P.B.B.

To honor the hype of reality TV shows nowadays, and just to satisfy our curiosity, I, along with my friend, lined up last Friday (Feb. 27, 2009) for the Pinoy Big Brother Season 3 auditions.

The auditions started at 9am, but we arrived a bit after 12 noon. I don't think we would have arrived that late had we foreseen the army of people who were going to audition as well. If you are familiar with the places at the ABS-CBN compound, then you would know the length of the line when I say that the line was from the PBB House to the block after Pier One (near ABS-CBN). And need I tell you that it was scorching hot, literally. You could feel the sun's rays piercing your skin. If we thought we arrived late, then the army of people lined up behind us must have thought we were the early birds.

We lined up for appromixately four excruciatingly hot hours. Too bad we didn't get to actually audition since our line got cut off when we were, might I say, around 5-10 minutes away from the house itself. But it was actually fun seeing the different kinds of people who lined up along with us. There were two gays in front of us who seemed to be having the time of their lives, meeting new friends and telling funny stories about their previous experiences. I overheard one telling the other that this season's line was by far the longest (compared to the first two seasons). And the other one was telling his newfound friends about how he reacts when people mistake him to be Chocoleit, an actor. Other than the two gays, there was a girl in front of us who couldn't seem to let go of her umbrella. Her umbrella almost hit my eye for a couple of times, until I became an expert at ducking. Two guys, also in front of us, were all hair and glamour - restyling their hair every ten or twenty minutes with the hair wax they brought along. We also saw a guy who we guessed to be half-albino. He was seriously way too white. And I believe that the tinderas were happy that their mineral water stock was, more or less, sold out. There were even people selling lumpia, mais, ice candy, and more choices of food.

The line was moving really slowly for the first hour or so. I was happy to see the line move extremely fast when we were about to reach the house. My happiness was soon replaced with a bit of sadness when we heard people shouting that auditions were over and that it was time to go home. The last I saw of the two gays were them charging towards the platform (though the platform was still a bit far from where we were standing). I didn't see where the umbrella girl went, as well as the two glamour boys. But I did see a girl beside me who touched my shoulder and exclaimed, "Kim Chiu?!" hahahaha :) And that was the end of the day for me.

I called my friend who was lost somewhere in the crowd. We went to Banapple for late lunch or early dinner, and we talked about a few stuff.

It is true that it's a shame we didn't get to be auditioned, and that we didn't even get the chance to reach the house. But the experience itself - lining up and all that jazz - was fun. :)

And the news reportedly mentioned that there were approximately 12,000 people who lined up for PBB that day.