethal regardless of whether i was facing up or down. most of the time, a wave would crash over us, ramming a shoulder blade, heel, elbow, knee, or pectoral into the sandpaperish flooring. my battle plan for avoiding this was sitting up everytime the waves started up, effectively darkening only the right side of my face and body.

moral lesson: i tan like lechon baboy.

vi. videoke

of course, no outing is complete without my favorite social pasttime. most of the machines were already reserved by other groups on their vacations, so it was with some difficulty that we were able to locate the last free-for-all machine. we spent the first thirty minutes throwing dirty looks at the patrons until they left, but by that time, we only had time for two or three songs apiece. i was already paos from all the shouting in the wave pool, so i didn't do so well. nothing embarassing, just a 93 and an 88.

moral lesson: the more you bark, the less you can sing afterwards.

vii. kiss of the dragon

i was a bit disappointed after watching this movie. too many loose ends. the diplomatic repercussions of the protagonist and antagonist's actions are lost as the international affair dwindles down to a vendetta resolved in a western-style showdown. if the problem's big enough for interpol to be involved, i think that threat of war, or at least footage of mass military movements, should be made evident.

moral lesson: jet li has a crater on the end of his nose.

viii. top one sign that life hates you

i have a friend, let's call him "paco", and he's in a bit of an awkward situation with a girl, who i shall refer to as "tala". the aforementioned friend and i regularly pass by said girl's apartment on the way home everyday. except this time, just as "paco" and i were conversing about "tala" and her boyfriend "nix" in none-too-hushed voices, the pair magically appear four feet in front of us. then it starts to rain.

moral lesson: it can always get worse.

ix. inspired

by the unusual twist of fate, "paco" immediately hit upon the lyrics to a song he hopes to present to metallica, in order for them to have a song not about being so goth that you sell out.

B......D.E.   B......D.E.
       fluffy bunny  happy
B......         D.E.  D.B.A#.A.E.D.A.A#.B
birthday you're legal now               yeah!

yeah!

sige ingat.ü 
posted by stani at 8:46 PM