Heyo! So we practiced last night, except not at Mang Sam’s. Roel’s landlord, JC, celebrated his birthday last night and he invited us to play there. We played there last year, too, so we decided to get some free practice out of it.

We had to meet Allan and Roel at Intramuros at around midnight. Kamikazee and Parokya had something going on there. So Ayn picked me up at around 11:30, we picked up Ralph, then made our way to Intramuros. Then, the proverbial Groundhog Day began for us. The Intramuros gates we knew were closed and we kept calling Allan for directions on how to get in. To make it short, we went around and around the Liwasang Bonifacio-Taft-Padre Burgos area looking for a way to get to the elusive Lawton-Pier entrance of Intramuros. If I got the names of my areas wrong, sorry… that’s exactly the reason why we got lost. No, wait… RALPH is the reason we got lost, hehe. Anyway, the irony of it all was that, just as we finally entered Intramuros, Allan’s van was driving out the gate. He told Ralph that we were to meet at Mayric’s instead. Auuuugggghhhh.

So we headed on to Roel’s place. Who could forget the great food and the lamay-next-door from last year’s party? When we arrived, everybody was drunk and most were half-naked. They were screaming, “Tugtog!!! Tugtog!!!” and people started frantically setting up the stage on the next-door lot. But I have to hand it to them-- for drunks, they seemed pretty well-behaved once the nu-metal started. They were politely sitting down and appreciating the music. The experience was initially scary, though, but we felt we owed it to Roel to play as we promised.

When it was our turn, most of the people left, but that was fine for us. They took time with soundcheck and I got to sing without fuss. The Manyaks said we sounded good, except for the vocals that couldn’t be heard, but that was ok, considering the makeshift set-up. Sang “My Silverchair”, “Nothing Much to Lose”, “Discarded Toy” (everyone loves that song, next to “Flaming Walls”), and “Empty You”.

Sat around and talked for a while. Allan was being paranoid about our Millenia entries. He doesn’t want people to be saying his bandmates are a bunch of inconsiderate whiners. I understand his concern, but I feel that I voiced out my aggravation in a fair manner. If you all look at my previous entry on that Millenia incident, I did say that not all the people at Millenia are boors to their PAYING customers (Tiffany was very concerned about my distress). The only thing I said that bad-mouthed all of Millenia was the “overpriced food and mediocre service” bit. But you know what, I really feel that they have overpriced food and I think I am still entitled to say that, Allan. The fact that this happened to me just made me want to finally say it out loud.

But, for Allan’s peace of mind, I WILL clarify some things about Millenia. Before this incident, Allan says that Millenia had treated us nicely, and I agree… they gave us a free beer each when we played there once. The waitresses there never bothered us before and they did let us play as loud as we wanted, though reluctantly. The entrance used to be P30 I think, which is a pretty fair price. All of these were the reasons why, just before our last gig there, I was highly recommending people to go to Millenia. I felt it was a musician-friendly place, not to mention the funky inca-like, cozy-hole-in-the-wall feeling it gave.

However, this opinion changed for me when that lady, whose name is CLAUDINE and is supposedly someone in charge there at Millenia, pissed me off with her stupid policies. Look—people may think I’m making a big deal out of this, but bad service is really a pet peeve of mine, and you just have to bear with my shit. SHE IS IN A SERVICE-ORIENTED BUSINESS. This means she has to be polite to her customers; and I don’t just mean in the way she talks because she said things politely, but INSISTENTLY—I mean that even her actions must put the well-being of her customers first. Isn’t that fair to ask of someone who you’re paying to be of service to you? And, yes, a forty-peso iced tea (two, in fact) does include service charge… o kahit simple consideration man lang.

Fuck it.

O eto na ha… I don’t have complaints against Millenia the place (except for the price) and most of the staff. I just want to say that it’s this Ms. Claudine and that other waitress (who probably was just ordered to bug us) who really tick me off. If you need one reason not to go there, it’s because of that Claudine lady. If you need two reasons, well, to be honest, it’s her and the prices there. If you need three reasons, sorry… I can’t give you another one, and you can go on ahead and patronize Millenia because the rest of them there are ok.

Can we just please forget this already? Sorry, Allan, pero medyo naasar ako na we had to resurrect this again. Nabuking tuloy ako na it’s such a big deal to me hehe. But, seriously, I would’ve let it go already if you hadn’t been so worried about what other people think. Frankly, I don’t think readers are as stupid as to need all this clarification. And I have the right to express my opinion, even if it’s to the detriment of an establishment. Don’t you think that I can discern what is appropriate to say and what isn’t? Maybe through my rantings, they’ll try to do something about that person, if you say that a lot of people have complained about her. You’re the one who made me blogmaster, anyway.

Basta. Bad trip yung babaeng yun. Kasi pati tayo as a band naapekto.