A few nights ago (Thursday night to be exact), my friend Mela and I were quietly having dinner at the Burger King joint along E. Rodriguez when suddenly an orange T-shirt-clad homeless man appeared from nowhere beside me and asked for my burger. Uncannily, he was asking for MY burger from Mela who was seated almost across mine. All through that time, he didn’t look at me despite the fact that the unopened burger was right in front of me. He was talking to Mela – pleading for the burger and Mela was telling him he can’t have it for two reasons: 1) it wasn’t hers; and 2) I haven’t eaten anything myself. It was about a minute or so when the man suddenly picked up the burger from my tray despite Mela telling him not to. Now there are two issues here: restaurant security and hunger.

Perhaps he was very hungry for him to do such a thing. I pity him for that. But if he had just waited for me to speak (which he didn’t), I would have gladly given him my burger instead of him getting it from my tray without regard. I firmly believe that poverty is never, ever an excuse not to act like a normal human being would.

And for the fast food chain’s security? WHERE THE HELL WAS IT WHEN WE NEEDED IT???? He could have been a goon pretending to be a hungry, homeless man. He could have gotten our laptops, wallets, apple iphone or other valuables. We would have been helpless if he had any weapons with him. How could have he gotten past the security? Oh. I remember. That time, there was NO SECURITY GUARD, NO MANAGER AND NO FAST FOOD PERSONNEL IN SIGHT. Where were they? Mela found them huddling together at the counter, busily talking amongst themselves. It took Mela’s angry complaints about the stranger getting our food from our table before they even realized what happened. And their reaction? Good heavens. The manager went up to the homeless man to accost him. What a sensible thing to do! What if he was armed or what if he was with armed company? They could have attacked the poor, helpless manager. I couldn’t also commend them for their reaction to what happened. After blurting a unempathic “sorry” from one of their staff, they delivered a new burger for my consumption. I guess, it would have been appropriate if one of the managers approached us to ask what happened and apologize appropriately. Talk about good customer service right?

We’ve long put behind us what happened the other night in high hopes that it would never happen again to us or to another customer in the future. I sure wish there wouldn’t be any lapses in their part ever again. Imagine if it were a bunch of crooks who entered that joint that night and announced a hold up? Oh geez. I wouldn’t want to live one of my worst nightmares.

I was browsing online, looking for office furniture accessories when I came across her facebook profile. Although it was shielded from the prying eyes of the public, to a cyberstalker (like me? hehe), nothing is impossible. And that’s how I learned the news of the day. Think your profile, pictures and what-have-yous are private and protected? Think again. Some of your friends may not be as meticulous with privacy issues like you and they may post your pictures and information for (my?) stalking eyes to digest. =P

It’s been a while since I tried to find out how she’s been doing and although she was a part of my closed-book past, I still can’t get past that “I-loathe-her” feeling despite it all. Some may argue that I should forgive and forget. I may have forgiven her for what she did but truthfully, it’s hard to forget how she and this other person had fooled me for almost three years before I finally found out – again through a social networking site – that I had been being played all along. It’s easy to forgive, but, sadly, to erase the bitterness of the wrongdoing takes a lot of time to process especially if there were broken trusts involved. =(

Well, perhaps learning how she’s married now and very much happy in this new chapter of her life would help me heal the wounds of a broken trust much faster than it should. Sure hope so.

Has it ever crossed your mind how lucky you are?

Yes you. Being able to surf the internet to read this blog entry just shows how you have enough money to spare for leisure while the vast majority of the population hasn’t even touched an old worn-out computer. Sometimes, we are too busy wondering about how to pay for our life’s leisures and pleasures like that car insurance you got for your new Honda Civic or that dress that cost more than a thousand bucks you saw in a posh window store, that we conveniently forget the fate of the less fortunate of our kind. I see them everyday – in the streets, in the hospital… yet, have we done something for them? To at least help ease out their suffering?

I was moved and touched by this short film made by Ferdinand Dimadura entitled “Chicken a la Carte” which won “Most Popular Short Film” at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival in 2006. I rarely post videos but I believe it is my duty as a human to share this to the whole world.

As of 5 pm of August 19, 2009, I’m tipping the scales at 96 lbs. Yep. 4 lbs shy of being within the normal BMI limit. My friends envy me because I don’t need weight loss supplements or the best diet pills around to keep thin.  What they don’t realize is that I’m actually struggling to gain weight. I’m actually surprised at how I’m still able to keep myself from losing more pounds now that I’m in the land of retractors and sterile drapes aka “The Operating Room” (I’m rotating now in Surgery you see). The Surgery rotation is very notorious for making poor clerks like me thinner by a few pounds. Two weeks after my rotation, I’ve just lost 2 pounds and that’s already a feat since I know of a lot of clerks who lost more.

Wish me luck that I don’t lose another pound next week!

I just finished reading a thread from Candymag’s teentalk (yes, I know I am way past my teenage years LOL). I must say I am pretty amazed at how “knowledgeable” teens are nowadays when it comes to beauty and skin care. But then it also alarms me at the same time; because admit it or not, what they “know” is most often courtesy of Google whose reliability has always remained to be in question.

Having recently finished my rotation in Dermatology, I’ve come to appreciate a lot of facts and health and beauty practices which I weren’t fully aware of before. That is despite my addiction to googling the worldwide web. I must admit that what I’ve picked up from my 15-day stint as a pseudo-Dermatologist will never come up in any Yahoo or Google search. In fact, the actual experience of handling a patient beats the millions of search queries that these engines will harvest for you at any given time.

Perhaps what bothers me most about what I’ve witnessed to be going on online among many women is how the practice of self-medication has become more rampant than before. And for that I point the accusing finger towards Mr. Google because of his ability to come up with results from Medicare supplement to the latest fad in skin whitening. Don’t get me wrong. Internet results are not necessarily evil; but misleading advertisements under the guise of reliable medical information are and I sure hope that internet users have high enough IQ to know how to spot a fake from the real deal.

I’ve realized that Dermatologists in practice are losing in the battle against non-medical people peddling their skincare goods online. It’s actually a double whammy. For one, they lose potential patients. Second, they become the option of last resort of patients whose problems are even worse than how they started from trying various products without knowing their drug interactions. I’m a witness. Most of the patients I’ve seen would claim to have applied certain lotions, medications and ointments they could not even read. For me, such practice is the same as taking medications without knowing what they’re for. Perhaps most think that the harm would be less since they are topically applied. They have entirely forgotten however that the skin is virtually the largest organ in the body with a huge potential for systemic absorption.

I wish people would be more vigilant not only on the price tag of the goods they see online but moreso on the indications of their use; because no matter which way you look at it, they’re all drugs and just one and the same banana.

I rarely add people in plurk voluntarily – unless they’re a relative or an offline friend/acquaintance. Those purely online pals that are on my list may consider themselves lucky ‘coz there must be something unique with them that I’ve picked them out from the scores of those who have attempted to add me. My policy is this: if I know you or at least have a semblance of interaction with you, you’re a friend; but if you’re some faceless name off the internet, you’re better off rejected or perhaps when I’m in a good mood – as a fan. It does sound conceited but a blogger whose existence is out online for everyone’s consumption also yearns for some privacy in the same tune as some bigger celebrities want to keep theirs. This is the same mantra that I keep for all the other social networking sites that I am a part of: friendster, facebook and less so for multiply. So it came as a big, big surprise when last night I discovered I had pending friend requests to two virtual strangers over at plurk. I first suspected that someone knew my password and was logging in without my knowledge but I also remembered how my plurk’s one of a handful of online accounts that I have with a password that is unique to itself. Then, I thought that perhaps, somebody must have been using my laptop behind my back – but then I also remembered how I’m with my laptop almost 24 hours a day. It was indeed a big mystery – until a friend of mine wondered how come a stranger’s plurks were appearing in his timeline when he neither knew him nor added him. I never knew that it would be the key to my own mystery.

A bug. Some programmer had left his bug somewhere in plurkville and now it’s wreaking havoc by sending friend requests to total strangers. Take this guy for example and count the number of friend requests waiting for him: 116! And there it was, included in the waiting list are two of my friends including the one who brought up the issue.

This just makes me wonder how safe exactly are these social networking sites. Yes, they offer some sort of privacy to their members by making their timelines viewable only to contacts but, how effective are these strategies? I remember how another friend had the same “plurk privacy” issue a few months back wherein someone got hold of information by allegedly hacking his way to her plurk timeline and used these to incriminate her or perhaps use a printer for a hardcopy of the information he gathered. Not that I’m saying I’m tolerating her act (I believe she has her faults too), but the point of the matter is how online networking is never safe despite what the developers claim them to be. Somehow, in some way, some genius would find his/her way through all the security loopholes waiting to be discovered and threaten every member’s privacy to some extent. I am not saying however, that this person hacked plurk in any way. By the looks of it, he too, perhaps, is a victim of the bug lost somewhere in plurkville. So before this goes out of hand, I think the developers of plurk need a wake up call to iron this boo boo soon – and fast.