Diffeent ways of coming together

And it happened again.

The past week saw a natural calamity take over the city, with floodwaters rising up to dangerous levels. “Red alert” social media channels warned everyone, as it was obvious the rain wasn’t about to stop. Citizen journalists kept us abreast of the situation, with our timelines bursting with a blow-by-blow account of the rising floodwaters.

Suddenly no one complained about the traffic, no one was ranting about the heat or why their food delivery was taking longer than expected. Moments like what we experienced this past week remind us of very important things that we sometimes tend to forget. Suddenly, instead of retweeting compliments, social media netizens were tweeting rescue information. Instead of posting an Instagram photo of what they ate, they were posting where to donate food. Instead of inviting to parties, they were planning rescue and relief operations.

It didn’t matter what your Outfit of the Day was. What mattered more was how you were gonna spend the day  what were you gonna do to be of help, that was the statement that really mattered. Funny how social media brings us together in times of celebration and in times of crisis.

Clubbing TV ultra lounge opens

At first, I thought it was a new TV show, à la MTV Grind  gyrating bodies, scantily clad beautiful people grooving to the beats of a DJ in a beach setting. I was close, only that the new Clubbing TV Ultra Lounge Manila, located at the lower ground floor of the New World Hotel in Makati, is much more than that. 

Boom time in our city’s nightlife is happening now, what with bars and clubs opening left and right. It used to be that people only had one lounge to go to, and it was very limited when it came to the choices. “We can’t grow up not having a proper dance floor,” I told myself with the voice of childhood angst. Careful what you wish for  our city now has got it, at party-all-you-can levels at that.

Today, it’s a different ball game played by different new players. “The more the merrier,” I always say. It makes Manila a much more interesting place to go around in. So when my dear friend Pepper Teehankee told me of his newest venture a few weeks ago with Cacay Moras-Server, veteran nightlife denizens, I raised my hand in support. With their partners Oliver Yulo, Ralph Roy, CJ Chua, Steef Uy, Anthony Garcia and Wilson Tieng, the city’s party set flocked to Clubbing TV Ultra Lounge

Pepper tells me that what we have now in Manila is the second bar/lounge of the Clubbing TV group based in Paris. They opened Paris last July 14 followed by Manila. Who’s next? Tel Aviv and Ibiza! Yes, in that order.

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(Moet Hennessy and Asahi beer overflowed that night. For reservations: ultra-lounge-manila@clubbingtv.com or call 0917-5813572.)

Whose line is it anyway?

Speaking of being connected and coming together, there’s a new app that’s sweeping this nation obsessed with anything and everything cute. As if we didn’t have enough apps to fill our days, in comes another that comes with the cutest everything  games, avatars, chat groups, stamps and more. I just downloaded the much talked about app called LINE  so did 150 million other people like me  and we’re all having a great time!

On my Instagram page, people always ask me what app I used, how I edited the photo to have such adorable stickers, and where did that huggable Brown come from or why is that Moon Man suddenly appearing in my selfie. Nope, I am not going through a second childhood phase, I just make sure to embrace new apps. They’re there for a reason  to make our lives more fun, functional and free of worries. Sometimes all we need to do is to be in touch with the inner child, to have a sense of innocence and play.

There’s LINE Games, where, when aligned with LINE messenger, you can compare and compete with other players, whether they’re in the same room or on another continent. There’s LINE Play, an avatar communication service where you can create custom avatars and interact with LINE friends and other users from around the world. There’s LINE Band which is a real-time, real-life private mobile app group which lets you bond as a group away from the prying eyes of the public. LINE Camera, my favorite of all, gives you photo frames, color filters and brushes to edit your photos before you share it via your social media accounts.

The point of all these apps, as with anything in life that is new, is for us to discover and rediscover our world. What to do? Embrace it, learn your way around it. Share it. We are at such an opportune moment in our history that we must do something and not just sit around and wait for things to happen. Yes, a lot of people need help. So we help. A lot of people are suffering, so we do our best to inspire action. 

These are times when we should come together. Now, whether it is for a relief operation, to go to a club or to learn a new app, it’s entirely your choice.

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All these and more at twitter.com/officialTIMYAP. On Instagram, officialtimyap, too!