random act of kindness (part 1)

We’ve been so lucky, so we thought of sharing our luck to others who are less fortunate by doing one random act of kindness every month, for as long as our finances enable us to. I know it’s very cheesy and so unlikely of a Mussolini, but what can I say? The whole pretend-fascist attitude is getting old now that I am older.

This month, we thought of splitting our charity budget into two. So technically we did two random acts of kindness. But I can’t do math. So let’s just put this all in one entry.

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NOTE TO JUDGMENTAL PEOPLE: Why the hell am I writing about this when charity should never be publicized? Because I want to fucking inspire, moron. I am not blogging about this because I am proud of myself. I just thought maybe, after reading this, YOU would get compelled to quit the S$4-coffee-a-day habit and give your money to charity instead. _________________________________________________________________

Anyway, back to the story.

The first random act of kindness MSP and I did was simple enough – we did it for six street kids who helped us fly our RC plane. Here is MSP with the kids:




All our friends know that we hate kids, we really do. But what can we do? They are already there, smelly and pushy and far too curious (nightmare). They were so willing to pick up the plane and find the missing pieces whenever it crashed. Their third world parents are unable to send them to school. They don’t really have a lot of toys, and there we were, two 25-year-old dorks playing with ours. It seemed right to give a little. So we bought them lunch and gave them some spending money.

When our plane hit cement and collapsed, one of the kids – the most putrid kid with grimy fingers – started folding a piece of flyer he got from the trash and said, “Look. My plane is just paper. It can crash and it would not break.”

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The next random act of kindness we did just yesterday. As we were about to get off the car to look at an office space (which turned out to be way over budget), we saw a balut vendor who looked very tired but seemed to really take pride in his business. ____________________________________________

TO FOREIGN READERS: A balut is boiled fertilized duck egg which has undergone a fair amount of embryonic development. It’s a Filipino delicacy. __________________________________________________________________

The balut vendor could really use the money to improve his trade, I thought, so I asked MSP to run after him and give him a few thousand pesos. MSP says he seemed shocked and then elated, which was the emotion we were going for.

Now that THAT is over, we can go back to working our assess off to make money, contribute to fiscal inequity by paying our already-educated and well-off employees with even more money, eat in lavish restaurants and buy stupid toys. Next month, we will feel the need to give again, because that what we humans do – we consume and then feel guilty. Until then, bring on the excesses.

toys for the big dorks

Since we cannot decide which of the two RC toys to get, we did what all sensible 25-year-olds with extra cash would – buy both.

Here is our new RC monster truck:



And here is the RC airplane MSP put together himself (that’s him holding it):



These are all starter kits -- toys to practice with until we're ready to handle the 'real' deal.

I can't believe how dorky I've become since the new company. MSP has always been a geek, so this is the life he has always known. But I used to be, well, more hip. Now I wear lime green jogging pants when working. Cristobal Balenciaga will rise from his mongram-lined grave and haunt me.

Even my TV habits have changed. Can you believe I even watch Murder She Wrote now? It's the only show I catch when I'm not working. (I work at night so there goes Frasier and Comedy Central). And I actually bought a DVD of The 40-year-old Virgin. I -- Mussolini -- the greatest movie snob ever to walk in Prada loafers. I now watch *gasp* Hollywood. Patetico.

Anyway, now we have to finish up work so we can spend the afternoon playing. I really think we deserve this too much.

geeks

So MSP and I have decided to buy a toy – a radio-controlled toy – which we could bring to the university grounds and play with. We figured this is perfect for us. It’s fun, it’s a computer, and it will force us to go outdoors (because we have both been locked in our respective offices for days now).

The only problem is that we’re new in the RC toy arena, and we do not know what to get. Should we get a plane?



Or a truck?



If you guys know anything about RCs and what we should be looking for, please help us. Thanks.

i need coffee

I was researching for a client (a company that does promotional products) when I came upon this interesting picture of a Starbucks cup:



I am not gay, but I love gay people (they have the best taste in clothing and most of them like Cher, whom I adore). But I had to post this image because its message is just so true.

who needs a view?

So after four crazy weeks of moving things around, I finally settled on a new table.



I think I have lost my sense of time. I swear it was Sunday yesterday, but I was working the whole day – the WHOLE day – until midnight. I did not even step out of my office, except to get Oreos. And while I have a television complete with 100 channels, I did not even turn it on. Not once.

The only break I get is when I surf for bags on www.eluxury.com. I hate the Fendi Spy. I am gawking at the new Marc Jacobs. And I think Kate Spade should do black, for once.

Which reminds me, I nearly bought a Kate last Thursday. The saleslady (on the right) kept telling me that the $300 bag looked good on me, when it apparently (a) faded right into my skin tone, and (b) made me look fat.


The lying saleslady and the fat bags

Now I have to get back to work. I have tons to finish.
I'm my own boss now, but why do I seem to be working more?

idiot

My laptop crashed and I did not get any work done today.



This is me being an idiot. I don’t know where to look.

entrepreneur's diet

MSP and I haven’t been eating right in the past few weeks because we’ve been working odd hours and getting less and less sleep. Together we have probably consumed about a bucket of sugar and preservatives. We’ve become regular customers at cheap (but good) eateries and buffets in and around Metro Manila. Aside from the asparagus stalks that come with most sashimis, we haven’t really eaten vegetables.

But today we decided to eat a decent meal in a nice little restaurant – probably our last decent meal before we die working for a whole week, apart from each other, nonstop, yet again. This is something worthy of documentation, I tell you. On regular days we stuff ourselves with greasy double cheeseburgers and eat in front of our computers.


Jap, grilled salmon and some kind of steak

doing math

Today we went to see our accountant, an old lady who speaks in riddles. Going to see her is like going to see a dentist – it’s scary but we have to.

We also worked for a short while in a café, and then I had to run off and meet a very dear friend who is leaving for New York in a few days. I helped her go shopping for winter socks, and I got myself a few pairs of jogging pants to use when I’m working in my home office. We went to this outlet shopping yard and I ended up buying a whole ‘home office’ wardrobe for only $30. Yes, I carry $1,000 bags but I wear $3 shirts. It’s the way of the pretend-Marxist.


MSP working in a café / Extreme programming in his very messy office. The monitor is actually pretty huge in person -- 25 inches or so. And the table is huge, too.

still working

two people = corporation

Let me introduce you to my business partner, MSP. Like me, he is in his mid-twenties and has the vision of building a big company. We pretty much like the same stuff – Japanese food, laptops, DVDs, working, and making money. He has a penis, though which I don’t have (I’m a girl, in case you didn’t get that yet).


Here is a very distorted shot of MSP in a British restaurant.

MSP is going to take a break this afternoon and walk around the city in an effort to (a) get his tan back and (b) make his blood circulate. He has been working for three straight weeks inside the office in his garage, kilometers from my office (I will post pictures of his office later). He’s been talking to our telecommuting employees, coordinating client deadlines, programming, and doing everything except what he would rather be doing – play computer games.

We know we should get an administrative assistant, but we’re not sure if NOW is a good time. No, money is not the issue. We can afford to pay for help if we wanted to (even if it means cutting back on some other things).

But you see, we don’t want to depend on another person for small details. At least not yet. We want to know everything – how to do the payroll, how to organize our eFiles, how to queue for hours in the joke that is a bank in a mall. It’s masochistic, but isn’t that the joy of being entrepreneurs?

Well, the joy of OUR version of being entrepreneurs. We are subordinates to our own company.

something big

Even though we’re starting from scratch and are just guessing our way (intelligently, hopefully) into the madness that is taxes and bylaws and incorporation bullshit, we are happy. Tired, but happy.

Pop the champagne and say hail to entrepreneurship.

short-term plans

We will need to recruit more people in the coming weeks. It’s a lot harder than you think – self-disciplined people who can work with very minimal supervision are as rare as Jay Leno jokes that are actually funny.

We need better employees. You see, when our people screw up, we have to vacuum out the mess – and we would really like to do less ‘cleaning’ and more ‘managing’ in the future.

We also need a new office – something more, errrm, official. But our cash flow is just beginning to stabilize and I do not think we should spend on anything unnecessary at the moment. The office can wait.

hello world

I started this new blog to document my new life as a ‘mobile’ entrepreneur – mobile, meaning ‘able to work from anywhere,’ if I actually had time to go anywhere.

But for now, my world is a small corner I call ‘The Great Mussolini.’



The Great Mussolini is complete with the essentials for the business I am in – fast internet, an IP phone, a regular phone, and a comfortable chair. This is where I do everything – call and email clients, pester my business partner, coordinate with our employees, do my own stuff, surf for luxury bags, actually buy luxury bags, etc. Not bad for such a small space, huh? I’m five foot three and 107 pounds. There’s not much of me, anyway, so this should be enough (in the meantime).

Everything around here is pretty much controlled – the lighting, the ‘strategic’ clutter, even the goddamn temperature. This, to me, is how the world should be – totalitarian and almost sterile. My office is Germany, except kinder.

So welcome to this new blog. Expect more third world stories, work-related rant, and good ol’fashioned self love.