Perishables

Share the Wealth

2010-01-27T03:40:00.009+08:00

Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry Demo SixthSense

Michael Pritchard Turns Filty Water Drinkable

Kaki King, Guitar Goddess

Vivienne Tam + HP

2009-09-12T13:01:00.001+08:00

I think my Mac just shot this an envious once-over, and my PC's whispering "Falcon Northwest" in my ear. Yeah, this no-carbs diet is making me delusional.

Disney Forever

2009-07-12T02:32:00.007+08:00

CS Lewis said, "Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." But I guess I never really outgrew them. Oh, for the love of Prince Charming and the perfect evening sandal. Who does Annie Leibovitz' post-production work (and have they gotten paid)?

Pop Tarts

2009-07-01T01:26:00.005+08:00

Terry Richardson, king of kink, does the Gossip Girls. But where's the steam? The photos are, surprisingly, tame.

Look ma! No makeup!

2009-05-15T10:02:00.002+08:00

Although there are far more serious things happening the world right now, I think the no-makeup, no-retouch April issue of French Elle deserves some attention. (Somewhere in her house in Baguio, my mother is looking at this and screaming "Why?!?")

Hmmm

2008-11-29T18:23:00.000+08:00

When you find yourself making stove-top chocolate fudge at 2 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday, it is time to admit to yourself that perhaps something in your life may be off-kilter.

History in the Making

2008-06-04T18:41:00.003+08:00

Unlike quite a few other Martial Law babies, I have never had much interest in becoming an American or even holding a green card. But this year, I must admit that I am choking green with envy over the US elections. What a great year to be an American voter. Barack, Hillary, McCain. Lots of personal issues (and quite a few scandals, of course), but no duds!

These three have reshaped the politics of their parties and crossed the demographic lines with ease and (most times) grace. After all, Barack is practically white, Hillary is practically a man, and McCain is practically a Democrat. From the outside looking in, these are the makings of an epic election year.

Evil Twin

2008-05-14T18:28:00.014+08:00

When Maite is right, she's right. Creepy resemblance ~~and inexplicable arrogance~~ aside, I think David Cook should win.

The Pangea Principle

2008-05-11T19:17:00.014+08:00

Although there was some reluctance on the part of my pop-cultured brain to engage (and read subtitles), I enjoyed the premier run of Pangea Day. There were parts where it faltered under the weight of its own significance, but there was more than enough well-intentioned sincerity to uplift, illuminate, and inspire. I'd like to think that one day all this footage will evolve into one monumental, simultaneous conversation. Some of the featured shorts:

J'Attendrai Le Suivant [I'll Wait for the Next One] by Philippe Orreindy, France. One can almost hear the women of the world gasp collectively at the end.

More by Mark Osborne, USA. Trippy claymation short about creation, transformation, and great expectation.

Pale Blue Dot with words by Carl Sagan. "On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of ... on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

I Remember Lebanon by Zeina Aboul Hosn, Lebanon. This spoke to me as a person from a country that never makes the world news unless there's a coup attempt, terrorist threat, or natural disaster.

Dancing Queen by Sumit Roy, India. Deceptively simple. Shot with a Nokia camera-phone.

Papiroflexia by Joaquin Baldwin, Paraguay. Whimsical and inspiring, saving the world one fold at a time.

Inja [Dog] by Steve Pasvolsky, Australia/South Africa. Deeply metaphorical and subject to different historical interpretations.

Click here for all the films featured during Pangea Day plus info on the ones that didn't make it into the 4-hour show.

Just Like Ashton

2008-05-07T01:02:00.010+08:00

Do you remember Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Yeah, he's that cute kid from 10 Things I Hate About You and 3rd Rock from the Sun. Apparently, he's 27 now, playing Cobra Commander in G.I. Joe, and doing the trendy Mrs. Robinson thing for April's GQ with 37-year-old Claudia Schiffer.

Promoting Pangea Day

2008-05-07T00:51:00.005+08:00

Because it's important.

Labor Day

2008-05-01T09:04:00.000+08:00

From someone whose office is twelve feet away from her bedroom, a profound appreciation for all the things people have to do to get to work every day.

Because they asked ...

2008-04-23T21:12:00.005+08:00

Despite allusions to the contrary, she didn't care if she never felt anything ever again. Fuck life. Fuck love. Fuck romance. She'd finally made it to the other side and there was no way she was giving up an inch of her sanity or her hard-fought peace of mind for what might be nothing more than another roll in the hay. Better safe than sorry. Better never than late. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio.

Terrestrial

2008-04-22T08:05:00.016+08:00

It's Earth Day! The Science Club geek in me comes alive.

GO BACK < The Toilet Paper Timeline
GO FORWARD > The Frightening Future of Earth
GO GREEN = Free is Good

Seeking Pangea

2008-04-19T20:04:00.015+08:00

"4 hours. 24 films ... Films made by the world for the world."

In 2006, TED Prize winner Jehane Noujaim was granted "a wish to change the world." She wished for a day when the world could come together through film. May 10, Pangea Day, is the result of this wish, and as its name implies, Pangea Day seeks to supersede our geopolitical barriers—borders, language, customs.

As a run-up to this event, filmmakers from all over the world have been asked to film their countrymen singing the national anthems of other nations. Although it initially appears to be nothing more than a novel idea, the result is unexpectedly poignant and (if we are to go by the unmoderated YouTube comments) provocative.

France sings for the USA

Kenya sings for India

Japan sings for Turkey

In Metro Manila (GMT+8), the live streaming of Pangea Day films starts at 2 AM on May 11. *UPDATE: Star World will also be carrying the live feed.*

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

2008-04-05T03:24:00.002+08:00

She's still fucking Matt Damon. Sarah and Matt, one full page in Variety.

Bounce

2008-04-05T03:12:00.000+08:00

People are far more flexible and resilient than we think. The human race did not go through two million years of natural selection and adaptation only to be felled by such common tragedies as a broken heart or a lack of toilet paper in the outback.

When worse comes to worst, I think most people are surprised by what they can live with. And without.

Keeping Score

2008-02-29T20:43:00.007+08:00

Sarah — 1.

Jimmy — 1,000!!!

Life with the dull bits cut out ...

2008-02-11T11:47:00.000+08:00

Vanity Fair goes Hitchcock and Hollywood does the full emote (see Renee Zellwegger and the fascinating Marion Cotillard). But someone will have to explain Seth Rogen to me. JUSTJARED.COM

Still Funny

2008-01-31T18:23:00.000+08:00

All this renewed interest in Scientologists and their Global Salvage Effort made me want to dig this up.

Like Rain

2008-01-22T19:22:00.001+08:00

TED presents the MOMA's design curator Paola Antonelli.

And demigod of my chosen profession Stefan Sagmeister.

Plus Dutch kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen.

Bonus: JJ Abrams on his "mystery box."

With narcoleptic disinterest seeping into my pores and work-induced mediocrity settling in my brain, I really needed this. Almost but not totally refreshed. Metaphorically (pretentiously?), no longer parched but still very, very thirsty. Let's work! TED.COM

Why design?

2007-12-06T08:28:00.000+08:00

Philippe Starck, creator of contemporary design icons like the Louis Ghost chair and the Hotel Mondrian, foregoes the pretty slides at TED2007 and gets to the heart of the matter: Why design?

I'm sure that many industrial and visual media designers have, like me, been spending more time lately wondering about the role people like us play in a society like ours. I design pretty things. I create images that make people want to buy things, visit places. I inform people there's a big sale or a new upgrade. The extent of my contribution to society is the commercial effectiveness of a campaign, ultimately measured in cash earnings for big companies. So in an era of great wars, famine, poverty, and disease, what is my job really worth?

Well, according to Starck, "Nobody is obliged to be a genius, but everybody is obliged to participate." Medyo bitin (like this post) because, naturally, he doesn't have all the answers, but he can be both profound and entertaining as he walks you through the questions. TED.COM

Glossy

2007-12-01T03:28:00.000+08:00

"Point of Passion," the latest ad campaign out of Condé Nast HQ, has landed. Uber-produced, micro-photoshopped, and terrifyingly glamorous—these images of carefully-crafted repose represent a lifestyle so celebrated and desirable and yet so far removed from much of the world outside the company's core readership. Monique Lhuillier, Philippine fashion's most famous export and "bridal rock star," pimps Elegant Bride.

Some of the other featured celebrities include mini-hottie Christina Ricci for W, Hugh Jackman for Men’s Vogue (not George?), McDreamy Patrick Dempsey for Details, Sheryl Crow for Self, Terrence Howard for GQ, Eva Longoria for Glamour, Vera Wang for Brides, Sharon Stone for Golf (who knew?), the lovely Stanley Tucci for Gourmet, ultimate event planner Colin Cowie for Modern Bride, chameleon Mary-Louise Parker for The New Yorker, young fashionistas and Hollywood royalty Lorraine Nicholson and Zoe Kravitz for Teen Vogue, the immortal Diane Von Furstenberg for Vanity Fair, and supermodel Natalia Vodianova with her baby Viktor for Vogue.

And on the cover of rival Hearst's Esquire, two versions of the layout featuring the magazine's "Performances of the Year"—Denzel Washington for American Gangster, Cate Blanchett for her turn as Bob Dylan in I’m Not There, Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, Robert Downey Jr. from Zodiac, Emile Hirsch for Into The Wild, and Jake Gyllenhaal from Rendition. JUSTJARED.COM

Billion Dollar Baby

2007-11-07T20:43:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, awe, envy, and disgust are joined at the hip. JEZEBEL.COM

Part of Your World

2007-11-03T16:29:00.000+08:00

In the spirit of quirky Halloween costumes and the fairytale desire to be something entirely different from ourselves, even for just one night... ARTS, DESIGN BLOG

Fact or fiction?

2007-11-03T16:22:00.000+08:00

Perhaps because Filipinos were raised on a literary diet of Western clichés and catch phrases, I am all too willing to believe these urban legends in etymology.

In the 1400s there was a law that stated that a man was not allowed to beat his wife with a stick thicker than his thumb—hence the term "rule of thumb."
Golf is an acronym for "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden."
In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured to their bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes, the mattress would tighten, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase "goodnight, sleep tight."
In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. The story is that in old England, when customers would get unruly, the bartender would yell "mind your pints and quarts, and settle down"—which eventually got condensed into the phrase "mind your Ps and Qs."

Scrabble Scramble

2007-11-02T11:50:00.000+08:00

For all the Scrabble freaks back home...

Evangelist : Evil's Agent
Desperation : A Rope Ends It
Mother-in-Law : Woman Hitler
Snooze Alarms : Alas! No more Zs!
A Decimal Point : I'm a Dot in Place
Eleven Plus Two : Twelve Plus One
President Clinton of the USA : To Copulate He Finds Interns

And since we're on the subject of serendipitous structure, one for the Math geeks...

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

Older

2007-09-24T09:38:00.001+08:00

It's the big 33.

By this age, Alexander the Great had conquered most of ancient civilization, Cleopatra had captured—and broken—the hearts of two of history’s greatest men, and Jesus had delivered mankind from sin.

I, on the other hand, having neither ego, nor libido, nor messianic complex of these magnitudes am perfectly happy to mark this potentially auspicious year with a far humbler but certainly more enjoyable showing of success: good food and great friends.

But I cannot resist the temptation to google the date. Chalk it up to a tinge of vanity and a repressed fear of insignificance—almost as if greatness, like birthdays and seminal events, could be shared.

Births
1724 - Sir Arthur Guinness, Irish brewer
1895 - André Frédéric Cournand, French Nobel Laureate
1896 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, American novelist
1900 - Stephen Bechtel, engineer and founder of Bechtel Corp.
1905 - Severo Ochoa, Spanish Nobel Laureate
1936 - Jim Henson, American puppeteer
1948 - Phil Hartman, Canadian actor
1951 - Pedro Almodóvar, Spanish film director
1982 - Morgan and Paul Hamm, American gymnasts

Events
622 - Muhammad completed his hegira from Mecca to Medina
1908 - the first Model T was built
1946 - Cathay Pacific Airways was founded in Hong Kong
1948 - the Honda Motor Company was created in Japan
1957 - US President Eisenhower sent the National Guard into Little Rock to enforce desegregation
1968 - "60 Minutes" premiered on CBS
1991 - Dr. Seuss died at the age of 87
1991 - Nirvana released ''Nevermind''
1994 - Aung San Suu Kyi and other revolutionaries formed the National League for Democracy to fight the military dictatorship of Myanmar

State Your Intentions

2007-09-11T00:32:00.000+08:00

This week's fun photos...

The Wachowskis Reloaded

2007-09-09T13:21:00.000+08:00

My favorite pair of kickass directing brothers is now a kickass directing brother and sister duo. Larry Wachowski has reportedly completed the gender transition to womanhood (noone is quite sure if he went the surgery route), and will now be referred to as Lana Wachowski. I so did not see this coming. Hey, if anything's worth doing a movie about, this would be it. Good luck Lana!

Love in the Time of Cholera

2007-09-06T19:07:00.000+08:00

I was reading this article in Time about the lost art of the movie love story and I just had to stop at this one bit of information—oh my god, Top Gun was 21 freaking years ago!

But more importantly, the article announced the release of Mike Newell's Love in the Time of Cholera this November. Dios mio, buhay pa si Gabo! If he doesn't like it or if it falls short of its ambitious mark, it'll break millions of hearts (mine included) and undoubtedly become one of the most maligned movies of the year.

But the casting is quite intriguing. Javier Bardem (yummy) plays Florentino Ariza, Benjamin Bratt (yummier) portrays Juvenal Urbino, John Leguizamo becomes Lorenzo Daza, Liev Schreiber is Lotario Thurgot, and the relatively less known Giovanna Mezzogiorno plays Fermina. Eeeenteresting. I swear, she looks almost exactly like the Fermina I imagined in my head!

Tramontate, stelle!

2007-09-06T17:42:00.000+08:00

As cinematic titans Antonioni and Bergman convene in the afterlife, the Golden Tenor succumbs to pancreatic cancer. He is shown here at his last performance before being diagnosed—at the closing of the Winter Games in Turin singing Nessun Dorma, which I believe is as much his as it is Puccini's. Farewell Pavarotti!

Sobering

2007-09-06T03:07:00.000+08:00

If you want to ruin the party, these 10 facts are sure to kill the mood.

Half the world—nearly three billion people—live on less than two dollars (PhP95) a day. Although the RP is a bonafide Third World country, the people in this neighborhood spend more on parking.
The GDP of the 48 poorest nations (a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the combined wealth of the world’s 3 richest people. So yes, damn straight, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett SHOULD be giving away some money.
In 2001, the world’s 497 billionaires registered a combined wealth of US$1.54 trillion, a figure well over the combined GNP (US$929.3 billion) of all the nations of sub-Saharan Africa.
The developing world now spends US$13 on debt repayment for every US$1 it receives in grants. In other words—no matter how much the First World says they're trying to help us out, if they don't agree to wipe the slate clean, we're NEVER getting out of debt. And like us, our great-grandchildren will slave away over those interest payments (not even making a dent in the principal) that eat up half our country's annual income.
The poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor received any of the money. So for all those amnesiacs who are once again so fashionably enamored with the Marcos family, just remember that you—and ALL the generations of your family that come after you—are paying for THEIR fabulous lifestyle.
According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die every single day due to poverty. That's almost 11 million children a year. We are losing more children to poverty than any genocidal war the human race has ever waged.
1 billion children currently live in abject poverty. That's 1 of every 2 children in the world.
Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. In this day and age, with all the information technology we have amassed, this level of neglect is unforgivable.
Health care is so decrepit in poor regions that 1.8 million children still die of diarrhea every year.
Annual narcotics spending worldwide is estimated to be at around US$400 billion, alcoholic drinks in Europe at US$105 billion, pet food in the USA and Europe at US$17 billion, and ice cream in Europe at US$11 billion. However, providing basic education for the entire world would require only US$6 billion, building water and sanitation facilities for every country would take US$9 billion, and funding basic health and nutrition for all mankind would cost a comparatively small US$13 billion. As a race, humanity has no sense of priorities.

READ MORE INFORMATION. MAKE POVERTY HISTORY.

Now that'll get their attention...

2007-08-27T17:23:00.000+08:00

I've always been proud that the Philippines has some of the most developed protest organizations in the world. But I've got to give it to these Palestinian women—they KNOW how to prove a point. So, does anyone still feel like debating about those head scarves?

Brain Binge: Name Games

2007-08-25T09:18:00.000+08:00

IT'S HOW YOU USE IT
HRHs aren't the only people who get saddled with long names—the king of Cubism's full name is Pablo Diego Jose Santiago Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Crispin Crispiniano de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso.

Although the norm is to want to shorten our names to nicknames (and for those oh-so-imporant people, just initials), a certain David Fearn of the UK has legally changed his name to include all 21 official James Bond movie titles. His new 69-word name is James Dr No From Russia With Love Goldfinger Thunderball You Only Live Twice On Her Majesty's Secret Service Diamonds Are Forever Live And Let Die The Man With The Golden Gun The Spy Who Loved Me Moonraker For Your Eyes Only Octopussy A View To A Kill The Living Daylights License To Kill Golden Eye Tomorrow Never Dies The World Is Not Enough Die Another Day Casino Royale Bond. Assuming that he continues to change his name to reflect future 007 releases, it is possible that the 23-year-old's name will double in length by the time he dies.

And since we're on the subject, I read that the the longest given name in the US belongs to a German immigrant who now lives in Pennsylvania. His original birthname's acronym completes the modern English alphabet—Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvim John Kenneth Loyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor Willian Xerxes Yancy Zeus.

As for the longest last name? It belongs to Hubert Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffvoralternwarenge
wissenhaftschaferswesenchafewarenwholgepflegeundsorg
faltigkeitbeschutzenvonangereifenduchihrraubgiriigfeinde
welchevorralternzwolftausendjahresvorandieerscheinenban
derersteerdeemmeshedrraumschiffgebrauchlichtalsseinur
sprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefahrthinzwischensternar
tigraumaufdersuchenachdiesternwelshegehabtbewohnbar
planetenkreisedrehensichundwohinderneurassevanverstan
digmenshlichkeittkonntevortpflanzenundsicherfreunanleben
slamdlichfreudeundruhemitnichteinfurchtvorangreifenvonan
dererintlligentgeschopfsvonhinzwischensternartigraum, Sr. People refer to him simply as Hubert Wolfe, although he uses Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff, Sr. for official documents.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME
So it turns out I was named after Phylis Lee Isley—better known as Jennifer Jones to my impressionable mother. Some other interesting name changes...
Natalie Hershlag | Natalie Portman
Jennifer Linn Anastassakis | Jennifer Aniston
Demetria Gene Guynes | Demi Moore
Edna Rae Gillooly | Ellen Burstyn
Ashley Tyler Ciminella | Ashley Judd
Winona Laura Horowitz | Winona Ryder
Caryn Elaine Johnson | Whoopi Goldberg
Jo Raquel Tejada | Raquel Welch
Margaret Mary Emily Ann Hyra | Meg Ryan
Sofia Villani Scicolone | Sophia Loren
Love Michelle Harrison | Courtney Love
Roberta Joan Anderson | Joni Mitchell
Eunice Kathleen Waymon | Nina Simone
Eileen Regina Edwards | Shania Twain
Eleanor Nancy Gow | Elle Macpherson
Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum | Ayn Rand
Dean George Tanaka | Dean Cain
Carlos Ray | Chuck Norris
Charles Buchinsky | Charles Bronson
Krishna Bhanji | Ben Kingsley
Archibald Alexander Leach | Cary Grant
Bryan Ray Trout | Skeet Ulrich
Nicholas Kim Coppola | Nicolas Cage
Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz | Jon Stewart
Eric Marlon Bishop | Jamie Foxx
Clayton Holmes Grissom | Clay Aiken
Reginald Kenneth Dwight | Elton John
Michael Bolotin | Michael Bolton
Declan MacManus | Elvis Costello
Farrokh Bulsara | Freddie Mercury
Paul Hewson | Bono
David Evans | The Edge
Gordon Mattew Sumner | Sting
Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. | John Denver
Arnold Dorsey | Engelbert Humperdinck
Dino Crocetti | Dean Martin
Truman Streckfus Persons | Truman Capote
Henri Donat Mathieu | Yves St. Laurent
Kemal Amin Kasem | Casey Kasem
Adam Spiegel | Spike Jonze
Leslie Lynch King, Jr. | Gerald Ford
Eric Blair | George Orwell
David John Moore Cornwell | John le Carre
Gianfranco Corsi | Franco Zeffirelli

ZEN AND THE ART OF NAMING BANDS
From monarchs to movie characters, nothing is safe from the clutches of a garage band in need of a name.
10,000 Maniacs: From the 1964 low-budget horror movie Two Thousand Maniacs.
ABBA: The initials of the first names of the band members: Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
Beastie Boys: BEASTIE stands for Boys Entering Anarchistic States Towards Internal Excellence.
Black Sabbath: From the 1963 Boris Karloff horror film.
Cocteau Twins: Named after a very early Simple Minds song, which was then re-recorded as "No Cure."
Coldplay: Originally called Starfish, they took their name from an older band named Coldplay that had broken up. That original Coldplay took their name from Child's Reflections, Cold Play by Philip Horky.
Collective Soul: In the The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
Counting Crows: After an English rhyme, "...if you hang on to the flimsiness of anything, you might as well be standing there, counting crows..."
Crowded House: Inspired by the cramped Hollywood quarters where the band spent 1985 rehearsing their debut album.
The Cure: Originally called Easy Cure, the band felt there was too much negativity in the punk scene and wanted an optimistic sounding name.
Daft Punk: From a music review that described one of the group's early records as "a bunch of daft punk."
Death Cab for Cutie: From a satirical song performed by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band on their album "Gorilla."
Depeche Mode: Inspired by a French fashion magazine of the same name, it translates to English as "Fashion Update" or "Fashion News Dispatch."
The Doors: From a book about mescaline called The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley, which in turn took its name from William Blake—"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is: Infinite."
Duran Duran: From Dr. Durand-Durand in Barbarella.
Everything But The Girl: The slogan of a now-demolished furniture shop (all items, except the sales girl, were available for purchase).
Foo Fighters: The World War II Allied pilots' nickname for UFOs.
Franz Ferdinand: From the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Fugazi: After the G.I. acronym Fucked Up, Got Ambushed, Zipped In.
Green Day: A phrase used to describe an entire day spent smoking weed.
Guns N' Roses: From the names of the two bands that came together to form Guns N' Roses—Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns. Also from the surnames of founding members Tracii Guns and Axl Rose.
Gym Class Heroes: Travis McCoy was constantly protecting Matt McGinley from bullies in highschool gym class so he literally was Matt's "gym class hero."
Iron Maiden: Named after the torture device (but was once thought to be a reference to PM Margaret Thatcher).
Jimmy Eat World: From the crayon drawings of guitarist Tom Linton's brother Ed, who used to draw their other brother Jimmy shoving the entire world into his mouth with the caption that eventually became the band's name.
Joy Division: A reference to the brothels in World War II Nazi concentration camps.
Judas Priest: From "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" by Bob Dylan.
Keane: After Cherry Keane, the kind and supportive neighbor who took care of pianist Tim Rice-Oxley and lead vocalist Tom Chaplin when they were young.
The Killers: From the fictional band featured in the music video for "Crystal" by New Order.
KISS: Was thought to be an acronym for Knights In Satan's Service, although this has been denied by the band who insist it's just a toned-down version of another amorous four-letter word originally proposed by guitarist Ace Frehley.
Linkin Park: Chester Bennington suggested the name "Lincoln Park" (now Christine Reed Park), but when the band tried to buy the domain name, they found it was already taken. So they changed "Lincoln" to "Linkin" and bought "linkinpark.com" instead.
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Named after Leonard Skinner, the annoying gym coach some of the band members had in high school who supposedly had them expelled for having long hair.
Megadeth: Taken from an American Military term to represent one million deaths.
Metallica: Fanzine editor Ron Quintana approached drummer Lars Ulrich to solicit his opinion of a list of possible magazine titles. On the list was the name Metallica. Ulrich recommended Metal Mania and kept the name Metallica for himself.
My Chemical Romance: The band's bassist Mikey Way was working in a bookstore when he encountered Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance.
New Order: Found by the late Rob Gretton (the band's manager) in an article of The Guardian entitled "The People's New Order of Kampuchea."
Nine Inch Nails: Denying that the name has any literal or figurative meaning, Trent Reznor said that they chose this name because it withstood the "two-week test, looked great in print, and could be abbreviated easily."
Oasis: Named after the leisure centre in Swindon (UK).
Panic! at the Disco: From lyrics in the song "Panic" by Name Taken.
Pearl Jam: After basketball player Mookie Blaylock objected to the band using his name as their band name, the group settled on another basketball reference—Pearl Washington "jamming" [dunking] the ball.
Radiohead: From the Talking Heads song "Radio Head." The band originally used the name On A Friday, referring to the only time where all band members were able to practice.
Savage Garden: From a popular passage in The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice.
Scissor Sisters: Named after a lesbian sex position.
Silverchair: While writing down songs to be requested on a radio show—one being 'Sliver' by Nirvana and the other being 'Berlin Chair' by You Am I—guitarist Chris Joannou accidentally scribbled "Silverchair."
Spandau Ballet: After a visit to Spandau in Berlin, the band adapted the name from some of the graffiti their roadies saw on the walls. It referrs to the spasms of the Nazi war criminals when they were hanged at Spandau Prison.
Steely Dan: Named after a dildo in the novel Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs.
UB40: From the UK Social Security form for unemployment benefits.
Ugly Kid Joe: In response to Pretty Boy Floyd. Ugly Kid Joe was an anti-thesis of hair metal.
Velvet Revolver: Scott Weiland wanted the band to be called Velvet while Slash wanted Revolver. They compromised.
Velvet Underground: Named after a book about sadomasochism by Michael Leigh.
Wang Chung: Anglicized form of their original name Huang Chung, which means "perfect pitch" in Chinese.
The White Stripes: Inspired by the stripe design of peppermint candy, which symbolizes childhood and innocence to Jack and Meg White.

Quentin Tarantino in Manila...

2007-08-12T11:18:00.000+08:00

Professing his love for Philippine cinema and his collection of Cirio H. Santiago movies. Apart from his appearances at the big Cinemanila events, he also hosted a directing workshop at Gateway—which is where you would've seen the hippest, oh-but-I'm-an-artiste director types turn into sweaty, nervous fanboys.

Brain Binge: Critters

2007-08-12T10:54:00.001+08:00

Creepy or Cute?
There are little aliens among us! And they look a lot like characters from Star Wars.

Tiny Bubbles
Scientists in Scotland have discovered, quite by accident, that fish (herring in particular) fart. To make it sound more official, they've created the acronym FAst Repetitive Tick to refer to this oh-so-natural phenomenon.

We've Got Wood
In other parts of the world, a tropical type of parasite-transmitting water snail has been found to get a hard-on when given Prozac. Yes, these hermaphroditic creatures spout a big, fat horn—making them temporarily male—when loaded up with the happy drug. However, these horns are impotent and totally useless for reproduction. Which is why scientists are trying to find a way to make the condition permanent.

From the Yumyum Tree
Several biologists are trying to persuade the Western world to eat more protein-rich insects instead of meat in order to save the planet. Because it takes an incredible amount of food, water, and land to raise livestock, they believe that consuming much smaller fare is not only healthier, it is also the environmentally correct thing to do. Besides, it is estimated that the average human already eats—unintentionally—up to one pound of insects every year. According to the US FDA, certain levels of insect material in food are permissible because they are harmless. For example, the National Geographic reports that chocolate can have up to 60 insect fragments per 100 grams, tomato sauce can contain 30 fly eggs per 100 grams, and peanut butter can have 30 insect fragments per 100 grams.

Sometimes...

2007-08-10T11:01:00.000+08:00

All the words in the world are useless.

The Native is Restless

2007-08-05T19:16:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, I just want to GO. The Amalfi coast, the Serengeti, the ancient Pyramids, Machu Picchu, Santorini, the Great Barrier Reef, Neuschwanstein, Alhambra ... But when? Or more importantly, how? Mula must first reach critical mass. Especially since I'm really too old (and far too paranoid) to backpack my way across anywhere. Well, Boracay (to see Maite, finally) and Batanes (but after the rains) will have to suffice for this year. Besides, I've got to do something about this domestic travel C grade from Lakbayan (c/o Leoy 's blog).

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan! Created by Eugene Villar.

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Stumbled Upon

2007-08-02T21:52:00.000+08:00

I am totally amused with this Stumble Upon button (even more than I am with the entire range of CPDRC inmate videos brought about by the now infamous Thriller). I hope Stumble Upon never gets old or stale, or worse, over-run by commercial crap.

1. Tiny Grow
It took my TV-trashed brain a while to grasp the concept, but it's an oddly addictive exercise in ecology.

2. Orisinal
Sometimes, even WoW can get tiresome. Inhabited by cute little anime-ish creatures, Ferry Halim's games are campy, GP-rated fun. I'm currently hooked on Winterbells and Hydrophobia.

3. Landscapes With a Soul
Yeah, I know great landscape photos have become somewhat common, but this collection is always fresh and really quite beautiful.

4. Speed Test
For the net geek/speed freak obsessed with the size of his bandwidth.

5. Free Hugs Campaign
"Sometimes, a hug is all what we need." I agree! And Oprah does too.

6. Wikisky
Stargazing for the new millennium. Unless you have direct access to Hubble, this is pretty good too.

7. Sketch Swap
"Draw 1 to get 1." It's a creative way to lose a few minutes. But I suspect that one day, all our sketches are going to end up in a book and we won't have any claim to the royalties.

8. Images That Changed the World
A photo blog post (by Pinguy) that tells the story of the previous century.

9. Flowers
Make your own flowers to grow in a virtual freeform garden.

10. Lost America
Finding beauty in abandonment and waste.

11. Frogview
I hate forwards, but this curio site created specifically for compiling cool things to email has some really good stuff.

12. Don't Click It
It appears that the idea of the mouse click is outdated in comparison to most other areas of computing technology. This cool site shows you a new way of navigating purely through movement.

13. Tastespotting
No long-winded reviews or high-handed lessons in gastronomy, just picture upon picture of good food and drink.

Who are the people in my neighborhood?

2007-08-02T20:55:00.004+08:00

The thirties bring about a lot of things, but this nostalgia really is the most time-consuming—I feel the need to blog sentimental about the most mundane things! Ok, so I've lived in this building for over ten years. And now I work out of it too. I've lived in a two-bedroom, a one-bedroom, and a studio unit, on every residential floor. As is to be expected over a decade, my neighbors have changed even more than my taste in interior decor.

Back in the early 90s, I was the youngest person here. A teenaged girl living alone in a condo was something of a novelty back then (ok, so I had a driver for a year and a maid for two, but after that I was on my own). My neighbors were mostly newly-wed/soon-to-be-wed couples starting out, young parents and their impossibly cute toddlers with names like Jared and Taryn, a few models and minor celebrities, and several thirtysomething bachelors and bachelorettes (I'm not going to call them spinsters or old maids).

The engaged couples have since gotten married/broken up (so far, it's around 50-50) and moved on. Most of the newlyweds and young parents have moved out to houses to make space for their kids. The models and minor celebrities have gotten younger and better-looking, but I no longer know their names or who they are in the social hierarchy. The thirty/fortysomething singles are still around, and apparently, I've become one of them.

Back then, I was the person having all the crazy loud parties/sleepovers/video shoots (for school) that had the security staff on perennial phone duty with the neighbors. These days, I haven't yet resorted to calling down to the front desk, but I've actually thought about it. Lehewzer!

But the biggest change in the neighborhood is the sharp drop in the average age of its residents. A growing number of flats around here are getting rented out to large groups of call center kids who work in the area—there's only one person on the lease, but fifteen kids secretly chip in for the rent. And since they work for outsource companies that shadow US time zones, they tend to party at the oddest hours of the day. Ever seen a tequila-blind couple groping in a humid sunlit hallway at noon? Not pretty. You can actually SMELL the impending vomit.

But then again, I really shouldn't get scandalized by the kids. Even if we were to ignore my contributions, this building's seen more than its share of scandal and impropriety. Like how we had that one formerly famous singer (may he rest in peace) who used to bring in a different prostitute (or two!) on the back of his bike every night whenever his girlfriends (I think there were three on rotation) weren't around. On more than one occassion, one girlfriend would show up banging on the door, screaming bloody murder while he was locked in the condo with someone else.

And then there was that one couple who liked to swing. Even before the group thing became a popular weekend activity (it started to peak in Manila at the end of the e thing), this couple liked to mix it up with all manner of playmates in the bedroom (and the fire exit, and the basement parking lot, and even the maintenance stairwell). About two years ago, I heard a story about the guy getting pinched because he'd been redistributing some, um, pharmaceuticals. I don't know if that's true, but they moved out soon after (and I was told that some of the "toys" the maintenance guys helped move out of the unit were downright profane).

Then I remember the sad mother and baby daughter who used to live across the hallway from me on the 6th floor. One or two nights a week, her "sponsor" (an old rich guy from a wealthy Chinese family) would come over to sleep in the condo. Since he couldn't stand the baby crying and he no longer found his mistress sexually attractive post-birth, he would physically force them out of the condo so he could sleep. After several nights of waking up at 4 am to the sound of the baby's wails echoing in the hallway and her knocking on their door begging, I opened my door and asked her if she wanted to come in. This ended up becoming a monthly ritual for us (providential that I had insomnia back then). But one day, she decided to get a new doorbell installed (he dismantled the old one) with the notion that it would be harder for him to ignore her if she had a buzzer on her side. Not a week later, they were all gone.

Most recently, we had that one condo overflowing with girls from different Latin American countries. They tried to pass themselves off to the association as cousins from Venezuela but they all had different Spanish accents. The story is that some guy stormed their flat and made a big scene about how their so-called family was a fraud and that he'd almost gotten conned into marrying one of the girls. Her cover was that she'd originally visited here as one of those fly-in models (who are all over the ad industry these days) but she had decided to stay to study English. The guy was so smitten that he didn't notice until much later that (a) she lived with a lot of "cousins" and an old "aunt" who barely knew her, (b) he never saw any of her TVCs or print ads, and (c) she never went to school. According to the broker who did some investigating, the girls—armed with the knowledge that most Filipino men are suckers for mestizas—had been set up in Manila (under the supervision of a madame-like figure) for the sole purpose of "finding rich boyfriends." Hmmm. But isn't that what so many of the other hot, young girls in this city are trying to do? And who the hell did the "set up?" But apparently, there's more to the story—hushed rumours about money changing hands—so the whole lot of them eventually got kicked out last year.

I could go on and on. And on. But I won't. At least not right now and not about the people who still live here. Chalk it up to a warped sense of belonging, because if this is my hood, then I guess these are my peeps. Perhaps it is because these old condo buildings are such a nurturing environment for clandestine indiscretion and furtive anarchy that I've always felt right at home.

Rrrrubbish!

2007-08-02T20:17:00.001+08:00

Something I picked up from The Fashion Police: If you're one of those trend slaves who rushed out to buy Anya Hindmarsh's 'I'm Not a Plastic Bag,' here's one better for you—the Rubbish Bag. Proudly Philippine-made and currently available as a limited edition item at Dorothy Perkins. A local co-op of 200 women make these ethnic bamboo weave-inspired bags and purses from thousands of non-biodegradable juice packs that would otherwise end up at the bottom of Manila Bay. They sell for between £6 to £18, which is about P550 to P1660 per bag. Aba, sosyal ang bayong ng lola mo!

The Proof is in the Pudding

2007-08-01T23:08:00.000+08:00

I can almost imagine the highschool-movie situation in which this little nugget of boyhood (geekdom?) angst was written.

ASCII-O-Matic

2007-07-26T23:58:00.000+08:00

We are what we type.

Insidious

2007-07-26T23:02:00.000+08:00

Of all the horrible feelings in the world, guilt is the worst. And having been born Catholic, it seems that I'm doomed to carry around twice as much of it as the average person. Maybe it's hormonal, or maybe it's because of the rain, but all I know is that today is Guilt Day.

Guilt because I still haven't found the time to go see Maite in Bora (whereas, as she has very clearly pointed out, other people have gone to see her twice). Guilt because I missed a crucial Monday (food poisoning is the devil's own creation), which may have indirectly cost someone a bit of business. Guilt because I consumed at least one too many items for lunch today (count: burger, fries, nuggets, sundae, apple, soda). Guilt because I'm blogging instead of working out. Guilt because I owe three people belated birthday presents. Guilt because I still haven't approved someone's year-old Add Friend request. Guilt because I'm sitting here feeling entitled to a night off after three days of 30-minute cat naps sandwiched between 18-hour marathons of creative problem-solving for a fallen superhero, a plasma-colored dessert bar, and an awareness campaign for a product with no name.

TED Rocks

2007-07-21T01:12:00.000+08:00

Despite the fact that I absolutely refuse to take part in touristy I-was-there photos (shot list: you standing to the left of the statue, you and your cousin standing to the right of the statue, you trying to pull your cousin's kid of the statue's leg), I knew that one day, all those amateur snapshots taken by the world's bermuda shorts-clad tourists would be worth something.

Approaching beta testing phase, Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth is going to change the way we view, organize, and archive images. Initially delivered in a tiny 5.5 MB package, its file manipulation capabilities and movement-based intuitive interface (think Google Street View, but for/from your own personal images) place our most sophisticated file browsers back in the Jurassic. However, even as its technological, entertainment, and design repercussions are consequential, it is its underlying sense of community and contribution that have even the snootiest technophiles waxing warm and fuzzy.

Can’t imagine what the hell I’m talking about? Click on the TED video above (if it won't load, click here). Or, if you're the self-starting sort, go straight ahead and download the Photosynth Active X tech preview here.

Illustration Friday: Camouflage

2007-06-24T03:23:00.000+08:00

I've always suspected that the very first ancient constellations were created by either desperate boredom or botanically-enhanced imagination. In our need to connect the dots—to create order from chaos—we find structure and pattern everywhere, camouflaged in randomness. MORE IMAGES OF CAMOUFLAGE AT ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY

Six Weird Things About Mememe

2007-06-14T23:31:00.002+08:00

So I was tagged. By Maite. I really miss Maite. I am now officially one person away from being socially orphaned and without anyone to watch a movie with. That sounds a lot more pathetic than it really is, but it's true. Anyhow, so it's Weird we're talking about eh? Six you say? ONLY six?!? Geads, where do I begin?

1—I often wonder what Gil Grissom would write in his case file about me if I disappeared and he had to process my place. Even in the face of possible death by murder or mayhem, the superficial part of my brain cannot help but wonder what other people think of me.
2—When it comes to almost all things emotional, I am mortally lazy. Beyond sloth. I can't stay mad, sad—or happy for that matter—for long periods of time because it just takes way too much energy to maintain certain kinds of intense emotion.
3—I take notoriously long showers because my best ideas come to me under a deluge of steaming hot water. And I've been known to run out in the middle of a bath just to write one of those ideas down before it's forgotten. Which might actually be a somewhat titillating thought for some people if I didn't weigh twice as much as a baby manatee.
4—I have an overactive and thoroughly mismanaged imagination. Something as simple as a news story on TV can get me started on imagining the entire lives of real or fictitious characters—right down to the shoes in their closet. I have, on at least two occasions, caught myself tearing up over the entirely imagined heartbreak of a character in my head. Okay, that reads a lot weirder than I thought it would.
5—One of my great joys in life is receiving packages from the States, which is not really weird at all except that a great deal of this happiness stems from that wonderful fresh/clean/fruity/new scent that emanates from inside the box. When I'm at the bookstore, I sometimes buy something from the 3M aisle simply because something in their products or their packaging gives off that same delicious smell.
6—I have a mutant moron gene that manifests in the simplest but most unexpected ways. Example: So I was with Maite in front of Bodhi in Greenhills (this was obviously back when she was a vegetarian). She looked up and said what I thought was, "Oh look, they have The Lord's Toes here." And I, being truly clueless in the tradition of Alicia Silverstone's Cher, replied "Ok, so I know there's the whole thing with the 'body of Christ,' but HIS TOES?!?" Maite pointed up at the sign: LORD STOW'S. Hee. Dumb da dumb dumb.

I tag anyone who's still reading this. I'd tag my beloved lurkers by name but I suspect that, true to form, I am one of the last few dozen bloggers left in the world to do this meme.

Distraction

2007-06-13T00:54:00.000+08:00

Ok, medyo hindi siya elegante, but here's my chewtoy for the day: Because we have now proven that I am a prime case study for adult-onset ADD, I've come to agree with the people who think that the thing you want most in life must make you suffer periodically (blood, bile, tears, the whole deal) if only to test and reaffirm your commitment to loving it.

Bawk Bawk Boom

2007-05-10T08:08:00.000+08:00

If it is true that humanity prospers on the denial of its instincts, then I, in theory, should be the most prosperous woman this side of the globe. It's become all about self-preservation, quashing nerve-endings to avoid feeling pain and excising vital memories to deaden cravings. I'm just not sure which label I'd wear more comfortably—zombie or coward? Oi. This is way too much drama at eight in the morning.

Sentimiento de Potpot

2007-04-25T07:27:00.001+08:00

Burning the proverbial midnight oil in the dimness of my mum's living room in Baguio, I am a little surprised to see the horizon pushing up a warm band of tangerine at half past four in the morning. So the long days of summer have begun. And although I'm ensconced in the so-called city of eternal spring/summer capital of the country/famous former hill station of Southeast Asia, I'm really feeling the heat. Manila's averaging a daily high of around 33–35°C, but Baguio's not so far behind with 27–29°C. And it's starting to get HUMID. I suppose it's a sign of the times when you start celebrating Earth Day in Baguio with a sweat-stained tank top and a portable mini-fan.

Flashback to the year 2001: living in this hometown hybrid Peyton's Place (that's what my mum calls it) again, running the newspaper under a lot of stress and some misplaced expectations, constantly bickering with my boss-mother, clumsily recovering from a hundred heartaches. This spectacular view of the sunrise would've been insufficiently enjoyed from the driver's seat of my abused Corolla, ten drinks past sobriety, heading home with some ridiculous techno track scoring the anti-climax of another crazy night. But I swear I felt I was having fun.

Present day and I'm sitting kuba in front of my 300-themed desktop, slugging out the definition of a "working vacation." Stealing glimpses at the Creation scene unfolding outside, annoyed that the moment's being ruined by a fear of the sticky white hot that's climbing up over those mountains in a few hours (there aren't any airconditioning systems in this city of denial). And I'm doing it again—I've developed this absolutely detestable, self-help Dr. Phil bullshit habit of asking myself every few weeks if I'm really happy (as opposed to just BEING happy right?).

Well, I think I am. I know I am. Does having a plan that actually works equate to true happiness? Sorry, that may seem like Life 101 to most normal, upwardly-mobile people, but former Miss Spontaneity here has never really applied the concept of a five-year-plan to her actual life before.

The imaginary checklist looks good: (1) I'm clean and sober and thinking straight (although I honestly never thought I was AA material, apparently I had friends who thought otherwise). (2) I'm finally in a good place between being happy with what I have and wanting more (hey, we all read it: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's heaven for?"). (3) The decision to start from scratch and freelance is really starting to pay off (and generally, I really like my clients).

It's just that I'm so damn TIRED. Happy but tired. Fat but happy. Comfortable but fat. Boring but comfortable. Sane but boring. Detached but sane. Ok, tama na, I just love talking about myself no? Apparently, beautiful sunrises have the ability to reduce me to a blubbery mess of disjointed run-on sentences.

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Things I Wish I'd Said

2007-04-12T23:53:00.000+08:00

In the spirit of catharsis and wasted chances...
1. There are few things worse than an uninspired lay, and that's exactly what you are.
2. Your insistence on comparing yourself to famous actors draws more attention to the fact that you're so ugly you're fugly.
3. He's just not into you. And he never will be.
4. You're a dirty little delusional man and if you so much as lay one lecherous finger on me, I will cut it off.
5. JACKASS!!!
6. You are in real danger of becoming as narrow-minded as the people you once rebelled against.
7. She's marrying you for the money.
8. I'm sorry.
9. I'm not sorry. And yes, I'd do it again.
10. Almost everything in life has a solution. If you're ugly, there's surgery. If you're ignorant, there's research. If you're poor, there's work. If you're fat, there's exercise. But if you're stupid, you're stupid FOREVER.
11. You're so beautiful but you're so fucked up.
12. No.
13. I faked it. Every. Single. Time.

Someone Called It Samsara (Or, Random Ramblings of the Alliteration Addict)

2007-04-03T08:02:00.001+08:00

It has begun! For the last three years, I've gone through the same process. Summer brings about an onset of girliness that usually involves flowers, fruity pastels, and an unnatural fondness for all things cute (buyer's remorse is a bitch). Then the monsoon rains hit and next thing you know I'm firmly lodged in a manic quasi-nesting phase that has me painting entire rooms in less than twelve hours and buying up back issues of Elle Decor and Architectural Digest. Then finally, with the cooler "ber" months comes an overwhelming desire to share—a strange phase which in mild form entails obsessive Christmas gift planning and in more extreme measure necessitates some form of affirmative action just because something on the news or on Oprah made me cry. Which brings me around to the non-months of January to March, recovery days in which I spend all my waking hours (yeah, all 23 of them) doggedly trying to catch up with the workload overspill from the previous year’s fourth quarter.

Is this supposed to be some part of the internal workings of my so-called biological clock? Because I really think I’ve pretty much screwed that up. I’m 32 years old and I have absolutely no desire to get married, have children, or, as they say, “settle down.” I vaguely remember having those thoughts when I was 22 and then again when I was 28, so perhaps it’s a 6-year cycle for me and I’m not due for serious commitment cravings until I’m 34.

Regardless of my personal non-issues, I feel change in the air this year. I know I said that last year too, but this year it appears to be inevitable. My best friend Maite has moved to Boracay to play sunkissed island goddess but is running into a few real-world problems (like missing friends, movie theaters, and Krispy Kreme). Veronica, happily adjusted to life in the Netherlands and being surrounded by the somewhat jarring language that is Dutch, is actually contemplating the possibility of children with Maurits (it seems that the Catholic vs. atheist issue may end in compromise). Marc now has Zoe and has turned from international career girl (she once told a guy in a bar here that she was a stripper in Nigeria) to ideal mom and wife, having made the happy move from Lagos to Brisbane for Christian’s new posting. Pam is taking the big leap and leaving her big bucks job to work (at a 70% pay cut) at a food magazine so that she can make time for her true career passion—chocolate. Irene and Allan are stepping up their plans for the studio in a very big way (the vagueness makes me sound like I signed a confidentiality clause no?). And even Gio, counter-culture extremist and bohemian extraordinaire, is getting married for crying out loud.

People are making bigger, braver decisions. Although I suppose the early to mid-thirties are really the best time for that kind of thing, I find that I can barely make up my mind between a Mocha and a Green Tea Frappuccino, much less choose between more significant things like a new car + new flat or a Master’s degree. So perhaps in a bid for a more realistic evaluation of the decisions I need and/or want to make this year, I have come up with two task categories. (I do love these lists, don’t I? Even if they’re not particularly clear—or coherent for that matter—they are, as the shrinks say, an attempt at establishing control in the midst of disarray. Kinda like how Amy’s blog is all about “organized chaos in action.”)

Things I Want to Do This Year But Will Most Probably Not
1. Sign up for a stunt driving course
2. Take a flower arranging class
3. Conquer my fear of heights by doing something extreme, like hand-gliding or skydiving
4. Find a Cavalier King Charles puppy to take care of
5. Lose 40 lbs.

Things I Will Do This Year Even If It Kills Me
1. Paint, sculpt, and just generally get my fingers dirty again
2. Get my portfolio assessed by graduate schools
3. Visit Maite in Boracay at least twice before my birthday
4. See more of my own country, starting with far-flung places like Batanes and Siargao
5. Lose 20 lbs.!!!

The Update Long Overdue

2007-01-31T15:19:00.000+08:00

If there is still any doubt as to my current state of mind/being, I am:
1) Severely overworked
2) Still somewhat underpaid
3) Overfed (apple diet notwithstanding)
4) Underslept (is this even a word?)
5) But still undeniably happy.
Hey, far more bizarre things have happened in the world...such as the emergence in shallow water of this deep-sea "frilled shark" that I swear someone could have pulled from one of my nicotine patch-era dreams.

Illustration Friday: Peace

2006-12-27T05:07:00.000+08:00

And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.
—D.H. Lawrence

Illustration Friday: Help

2006-12-17T00:18:00.000+08:00

Although I've always thought the American practice of printing photos of missing children on milk cartons to be rather peculiar—desperate pleas for help to go with your bowl of breakfast cereal—apparently, it's quite effective since over 1,400 missing children have been found as a result of this campaign. For more images of Help, visit Illustration Friday.

Illustration Friday: Mask

2006-12-10T03:08:00.000+08:00

Obviously inspired by Robert Frost's Fire and Ice, I made this back when I was learning to work with layers in Photoshop (you may be familiar with the exercise). The red face is a hockey mask and the white is a faceform. As art begets art, I believe that poetry inspires some of the best work. See other interpretations of this week's topic "Mask" at Illustration Friday.

Asian Heroes

2006-11-19T23:31:00.000+08:00

Time Asia celebrated its anniversary last week by honoring 60 Years of Asian Heroes. I am so very proud to see that three Filipina women—Cory Aquino (cover), Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc, and Eggie Apostol are among the honorees, and that their profiles were written by another Filipina, Sheila Coronel (of PCIJ, now the Director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia).

Although it is true that many Filipina women continue to be objectified, exploited, and marginalized, I believe that everyday, Filipina women defy their environment and their society to be among the most empowered women in the world.

The lone Filipino male who made the list was Efren “Bata” Reyes, king of billiards and possibly the humblest man in Philippine sports.

Other profiles I found interesting were that of Farrokh Bulsara, known to us as Freddie Mercury, who apparently was born to Parsi (Zoroastrian) Indian parents on the island of Zanzibar; Aung San, Burmese revolutionary and father of Aung San Suu Kyi; Ahmad Shah Massoud, the charismatic Lion of Panjshir, whose assassination was the opening act for 9/11; and Meena who, at the age of 20, established the Revolutionary Association for the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) in 1977.

Illustration Friday: Clear

2006-11-14T02:51:00.000+08:00

I realize this is rather literal, but many a successful quest for clarity has begun in the most common and obvious places. (Translation: it's been quite a while since I made this image and now I've finally found something for which it can be used, woohoo!) See other interpretations of Clear at Illustration Friday.

Auto Cad

2006-10-26T18:48:00.000+08:00

I love luxury car ads (thanks for the email Maits). They're so...smug.

Evolution

2006-10-21T02:55:00.000+08:00

I first saw this Dove Evolution commercial on Ellen. As a designer who does this kind of thing for a living (and who is guilty of doing it to her own vain self every so often), I cannot help but feel somewhat accountable. I've always thought that a bit of a touch-up just makes you look like you would on a really good day (sans dark circles, extra lift in your hair, zero nicotine stains). However, when I think about all the industrial-strength cropping, filtering, and resizing that we do for clients (I have been told that I have a future as a cosmetic surgeon), I am perturbed by the realization that I am an integral part of this system that propagates unrealistic and, in the long run, detrimental images of women. But how do I tell a client, "no, I will not trim another inch off her nostrils" or "no, I cannot lift her boobs any further or they're going to run into her eyebrows" without getting fired?

Home

2006-10-06T18:27:00.000+08:00

BAGUIO

They may have been 4-inch caramel stilettos rather than a pair of ruby red slippers, but they worked just as well: There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home.

DRAWN

After my hard drive got nuked, the recovery system used to piece the data back together spread the files around like a mad centrifuge. Don’t get me wrong, I am beyond grateful that almost all of the data is still there, but it’s crazy how I’m still finding bits and pieces of unexpected files all over the place.

Today, I found a whole bunch of these graphic files in a client’s folder. They’re some old drawings I did, circa 1999 to 2001. Whenever I’d find myself in front of the PC with nothing else to do I’d start doodling, usually on PC Paintbrush (which was a simple but really good program that, unfortunately, didn’t survive competition with the likes of Adobe). And then I’d print out my latest doodle and post it on a designated wall in my house—a habit I carried with me when I went back to Baguio to run the newspapers. As you can imagine, this practice resulted in some rather surreal wallpaper. And it certainly didn’t help that I gave the drawings self-important titles like “The Anatomy of Pain” and “Hell Hath No Fury.” Ahahahahahahaha.

When I look at them now, they’re quite raw and by most standards, probably not very good, but they are a reminder of a time when I had a desire to create for the sake of creating. And with all the madness in my life back then (cue the violins), they are a reflection of the good, the bad, and the ugly of a time that I thought I’d rather forget but for which I now only feel a twinge of nostalgia.

I figure I might as well post them now before they become totally obsolete and unusable, especially with their ridiculously low resolution (I don’t think 300 dpi was considered standard back then). Converted, most of them equate to a little more than 2 in. tall @ 300 dpi—they’re thumbnails!

RAINY DAYS AND MONDAYS

The whole birthday dinner thing at Je Suis Gourmand, despite the traffic caused by that whirlwind downpour, turned out to be so much fun. And wholesome too, hehehe. Thanks to Maite, Irene, Allan, Marex, Pam, Tracy, and Joel for showing up and seamlessly glossing over the fact that my outfit may have been least one size too small for me, ahahaha. And an entire sentence must be devoted to the undeniable star of the night--the foie gras. It was, as Irene likes to say, BEEEYOOTIFUL!!!

Marathon Me-Me

2006-10-01T04:35:00.002+08:00

AGE AINT NUTHIN BUT A NUMBER

So now I’m 32 (a Macondo-esque typhoon, two canceled reservations, and an overly tight pair of jeans later, I'm really starting to feel it too). Where the bloody hell did the last year go?!? Did I lose all the significant moments between deadlines? (Insert self-indulgence disclaimer/warning here.)

Three years ago, I came to the conclusion that becoming an adult meant learning to curb my crazy impulses and channeling all that displaced energy into more positive pursuits. God, it sounds so grown up, right? But now I fear that I may have overdone it. Having dragged myself from one extreme, I think I am again on the verge of running right smack into another (ha, story of my life). I am on the cusp of becoming intrinsically bland, boring, BLAH. It’s a little bit like the empty shell speech Sandra Oh gives Diane Lane in Under the Tuscan Sun (hey, some chick flicks rock).

Maite gave me this bookmark last year that had this little poem entitled “I hope you dance” or something like that. Yeah, I GET it. I just haven’t felt the compulsion to do anything about it. After all, hibernation’s been lovely. But after a year like this, when my only memorable moments are marked by a few pages in my portfolio, I have to consider that maybe I should take my own advice, get a life, and stop being a yuppie movie cliché!

Which isn’t to say that I am totally devoid of a life, or that I haven’t been happy. The stress has been happy stress, if there’s such a thing. And even if people are sick of hearing it, I LOVE what I do for a living! But I guess woman cannot live on career alone. After all, Maslow could not have been so wrong.

Now before we all start jumping to the conclusion that I need a date (Irene, NO), I’m thinking in slightly bigger terms. So I think I’m going to promise myself a few things for this year (ooooh, how Oprah):

1. I will travel more. I haven’t even been back to Baguio to see my mother in more than 9 months. That’s just sad. I was telling my mum I could’ve already gotten pregnant and had a child without her knowing. She responded by telling me that she could’ve gotten plastic surgery and had her whole face redone without me knowing. We have a strange relationship.
2. I will handle my savings better (Savings? What savings?) so I can buy myself at least two ridiculously expensive indulgences. One that is fun, frivolous, and useful only in that it gives me joy. And another—to assuage my conscience—that is guaranteed by Steve Jobs to do wonders for my career.
3. I will start cooking regularly again. Rosemary pesto lamb, herbed fish steaks, prawn pumpkin curry, and my trademark beer sausage pasta…Mmmm. But somebody’s got to do the dishes!
4. I will work on my wine rack, for real. I think I am finally ready to stock alcohol in the house without fear of imbibing it for breakfast.
5. Put up or shut up with the interior décor. I can only dupe myself into buying so many interior design magazines “for work research” (even if that’s how they’re represented in my income tax paperwork). I just haven’t been able to get past the daybed!
6. Spend more quality time with my friends (which, in my case, means being more “game” for the things they want to do). With Marc in Australia, Veronica in the Netherlands, and Maite leaving for Spain/Dubai/Australia/anywhere-but-here, I’ve come to realize how much I really do appreciate my friends (awww). So now I promise to at least try to show up when invited, make an effort when introduced, and maybe even smile for pictures.
7. Italy. Master’s. One or the other, or both. Hopefully both. Hopefully at the same time. I’m crossing my fingers. Please let the Universe be willing to conspire!

TAGGED

Ok, so in keeping with aforementioned item #6, I’m taking up Irene’s book blog tag post.

1. One book that changed your life - the hardest question first.

But there are so many! I’ll go with what I believe is the first one that had any effect on my life, and I think that was Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell, in the third grade. This book (which won the Newberry Medal and was named one of the 10 best American children's books of the past 200 years by the Children's Literature Association) instilled in me a profound belief in human potential. It taught me that despite a disadvantage in age or experience or education, a person is capable of mustering the strength and determination necessary to take control of his or her destiny.

2. One book that you've read more than once.

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It’s comfort lit. It’s so good that I can open up to any page and get totally engrossed in the story from that point onwards. It’s heartbreakingly sweet, it’s funny, it’s sexy, it’s sad, it's disconcerting, it’s a little bit depressing at times, but that’s love for you.

3. One book that you'd want on a desert island.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Maybe by the time I’m finally done with it, the rescue ships will have found me.

4. One book that made you laugh.

How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays by Umberto Eco. Sometimes life catches you off-guard. As far as funny goes, it’s a pretty nerdy kind of funny, but these days that can be quite refreshing against the invasive background noise of all the Punk’d and Jackass wannabes.

5. One book that made you cry.

I estimate that 30% of all the books I’ve read have made me cry, or at least tear up a little (hey, it's more respectable than my percentage with movies). But I believe that the very first book that made me cry was A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L’Engle, also in the third grade (it was my discovery year for reading). This book is a part of L’Engle’s Austin Family series that includes other great young fiction classics such as A Wind in the Door, A Wrinkle in Time, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. Family, loss, heartbreak. Magic, mystery, secrecy. And all long before Harry Potter was even a twinkle in J.K. Rowling’s eye.

6. One book that you wish you had written.

I’m thinking One Hundred Years of Solitude, but after reading the almost-as-famous story of how Gabriel Garcia Marquez came to write it, I can't possibly imagine taking that away from literary history. I read this book more than a decade ago but I still remember parts of it vividly. Although it took some mind wrestling to get me through it the first time (I was young and preoccupied with silly things), this story of humanity—crystallized in that concluding line—is my most satisfying literary experience so far.

7. One book you wish had never been written. I've read quite a bit of trash, so I'd name at least three or four rape–ah–historical romances by Harlequin (and its clones) if I could only remember what their freaking titles were. So instead I will tell the cautionary tale of a friend of mine (who I am certain will be the first to agree with my opinion on this story). This friend, a freelance writer/racketeer, decided to write his magnum opus—a novella—in the panic-stricken two weeks before he turned forty (mid-life crisis and all that crap). It was entitled Fell. And like a self-fulfilling prophecy, it was his literary undoing. Despite his most valiant efforts, he was the first to conclude after its completion that it was a "two-star rip-off" of arguably (remember, I said ARGUABLY) two of the other worst books ever written, The Da Vinci Code and Atlas Shrugged. He has been drinking himself blind on the impetus of this misfortune for months.

8. One book that you are reading at the moment.

Katharine Graham’s Personal History. Good book. Remarkable woman. I just can’t seem to find the time to finish it.

9. One book that you've been meaning to read.

Where do I start?!? By last count, I was over a hundred books behind in my reading (it's true, I try to maintain an Excel file of the books I intend to buy/borrow and read). At the top of the list right now is Cradle and Crucible: History and Faith in the Middle East. This collection of essays examines the significance of the intertwined religious and political history of the Middle East, which is, after all, the cradle of modern civilization (my 8th grade Ancient History teacher drilled the Tigris and Euphrates into my brain). If we are edging closer to the war that may eventually bring about an apocalypse, I’d really like to know the story. And as much as I love Christiane and Anderson, I cannot rely solely on CNN for the facts.

10. Five others (or more) that you’d like to do this.
It’s more a question of finding five other people who are WILLING to do this. So…Frank? Maite?

MY OWN PRIVATE TELEMUNDO

Since it’s been more than a month since I blogged, let’s recap…

Lukas Rossi won the almost unwatchable Rockstar: Supernova. I still can’t get over their soon-to-be-single “Be Yourself.” It's one electric guitar away from being a propaganda video at a youth center. I understand Gilbey Clark is trying to rehab his image now that his daughter is getting old enough to know what it means to be the seed of Guns 'n' Roses, but this is ridiculous! But at least that court case with the Supernova name has been settled. The older punk band Supernova gets to keep its name, and Tommy Lee and company are stuck with the compromised “Rock Star Supernova.” Ahahahahahaha, one bloody disaster after another… Oh yeah, I missed Lukas but saw Dilana on Ellen, and they were STILL discussing that whole smack talk thing. Forever na lang. Toby and Magni were in the audience, looking veeery out of place. Awww.

Caught the replays of the first few episodes of Survivor: Racist–oops–Sexist–oops–Cook Islands. No matter how Mark Burnett and Jeff Probst tried to dress that whole racial fiasco up as "a social experiment," it really was nothing but a cheap-shot-at-good-ratings mindfuck on the audience. Because no matter how hard you tried to look at the teams without bias or prejudice (precisely BECAUSE they were already racially divided), you found yourself rooting for them or making comments about them by racial stereotype (really, didn’t everyone just EXPECT the Asians to win the puzzle challenges?). So now they’re divided by sex, which is apparently a much more acceptable form of segregation (until the day we all agree to use a unisex bathroom, I guess it’ll stick).

By the way, isn’t that chicken-stealing writer guy from the Caucasian team an ex-actor? Didn’t he used to do bit parts in 80s tv shows? Well, he picked the right reality show to get on…he could have done a lot worse, he could ended up on Skating with Celebrities. Of which I missed the final episode! Ahahaha, kabaduyan! The only reason I watched that show was yummy John Zimmerman (SIGH). Even after seeing his questionable feet on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (I think his pretty Italian ice skater wife Sylvia called them “country feet” or something like that), I’m still a big fan.

Speaking of almost unwatchable shows, Philippine Idol is really leading that pack these days. What’s up with Ryan Agoncillo? Is his teleprompter broken? Does he need new glasses? Or did they do a Botox number on him? A woodcarving has more expression, and my five-year-old goddaughter can deliver dialogue with more style and sincerity. And what the hell is up with those song choices?!? Here’s my idea: drop Heart (nothing against her, but really, she adds nothing to the show) and spend her talent fee on the rights for better, newer songs. Oh, and they really should find a way to elevate the judges’ seats because you end up watching the people behind them—and most of the time they look bored out of their minds. Don’t they have any audience handlers? Oh well. Go Mau!!!

And as for one of my favorite reality show fixes, The Amazing Race—I’m just so damn happy that we’re back to the old Race! Season 9 sucked. And Treasure Hunters cannot compare (unless you’re a hard-core American history buff). So far I still haven’t picked out my favorite team, but it’s pretty funny how the Models, the Gay Couple, and the Parent-and-Child teams have become staples of the show. So what happened to The Amazing Race Asia? May-Pinoy ba?

ALL THE KING'S MEN

When CNN announced the coup in Thailand, I swear I grew two new wrinkles in the space between my eyebrows. Remember 1997? All that disaster took was a hiccup in Thailand and the entire Southeast Asian economy crashed (it’s a comfort thing of mine to blame all my financial quirks on the events of that year).

But so far things seem to be going pretty well in the kingdom. You’ve got to admire a country where a military junta can successfully mount a coup d’etat without any bloodshed or a panic-stricken exodus of foreign investment. The generals say it is all in respect for their king (who looks like he could be Fidel Ramos’ long-lost brother). Well, the photo (from Time, Oct. 2) says A LOT—the generals are all sitting on the floor in front of the king like children! This astounds me. Having grown up during the latter part of the Cold War, and therefore having been brainwashed into thinking that democracy trumps everything else, this kind of respect and support for a monarch is somewhat new to me.

Apparently, quite a few historians believe that a monarchy is still one of the most effective forms of government. If, like me, you play Civilization, you learn that the effectivity of a monarchy lies in the premise that the king or queen (by virtue of lineage and/or dictate of tradition or perhaps even just force of habit) is given almost unconditional respect and loyalty by his or her subjects. But being a Martial Law era baby, I tend to see very little difference between a dictator and a king, especially if the king is allowed to rule as a true king and not as a benevolent figurehead separate from the actual government (for some reason, I can’t shake the image of a terribly misguided Prince Harry in his nazi costume).

Well, I’m sure it really is just cultural/political bias on my part. When that lady from Kuwait was on Oprah for the thirtysomething-women-of-the-world episode, she painted a picture of Kuwait as a fantastic place to live because of the way the royal family runs the country. Hey, somewhere between the thousands of dollars in wedding gifts from the royal family and the fact that they’re ready to fly you out of the country—to the Mayo Clinic even—if you can’t get the right medical treatment in Kuwait, I’m pretty convinced.

TYPHOON CITY

I love electricity. I love cable. I love the internet. Sometimes all it takes is a typhoon-induced power outage to make you remember how much you appreciate the complexity (or some would say the superficiality) of the trappings of modern civilization.

Anyhow, because I really believe that, like the US Postal Service, I am somewhat impervious (or at least oblivious) to rain, hail, sleet, or snow, I found myself out on the road midday Saturday in search of ATM cash and groceries. BIG OOPS. As I texted everyone later that day, it was a slalom-meets-rally course out there with the maze of trees and sign posts and construction debris blocking almost every road in the CBD. And yes, although it took me almost an hour (instead of the usual ten minutes) to get back to Salcedo from Legazpi, I have to say it was fun! And it was certainly more exhilarating than sitting in the stifling humidity of my living room trying to channel the Renaissance, reading Mariette in Ecstasy by the light of a dozen candles.

Prequel. Just before the typhoon hit, oblivious me was up and about running errands in the middle of the night. They all told me it was so, but I had to see it for myself: Salcedo after midnight has become a bizarre parallel universe. What was once a muted void of empty streets and hushed gatherings of sleepless security guards is now an endless parade of ID-toting, cigarette-binging twentysomethings on break from one call center or another. It’s almost like a regular working day in the neighborhood, if not for the absence of the sun or anyone over the age of thirty.

Sequel. Apparently, I should be kissing the floor and singing this old condo’s praises because it is part of the 10% of the metropolis that has gotten its electricity back. And more over, I really shouldn’t be complaining to people who have spent the last three days in the fifth circle of hell about the suckiness of the little detail that my cable still isn’t up and running. Tsk tsk, shame. Oh but I am quite heartbroken over all the trees that fell in Makati, especially the old giant hardwoods that stood sentry in the city for decades (photo from Yahoo News). It’s strange how the park here in Salcedo suddenly looks sadly and embarrassingly naked, like a woman forcefully stripped and shaved bald.

FOUND

It’s as good a way as any to end this marathon blog post (I just don’t know when I’ll be able to steal some time again!!!) with a few useful or entertaining things I ran across on the web…

ZINIO: They deliver magazines in electronic format to your desktop for something like 10% of the newsstand price (syempre naman, walang papel). I’m thinking of subscribing to Elle Décor (see, I really do have some sort of addiction for interior décor magazines). I realize that this bastardizes the very idea of the flip-through magazine, but for “research” it’s quite handy. As you can imagine, the company does a lot of business with certain men’s periodicals because they eliminate the very manly problem of hiding the porn magazine collection.

PROJECT GUTENBERG: 19,000 free (as in free of charge and, in almost all cases, free to use in any way you’d like) e-books from an extensive catalogue that covers everything from the Kamasutra to the Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci to Alice in Wonderland.

JACKSON POLLOCK: If you’ve ever looked at a reproduction of a Pollock and said, “Well, even I can do that!”—here’s your chance. Visit jacksonpollock.org, and as soon as the site loads you will find yourself in an empty white screen. Move your mouse or your tablet pen a bit and you will see a corresponding drip or splash of paint. Find your inner Pollock and splatter to your heart's content! This is what I came up with on my first try (don't ask):

And among the blogs…

RENEE GETS FIT: Follow Renee’s uphill battle with the bulge. It’s a little bit sad, a little bit funny, and surprisingly quite informative. I get a kick out of her detailed charts and diagrams.

BASANG PANAGINIP: If you are one of the very few who has yet to stray onto this blog (its Photorealistic Vector Art article pushed it past rickey.org to #1 Pinoy Top Blog for a few days), it’s young, fun, dynamic art/graphics/lifestyle stuff mixed in with the usual (but generally relatable) personal schtick.

SPEAK UP: This design blog made its mark with Word It—every month, a word is posted (for example, “slime” or “prank”) and anyone can submit an graphic file of their visual interpretation of the word. The only standard limitation is the file dimensions (5 in. x 5 in.), everything else is open. They do screen entries (and it has gotten a bit competitive) but it really is a great way to get those dried out creative juices flowing. Guess what the topic is for these images:

*HINT* It's a popular word in cartoon culture, as in Legion of ____ or Doctor ____.

Putot

2006-07-20T01:00:00.000+08:00

Now showing at the Cinemalaya Film Festival (I'm not involved with the film, I just did the poster). Putot is from the same people at Arkeofilms who made the award-winning Mansyon and Big Time.

Of Frogs and Guilty Pleasures

2006-07-08T05:38:00.003+08:00

FROGGYBACK RIDE

Never has inter-species cooperation been so gross and so cute at the same time. This Nat Geo photo was taken in a flooded street in Lucknow, India (ooh look what you missed, Maits).

VIVA ITALIA!

Speaking of frogs, I am absolutely petrified of the outcome of the Italy-France finals (after Brazil, Italy is my other favorite team). Even Pam’s “15 Reasons to Watch the World Cup” email (yes, that one with the fifteen lovely players in various degrees of undress) has not done much to allay my worst fears. As the French seem to be pretty adept at upsetting World Cup favorites, all I can do is send my positive thoughts for Italy and Del Piero out into the universe.

Of course it doesn’t help that so many of the members of the Italian national team play for the clubs being accused by the Italian government of that whole gaming conspiracy thing (they really have good timing no?). Basta, viva Italia!

WC Cutest Player: Many women will undoubtedly name Cristiano Ronaldo, Michael Owen, Thomas Cahill, Dejan Stankovic, or David Beckham, but the most adorable player for me will always be Cafu. The man actually shakes the referee’s hand when he’s called on a bad tackle. And he’s always smiling!

WC Cutest Coach: Croatia’s "Cico" Kranjcar. He’s like the Roberto Benigni of football.

IN DEFENSE OF GUILTY PLEASURES

I am now behind in my reading by fifteen books. And we’re not even talking about straight-off-the-New-York-Times-bestseller-list or the latest twentysomethings’ flavor of the season authors (think Marquez, McInerney, Neruda, Easton Ellis, Gaiman, Murakami, etc.). My current backlog involves only one recent bestseller, a few books that were hot last year and the year before, something from Oprah’s Book Club, a few trade books, and a whole bunch of stuff I came across at Books For Less (a discount book store is like ukay-ukay but better-lit—when you find something good, it’s like you found gold in the mud).

Anyhow, despite the queue, I have skipped to the end of the line because, in all truth, I have very little discipline. I have passed over Murakami and Katharine Graham’s autobiography and one of the first good books written about the Vatican financial conspiracy to get to … The Nanny Diaries. And I am not ashamed! Ok, maybe just a little.

But you see, I really think a balanced literary diet is composed of the classics, world lit, an occasional autobiography (by someone who really deserves to write one), contemporary fiction, and, well, trash.

Now although I know that everyone from my fifth grade Homeroom adviser Mrs. McFadden (who was the first to tell me “Trash novels will rot your brain!”) to my IB English teacher Mr. Bird would have an aneurism if they found out one of their former students thought this way, I stand by my theory.

Trash novels can be fun. And light. And relaxing. Taken in moderation, they’re a refreshing escape from the daily grind. Like a cocktail, or an ice-cold cold beer. They’re like PG-rated TV. After a long day, sometimes you just don’t want to watch BBC or CNN (even if Anderson Cooper’s on). Sometimes you just want to turn your brain off and watch The OC, or One Tree Hill, or even an episode of The Insider.

Besides, trash novels can contain very interesting bits of information. Like how the Hotel du Cap requires its guests to pay their bill IN ADVANCE and IN CASH—so basically you have to hand over a Mafia-worthy wad of bills when you check in (as explained in Bergdorf Blondes). Even the lowly, and much-maligned, historical romance novel usually has enough decent research to give you a few insights into historical people, events, and places, like the Duke of Marlborough, or the California gold rush, or the gardens of Fontainebleau. Oh, but these should be read very rarely, IF AT ALL, after the age of 21 because they really do give you a bizarre, unrealistic notion of sex and the average male’s prowess. Ahahahaha.

Confessions of a Happy Fatty

2006-07-03T20:56:00.005+08:00

I had lunch with Maite several days ago and we ended up talking, as we often do, about our lives in context of our fat (oh, but she’s lost more than 60 lbs. in the last two years). At some point we got to comparing how I felt about myself when I was thin and how I feel now that I’m fat. You see, I am probably the only person left in this city who really doesn’t care about being overweight (as you can imagine, both my doctor and my mother are horrified).

Actually, the only three things that irritate me about being fat are (1) my doctor’s ominous health warnings punctuated by violent headshaking and muttering, (2) the appalled and often barely disguised looks I get from a few strangers (usually accompanied by “Sayang, ang taba.”), and (3) the fact that I can’t just throw anything on and head out the door—I have had to master the art of camouflage wardrobing so as not to offend the masses with my public displays of protrusion.

When I was twentysomething young, thin and theoretically just about as hot as I’m ever going to get, I was more unsure and uncomfortable about being out in public than at any other time in my life. You see, being a certain level of good-looking (even if it’s just barely-there, threshold level good-looking) throws you into the meat market to compete with all the other good-looking cows, este, people in your society. So naturally, not being one of the grand prize winners of the genetic lottery, I ended up feeling ridiculously insecure about myself all the time (thus the large amounts of alcohol imbibed to help ease the anxiety and occasional bouts of paralyzing fear). Oi. Youth really is squandered on the young. Now, when I look at old photos of myself, I am surprised to find that what Baz (or whoever that is) said in the Sunscreen song is true—you will never look as good as you did in your old photos (I paraphrase).

Now that I am older and fat and somewhat clueless/careless about my looks, I really don’t experience the same verging-on-agoraphobic fear when being out in public. This is probably because I am now more well-adjusted and mature. Ahahahaha. Ok, so it is far more likely that this is actually because I just don’t get checked out any more. I no longer suffer the unnerving stares of people who look you up and down just to see if you (and your hair, and your clothes, and your shoes, and your bag) really ARE hot. I have fallen so far below the good-looking line that I am practically invisible to the superficial and the pretentious. And you know what? It’s GREAT. Nobody needs that kind of pressure.

No, this is not some skewed, defeatist dogma for losers. In the end, I think it’s all about personal priorities. In my case, I have come to realize that looks are not vital to the essence of who I think I am or who I want to be. It’s simply not crucial to my well-being that people find me physically beautiful. I don’t want people to find me offensive or repellant, but I don’t need them to fawn all over the magnificence of my eyes or to write sonnets about the splendor of my breasts. I‘d be more insulted if someone called me stupid than if they called me fat. And I'd be more offended if someone called my work ugly than if they called me ugly.

However, most people I know prioritize physical beauty as an integral component of the best “me” they can be. Although I’m no longer of the same mindset, there is a sense of determination in this that I find tremendously admirable because it takes so much work and so much discipline and, in quite a few cases, so much money to be the brand of beautiful you (and society) find desirable. For example, I doubt that a 23-inch waistline is really normal, but if you can achieve it at any height over five feet tall, you are my hero.

Now despite how I’ve come to feel about the whole beauty thing, I am still quite a bit confused when it comes to work and ambition. All my life I have been told (by TV commercials, fashion magazines, and a famously vain mother) that good looks help you get what you want. Unfortunately, I think this is true (scientifically, I believe Darwin calls it natural selection). But I cannot help but balk at the idea that if I want to get bigger clients, it really helps if they like looking at me as much as they like looking at my work. And I am appalled by the possibility that no matter how brilliant my pitch may be, it still won’t be good enough if there’s a hotter guy or girl with an equally solid presentation. Sometimes, the real world sucks.

But in the end, it seems that the fit-or-fat issue has been resolved for me by destiny, or more accurately, biology (foiled AGAIN by those damned genes!). Although my brain may be perfectly content with me being a good forty or so pounds overweight, my heart is not. High blood pressure and rising triglyceride levels, accompanied by a family history of cancer and diabetes, have my doctor doing more headshaking and muttering than ever. Using sudden death and lingering illness as his means of intimidation, he has set an ironclad mandate for me to lose thirty to forty pounds over the next six months. Shyet.

So, it’s auf wiedersehen to pizza deliveries (I can finish an entire Yellow Cab pizza by myself over three or four hours), pasta with a side of potatoes au gratin (oh Bizu!), regular Coke (I used to say that life was too short for Coke Light, but apparently I got that the other way around), and munchies in between meals (I mourn for my Doritos, Cheetos, Nova, Salt-and-Vinegar, Snack Pack, Kisses with Almonds, Twix, and Mars bars).

However, despite the fact that the treadmill is my new confidante and Gatorade my new emotional crutch, I have made my list of the five fat-happy things I will never give up: (1) Maite’s truffle fudge, even if (calorie-wise) I can only eat a tablespoon of it a day; (2) cheese—if my lactose intolerance scare didn’t wean me off it, nothing else will; (3) wine—considering that I now only drink 1/100 of the amount I once did, I think I deserve a glass every so often; (4) butter—as it is part of my culinary trifecta (along with garlic and olive oil), giving up butter would be like losing a friend; and (5) pistachios and other nuts, simply because nutty things make me happy.

And in the end (here comes the cliché), isn’t that what it’s all really about? Being happy and being comfortable with who you really are, despite what the world thinks of you (unless of course public opinion is one of the things crucial to your happiness—in which case, good luck). I suppose I may eventually go back to being unfat, but I vow to never think desperately thin again.

Practical Magic

2006-06-25T00:19:00.000+08:00

ATTENTION: HARRY POTTER, JAMES BOND, AND MEMBERS OF THE ROMULAN ARMED FORCES

Apparently, invisibility cloaks may not be science fiction for much longer.

According to the National Geographic news service, a paper in the current issue of Science journal outlines the design specs for these new man-made substances, called metamaterials, that use exceptionally tiny networks of metal wires and loops to refract, or bend, different types of electromagnetic radiation (such as radar and visible light) around space of any size and shape.

Need a translation? Yeah, me too. But I think it basically revolves around the idea that what we see is the result of light bouncing off of things. And these metamaterials can change the way that light bounces before it reaches the eye.

According to Sir John Pendry, a theoretical physicist, these metamaterials are capable of controlling light in unprecedented ways, such that they can even “keep it out of a volume of space, but they can do so without you noticing that there's been a local disturbance in the light." Wow.

AWWW…

That’s perty. According to a Nat Geo article, it’s not really a rainbow in the traditional sense because this rare circumhorizontal arc (see, we’re learning something new everyday) is created by light passing through high-altitude cirrus clouds when the sun is very high in the sky and the ice crystals that make the clouds are shaped like thick plates holding parallel to the ground.

When light enters the side face of an ice crystal and leaves through the bottom face, it is refracted (aha, our word of the day) in the same way light goes through a prism. If the cirrus clouds' crystals are aligned just right, the whole cloud lights up in a rainbow of colors. This particular arc was seen over several hundred square miles of sky over northern Idaho in the US early this month.

NATURE'S SHOWERHEAD

La lang. As long as we're looking at perty nature photos, I figured I might as well post this. Although they say we derive all our man-made creations from natural forms, I just never thought a lotus bud would look like this.

MIRACLE THERAPY (PAMELA, ARE YOU READING THIS?)

If you thought a little rubber stress ball was great for easing tension, trust me, play dough is a hundred times better! Especially if you get the super-soft variety that Crayola makes (and it’s only P200 for a box of four colors).

I’ve been kneading and molding almost every spare minute since I bought a box the other day. The first thing I made was the head of an old man. What does this say about me? I must be a closet septuagenarian.

But if dough doesn’t do it for you, you can try the coloring book route (ay, second childhood na eto)—but you can do it the Photoshop way (parang marami akong endorsement ngayon). They have a lot of line art files of comic book/anime characters and scenes online so all you have to do is search, save, and start coloring. Even if you’re not really into Photoshop, as long as you know how to use the lasso and fill tools (and you’re good at occasionally taking instruction from a Help menu), you can spend a very Zen thirty minutes channeling the innocent fun of your childhood (pero I swear, I don’t remember Rogue wearing pekpek shorts ha).

Procrastination

2005-12-02T20:36:00.000+08:00

So, as always, there's a lot happening in the world today. Saddam Hussein's trial is running out of kidnappable characters, Anderson Cooper is the hottest thing on news TV, disaster relief aid still can't get where it's most needed, the Newlyweds have finally split, and Christmas is only 3 weeks away.

But in my somewhat self-centered world, there is really only one major cause for concern: at this very moment, at the intersection of the Christmas rush and my usual Christmas loathing/panic, I find myself totally incapable of working. It SO sucks to be unmotivated, unfunny, and uninspired right after you land your biggest client.

Art Fart

2005-11-17T02:26:00.002+08:00

Notes from the Shallow End of the Gene Pool was supposed to have been my first published collection of poetry and art prints. I couldn't finish it because halfway through I looked at everything I had and realized that it was all self-indulgent crap. Dancing Lessons from God (from my favorite Vonnegut quote of course) was supposed to have been my first solo exhibit. I couldn't do it because a quarter of the way through I looked at all the so-called art I had compiled and realized that it was all also self-indulgent crap.

Like many other people before me, I have pondered the true definition of an artist. I've heard the movie spiels, beautiful bits of rhetoric about how "If that's all you can think about when you get up in the morning, then that's what you are."

Well, for people like myself who grew up in artist colonies like Baguio, you quickly realize that there's got to be a lot more to it than that. In Baguio, everyone and their mother can claim to be an artist. I think it's in the air, or in the water, or the altitude. However, claiming and being can be two very unrelated things, the former not necessarily bringing about the latter.

I've seen quite a few exhibits where so-called artists display their work, overflowing with meaning and message, but really they're the ugliest things I've ever seen. No style, no skill, no real artistic sense. Basically glamorized chicken scratch hiding behind the lofty banners of "symbolism" and "self-expression."

Although I agree that art is mainly about expressing emotions/ideas/philosophies, I also believe that professional art must have a certain degree of aesthetic value and a proficient level of technical craftsmanship. Even if some people have the best intentions and the most profound ideas, if they can't translate these properly onto a canvas or other medium, then they really shouldn't consider themselves professional artists and they really shouldn't exhibit, much less sell, their work as art.

Now I'm sure there are quite a few wannabe artists-slash-diplomats out there who will ask, "Oh but who decides? Who decides for everyone what is art and what is not?" I'm really quite sick of this Dr. Feelgood crap. No matter which way you turn it or where you position it, art as art is art because it is evidently and apparently so. Like pornography, you know it when you see it.

Do I KNOW You?

2005-11-10T03:16:00.000+08:00

I am now just learning to circumvent one funny side effect of following the blogs of assorted half-strangers and casual acquaintances. You see my problem is that I get lulled into a false sense of intimacy, like we’re all really close friends or something. After all, it’s almost hard NOT to think this way when I know all about their current work crisis or their most recent regretful love affair or their latest family disaster. It’s all out there, on the web, for public consumption. So when I finally come face to face with these people, I make the mistake of engaging them in what I suppose is overly and unnervingly familiar banter. Stalker alert?!?

Resurrected

2005-11-01T23:51:00.001+08:00

As if to coincide especially with the celebration of all things unholy, I'm baaa-aaaack—with no greater insight or wealth, but with far more wrinkles and stress aches.

POSTER CHILD FOR THE PROLETARIAT

I've said it to myself so many times this last month it must be true. Work is my salvation. Work is my salvation. Work is my salvation. Work is my salvation. Work is my salvation.

No matter how irregular the money gets, or how few and far between the sleep hours fall, or how silly nilly and downright outrageous the clients become, I ADORE this job. I love it because, ika nga ni Neruda, I know no other way than this.

But there are tired, tired, tired days—when my head and my mouth no longer exist in the same time zone, when my wrist and my elbow grow increasingly painful with what I am certain is acute carpal tunnel syndrome, when my eyes cannot discern a yin from a yang or a horse from its ass, that I just want to run screaming back to the mountains.

DEATH BY TELEVISION

Having spent the last month tethered to the PC with only the TV for company, I have come to realize that even to the preoccupied mind, mass media offers a plethora of ridiculously enticing reasons to shoot oneself in the head: Pinoy Big Brother, E-VAT, Kris Aquino, gas prices, electricity prices, the increasing frequency of airplane crashes, New Orleans, noontime game shows, Bush/Rumsfeld/Rice, the 1000th go-around of aung lambaaawt aung dulaaas, Christmas-themed B movies, etc., etc., etc.

However, with the passage of time, the blunting of repetition, and the semi-permanent fuzziness brought about by sleep deprivation, one may be surprised (and belatedly horrified) to find that even the most stupid or the most enraging thing on TV starts to blur into a familiar, even comforting, wall of white noise. So now I have this sneaking suspicion that I’m going to hell in a hand-basket with a DVD of The Bold and the Beautiful.

Videoke Night

2005-09-23T18:33:00.000+08:00

If you were to create the sountrack of your life, this would be the song you'd play when you are...

Lonely or down:
What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong / Ordinary People by John Legend

In love:
All I Want is You by U2 / Fallin' by Alicia Keys

Fighting with your significant other:
Piece of My Heart by Janis Joplin / White Flag by Dido

Having sex:
Twisted by Keith Sweat / Let's Get It On by Marvin Gaye

Nursing a broken heart:
I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor / Out of Reach by Gabrielle

In need of cheering up:
God Only Knows by the Beach Boys / Ooh Child by the Five Stairsteps

About to embark on a road trip:
Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival / Sunshine of Your Love by Cream

Sunbathing on a tropical beach:
Redemption Song by Bob Marley / Desafinado by Astrud Gilberto

Feeling groggy and need to wake up:
Should I Stay or Should I Go by the Clash / Crosstown Traffic by Jimi Hendrix

Feeling suicidal:
Hallelujiah by Jeff Buckley / Free Fallin' by Tom Petty

Angry, very angry:
Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones / Sabotage by the Beastie Boys

Singing at the videoke bar:
Angel by Sarah McLachlan / Sana'y Wala Nang Wakas by Sharon Cuneta

Dancing by yourself in your room:
Play by Jennifer Lopez / Work It Out by Beyonce

Singing, dancing and drunk off your ass:
Respect by Aretha Franklin / Criminal by Fiona Apple

Playing air guitar:
Foxey Lady or Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix

Just chilling out on a rainy day:
Shape of My Heart by Sting / Like a Stone by Audioslave

Reminiscing about your highschool years:
It Doesn't Matter by Depeche Mode / I'd Die Without You by PM Dawn

Reminiscing about your college years:
Soul to Squeeze by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers / Linger by the Cranberries

Getting married:
At Last by Etta James / Let's Stay Together by Al Green

Stick

2005-09-23T00:05:00.001+08:00

I am a traitor to my industry. I just saw the latest local Xenical ad and it made me want to throw things at the TV. To state that a husband with a Xenical-using stick insect of a wife is less likely to check out other women is not only a lie, it helps propagate the dogma of a misogynist society which encourages medicated stick insect women to primp, preen, and starve themselves into perfect trophy wives. Oh and of course the men in the ad weren’t even anywhere as good-looking as the women were. Haaaay! Sometimes it's like women's lib never happened at all.

Trip the Life Hermetic

2005-09-17T17:05:00.001+08:00

In the span of 36 months I have (in reverse order) quit smoking, quit drinking too much, quit driving too fast, quit sex, quit partying, quit dating, quit shopping. In other words, I have quit everything that used to be fun for me (and the people around me), and now I'm boring. And old. And fat. And alone most of the time.

But the weird/crazy/fabulous thing is that I'm generally happier than I've ever been before. I no longer assail my friends with melodramatic sob stories about my latest failed romance or fling thing. I no longer feel anxiety over the fashionability of my sartorial ensembles. I no longer experience the disconcerting awe of finding my car perfectly parked in its slot even though I don't remember how I got it there the night (morning?) before. Yes, apparently hermeticism agrees with me.

So, as I was off to run my usual mundane errands three Fridays ago, I found myself in the elevator with one of my neighbors and her best friend. As we made friendly chitchat about the usual neighborly things, I was hit with the realization that I was looking directly at my future.

You see, my lovely but perennially somewhat disheveled neighbor is what the previous generation calls an "old maid." And apparently, her best friend, who has been single since she got legally separated seven years ago, is headed that way too. The way things are going, I too should officially be joining the ranks of spinsterhood in around fifteen to twenty years, although I'm quite sure I've got some sort of honorary status now.

On that particular Friday night, the two ladies were off to dinner and a movie (an all too familiar routine), then they were heading home for an early night's sleep to be up for the next day's Organic Market. Our entire encounter was rather like that country deli scene in Something's Gotta Give—you know, where Diane Keaton was perturbed by her future when she saw those two old spinster ladies shopping?

Anyhow, as the elevator slowed to a halt, I was besieged by this anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach. Old demons of a forgotten lifestyle knocking at the door. Then it was gone. I guess I really am as okay as I think I am with the possibility of never finding that society-decreed husband and being single, happily, ever after. Oh, but I've been out every Friday night since then.

Diffusion

2005-09-11T22:51:00.001+08:00

I've been noticing this trend of "ethnic diffusion" (I don't know if there's an actual term for it) among many second and third generation Filipino-Americans, especially those who achieve a bit of fame. Whenever they're interviewed about their general ethnicity, it seems they no longer find it sufficient to simply say "Filipino." The more common answer is now "Filipino, Spanish, and Chinese."

Although this liberally generalized statement may actually be correct in some cases, the majority of the people who I've seen or read laying claim to all three heritages usually look very, well, Filipino. As in kayumanggi Malay Filipino, not many traces of Spanish or even Chinese (which is more likely) visible—if there were any, these traces had long been diluted over the course of three or more generations and are now part of the general Filipino bloodline.

And when the parents or grandparents of these Filipino-Americans, oops I mean Filipino-Spanish-Chinese-Americans, manage to get some airtime, you see the proof. They don't look at all like the Spanish-Filipino Ayalas or the Chinese-Filipino Gokongweis or any plausible genetic merger of both. They're almost always as general-population Filipino as can be—most of them still packing their provincial accents and trademark Filipino mannerisms.

So this is what it's come down to then. We have a new generation of Filipino-Americans so embarrassed by their heritage that they're trying so desperately to diffuse it behind what they feel are far more glamorous ones. Bonifacio must be turning in his grave. Posers!

Why I Will Never Be a Motivational Speaker

2005-08-27T04:53:00.000+08:00

1. After a decade of consciously trying to dumb myself down, I have come to the conclusion that mediocrity really is just an over-rated American movie infatuation.
2. I prescribe to the logic of the food chain. And I believe that if there was something bigger AND smarter than us on the planet, it would be hunting us too.
3. I think Beautiful People's Problems should be left to the Beautiful People. Normally productive Regular People lose sleep, threaten suicide, and commit felonies all because they endeavour to take on these ridiculous burdens.
4. I believe that our lives are too inflated by the cushion of material things we think are necessary for our happiness. I like to call this stuff the Fluff because it's somewhat like fluffy cappuccino foam—amusing, delicious, but ultimately useless.
5. My most sensible advice to the next generation: If you haven't shown any signs of exceptional brilliance or beauty by the age of 21 (and that's really stretching it), it's time to give up the protege/ingenue fantasy and accept that you will go through your professional life like the rest of the mass populace—work, pay bills, work some more, pay more bills, work work work, pay pay pay, ad nauseum/ad absurdum/ad infinitum.

Mostly True Things

2005-08-24T02:11:00.000+08:00

SEVEN THINGS THAT SCARE YOU
1. Blindness.
2. Paralysis.
3. Getting married.
4. Having children.
5. The thought that there may be something paranormal (ghostler et al) anywhere near me and I don't even know it.
6. The possibility that the best years of my life are already behind me.
7. David Blaine.

SEVEN THINGS YOU LIKE THE MOST
1. The pine-and-grass scent in the air after it rains in Baguio.
2. Monsoon rains and typhoons (but only when the electricity stays on).
3. The smell of garlic frying.
4. Flowers.
5. Back rubs.
6. Sunsets.
7. Road trips.

SEVEN IMPORTANT THINGS IN YOUR HOUSE
1. PC (in case of fire, I'm grabbing my CPU first)
2. Books
3. Magazines
4. TV
5. Bed
6. Work desk
7. Couch (which everyone, except me, gets to lounge around on)

SEVEN RANDOM FACTS ABOUT YOU
1. It is possible that I am certifiably crazy.
2. I'm getting fatter everyday.
3. I'm very interested in finding out what I was in my former life/lives.
4. Half the time, I feel like a jack (jill?) of all trades and a master of none.
5. I am very happy I'm an only child.
6. I don't mind watching a mindless comedy every so often.
7. I really need an assistant.

SEVEN THINGS YOU PLAN TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE
1. Explore Macchu Picchu, Angkor Wat, Luxor, the Serengeti, and the Great Barrier Reef.
2. Meet Nelson Mandela, Christiane Amanpour, and Brad Pitt.
3. Complete all sides of a rubix cube.
4. Master Spanish so I can read Marquez's original texts.
5. Become skinny enough to wear a size 2 again.
6. Indulge in a threesome.
7. Do something, anything, totally selfless.

SEVEN THINGS YOU CAN DO
1. Bullshit.
2. Draw.
3. Sniff out a fellow bullshitter.
4. Stay awake for 60 hours straight (on nothing but panic and stale soda) to beat a deadline.
5. Stay drunk for 60 hours straight (although I haven't had any practice lately).
6. Listen.
7. Parallel park.

SEVEN THINGS YOU CAN'T DO
1. Show up on time all the time.
2. Kick insomnia.
3. Give up meat, seafood, or cheese.
4. Stop my mother from calling everyday.
5. Wear colored contact lenses.
6. Imagine myself becoming a soccer mom in the future.
7. Engage in convincing small talk.

SEVEN THINGS THAT ATTRACT YOU TO THE OPPOSITE SEX
1. A hint of overconfidence, but only when it's justifiable.
2. Brilliance.
3. Generosity.
4. Raw strength.
5. Patience (because with me, it's needed).
6. Broad shoulders.
7. Undeniable attraction to me ;-)

SEVEN THINGS YOU SAY THE MOST
1. Apparently...
2. Ridiculously...
3. Haaaay.
4. Hmmm.
5. Sonovabitch!
6. Pota.
7. Hi, I'd like to place an order for delivery please.

They're Just Letters

2005-08-21T21:05:00.002+08:00

This story has to be told. The nephew of one of my close friends is an adorably precocious 6-year-old. In school last week, his class was tasked to do a word exercise. The exercise was simple: there'd be a picture of a goat next to the letters G _ A T and the children had to fill in the missing letter. When this little boy came to the picture of a duck next to the letters _ U C K, he (without hesitation) wrote in the letter F. His teacher looked at his workbook and gasped, "What is that?"

Without an iota of malice, he replied, "Oh, that's a Fuck. And its mother is a Motherfucker."

The Numbers

2005-08-07T05:08:00.000+08:00

333

I have a rather troublesome penchant for reading Web junk in all its shapes, sizes, and forms. Or at least this is how I choose to explain how I ended up at the forums of the Rockstar INXS website. Hey, at least now I know what the 333 painted on Jordis' hand means—the recently deceased friend (Bryan) for whom she was singing the song had this, his favorite number, tattooed on the back of his neck. Aaahh...ok.

Speaking of Jordis—when you search "Rock Star INXS" on LimeWire, Jordis appears with 700+ hits on her songs and JD shows up with around 20 hits on 2 of his songs. Go Jordis!!!

Oh, but just one more thing—isn't there just too much crying on this show? I'm a fan, but when Dave Navarro (fricking DAVE NAVARRO man!) gets all choked up and sappy with the rest of them every elimination episode, it takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to sit through the yuckfest.

4 8 15 16 23 42

Speaking of numbers, I sometimes wonder how they came up with the all-important string of cursed numbers on Lost. Did JJ Abrams base them on some ancient occult logarithm? Did he pull them from some super-secret World War II cryptograph? Or did he just string them together from his family's birthdays and then throw in a random digit for variability? Hmmmm...

8,275,000,000

I recently read in Time that Paris Hilton's family fortune is worth US$775 million and that of her fiancé (the other Paris) is worth almost 10 times that at US$7.5 billion. If they do end up getting hitched, their cumulative net worth would be US$8.275 billion.

Now seriously, who NEEDS 8.275 billion dollars? I honestly believe that a person would be just as happy with 500 million as they would be with 8.275 billion—after 500 million (which is enough to buy you your own island country) would you even be able to tell the difference? If Paris, Paris, and their respective families were to content themselves with 500 million (and assuming the remainder of their fortune is quite easily saleable/disposable), they could give 77,750 people 100,000 dollars each or 775,000 people 10,000 dollars each. Talk about a misdistribution of wealth! Oh, don't even get me started on the Donald.

7

Hello, my name is Jenni and it has been 7 months since my last cigarette. Considering my more than decade-long hyper-intense love affair with nicotine, I think I deserve a fricking parade. Ok, maybe just a pin or something.

3

Apparently, 3 is the average number of emails I send out or forward to close friends on those nights I can't sleep/am downloading or uploading some mammoth files/have nothing better to do with my life but trawl the news and celebrity gossip websites. I didn't even really realize I was flooding other people's mailboxes with this stuff until a few weeks ago when one of my friends went on vacation and I inadvertently almost shut down her work mailbox with the sheer volume of my almost-daily assault of emails (hey, it was a slow work week).

Fortunately, I have very understanding friends who know that everything I send them is sent out of love. Besides, it's not like I'm sending them those godforsaken chain letters or insipid jokes—I'm actually passing along what I believe to be crucial (or at the very least, entertaining) information for the way we live.

For example (as per one of the longer emails I sent last week), I think it is important that I/they/we know that (1) Sony Pictures has been ordered to pay US$1.5 million dollars to settle a class-action lawsuit because they cited a fake movie critic in one of their ad campaigns; (2) a new planet, currently referred to as 2003 UB313, may have been discovered beyond Pluto; (3) South Korea's leading stem cell scientist has cloned a dog; (4) Holly Hunter, at 47, is expecting twins; and (5) researchers have found that although gonorrhea, pinworm, and roundworm have been found on public toilet seats, the typical office desk harbors 400 times more disease-causing bacteria than the average toilet seat.

SEE? Good stuff right?

Anyhow, over dessert a few nights ago, we all finally got around to talking about these emails. Although I got knocked for the volume, I at least got some positive comments on the content. In fact, Mrs. Preggy Pauses said my emails were quite useful because they made for fantastic conversation starters (in particular, she was referring to the article about Lachlan Murdoch leaving the family media empire to return to Australia—doesn't this sound like it just has to have a fabulous Dynasty-esque story behind it?). Anyway, in the end, the girls heartily agreed that my emails were indeed an integral and highly-informative part of their email-reading agenda. Oh, if I was any geekier or any bigger of a loser, this would be one of the moments I'd live for.

Of Mothers, Daughters, and Lesser Creatures

2005-07-30T08:50:00.000+08:00

ROADKILL

I had another two-hour long-distance conversation with my mother last night. She mentioned that she was thinking about trading her 4-door sedan in for an SUV. I told her that unless she never plans to drive her own vehicle again, the SUV is simply an impossibility. Feathers ruffled, the old battle axe quipped, "Well, I've been driving for over 30 years. I think I'd know how to handle my own car. Sanayan lang yan."

I wasn't sure if it was appropriate to burst out laughing, so instead I asked, "Since the last time I saw you, have you learned how to parallel park?" Silence.

I suppose I may have come across a bit mean, but this is the woman whose car I once saw "parked" right smack in the middle of the pedestrian cross-walk, four feet away from the curb, during rush hour on the busiest main road in my hometown (I have very many witnesses).

Truth be told, my mother is the parking menace of our hometown traffic enforcers and security guards. Whenever they spot her car approaching sans driver, they get this terrified pre-roadkill look. She's notorious for quite a few crazy antics but my favorite is how, whenever they ask her to pretty please park her car properly (her parking style is, shall we say, more perpendicular than parallel), she throws her keys over to these total strangers and informs them that if they're going to be all finnicky about it, they can park the damn car themselves.

And now she wants an SUV? Considering how my mother has always been a fan of the smaller compact car and the fact the she/you/I know she can't even park an itty-bitty sedan, the only reason I can think up for her sudden SUV jonesing is that she's sick and tired of getting harassed by meter maids and rent-a-cops—the next time any of these peons give her grief about her parking, I think she intends to simply run them over.

SHALLOW

While perusing the aisles of the nearby outlet of Books for Less, I spotted a book called Men My Mother Dated and Other Mostly True Stories. Good title. Dirt-cheap for a hardbound edition. First paragraphs quite funny.

And yet I hesitated. I tried to tell myself this was because I just didn't want to waste money on a potential dud. However, I realized that the real answer was far more embarassing.

The truth was that I simply desired more positive reinforcement. Something like a mini version of the overwhelming kind you get when you purchase a Marquez. I needed to know that this book was special—special enough for lots of other people (or better, the right kind of people) to love it.

And then there it was, right across the back cover—a sterling review by Dave Eggers. SOLD!

It is a disturbing moment when you realize that the extent of your shallowness is starting to manifest itself even in the things you hold most sacred.

"WHEN SOMEBODY LOVES YOU ..."

If you watch the National Geographic, Discovery, and Animal Planet channels enough, you eventually come to believe that for every animal on this planet there must be AT LEAST one human with a PhD who loves it. The numbers of these animal-friendly folk appear to be booming, so if you're an insect/mammal/reptile/fish/amphibious thing, and nobody loves you enough to study you, then you must indeed be a sad, pathetic creature. I mean, hey, even maggots have a devoted following.

In the Details

2005-07-23T02:12:00.000+08:00

I have found that I can build a paragraph or even an entire story around a phrase that I like. I can also create a composition around a single shape or stroke that I fancy. The story or the picture doesn't even have to be about the particular phrase/shape/stroke, it just has to include it.

This has gotten me thinking. Is it possible then to create a career around just one thing you happen to do well? Is it plausible to grow a successful relationship around one great characteristic you share or admire? For that matter, is it possible to build an entire life around one good detail?

My So-Called Life

2005-07-18T04:58:00.001+08:00

WHAT THE HELL?!?

Went through the McDonald's drive-thru last week. Was ordering my usual McNuggets with gravy when I heard a low crunch and suddenly my car lurched forward. I remember thinking, "Are you shitting me?!? How can anyone get into a car accident at the drive-thru?" The cashier looked somewhat bewildered as I opened the door and stuck half my body out to glare at the driver behind me. He was hastily backing up his big black SUV. He sheepishly called out "Ay sorry po ma'am!" trying to be amusing or cute (neither of which he was). I gave him the what-the-hell-you-moron unibrow scowl and he retreated into his seat.

I finished ordering, drove around the bend and got out of the car to check on my bumper. Himala. Barely a scratch. But still! I picked up my order at the next window and waited for the other car to come up behind mine—for no real reason, I just wanted to give the guy another scowl.

My black mood evaporated when the SUV didn't appear. The poor schmuck was afraid to come around the bend! He was probably afraid he'd find a hysterical female standing in the driveway, threatening to collect on his (or his boss') insurance policy. For some reason I found that really funny. So I drove home.

WHAT THE HELL?!? Part II

Finally got around to doing my groceries a few nights ago. As I was standing by the walkway sorting my bags, a large white man stumbled into me and ended up trampling my groceries—which included ice cream, butter, and very ripe tomatoes. Rather than apologize for the squishy, gooey mess he’d made of my purchases, he turned to look at me like it was my fault and he walked away! And then, ten feet down the walkway, he looked back at me with this weird smile while he said something in German to his friend!

I was livid. I wanted to assault him with the dirtiest string of invectives I could stir up in the depths of my normally non-confrontational soul. But alas, all I managed to do was mutter, “Fascist bastard!” God I hope he heard me.

MOVING UP

Went to see the Cinemalaya gala screenings of Big-Time and Mansyon the other night and I was so impressed! Joe, Mario, Monster, and everyone at Arkeofilms did a fabulous job (I'd be much more gushy if I was capable of it)! Wow. The people I went to school with are moving up in the world and doing significant things. Me? I'm still living like I'm in college. Hmmm.

Sexy

2005-07-16T01:45:00.000+08:00

What I want to know is this: Is there such a thing as sexy writing? I don't mean the subtle erotica of D.H. Lawrence, or the oh-god-he's-so-bloody-brilliant-I-just-wanna-grab-him kind of sexy, or even the adjective-laden and overly alliterated prose of THOSE magazines.

I mean—is there sexiness to be found in the fundamental way one intersperses adjectives, nouns, and verbs? Is there underlying heat in the technical structuring of a sentence? Is there doability in the occasional bending or breaking of a grammatical rule? Honestly, I want to know.

Fair Warning

2005-07-15T05:30:00.000+08:00

Don't you just hate hate hate it when you're on the Web looking for information and your Search Engine lands you in the middle of a particularly useless blog (and yes, I lump my own blog in with this lot)? But oh you NEED this information and your search results say it's there, in that blog, so you dive in and Ctrl-F your way through a ton of useless crap for about ten minutes.

Most of the time, the writing just isn't good. Worse, it's not even bad (like so bad you can laugh at it). It's just blaaaah. Blech. Mundane run-of-the-mill I-had-a-pizza-and-three-too-many-cups-of-coffee journal crap. And at the end of the fruitless ten minutes, you realize that you just lost ten minutes of your life that you'll never get back. Normally, considering my history of expert time suckage (yes, I love that movie), ten minutes is nothing. But to waste it involuntarily on some guy's worries about how Junior, the pug, is having irregular bowel movements all over the new flat is really really really some otherworldly kind of torture.

So, fair warning to all ye poor folk who might land in this blog while in search of vital information: RUN. Run away and do not return unless you're the kind of sick person who gets entertained by ridiculously long sentences about mundane subjects like my mother, my most recent feckless thought, and the shows I saw on television last night.

TV Baby

2005-07-13T11:57:00.001+08:00

5 REASONS WHY I LOVE THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL

1) No matter what's happening on the screen (lions tearing through the innards of an elephant, an alligator dragging a bloody wildebeest down into murky water, etc.) the British voice-over guy's narration is always calm, collected and, well, chipper. So matter-of-fact. So composed. So oddly soothing.
2) Some of the cutest real men on television work there. Brady Barr. The Kratt brothers. Zoltan what's-his-name. Not to mention some of the uncredited research assistants you see running around. Ok, so they're not Brad Pitt, but hey, they're the real deal. And they all have PhDs.
3) How can you NOT love a tarsier? Or an upright-running lemur? Or a baby Bengal tiger?
4) The sight of wide open African plains or miles of rainforest canopy are great mind cleansers after watching too much ET, Insider, and CNN.
5) It's just nice to know things—like how a chameleon's eyes move independently from one another giving them almost 360-degree vision, or how legions of red crabs over-run Christmas Island several times a year to spawn, or how the mold inside the tombs of Egyptian mummies can be lethal to humans.

Hmmm. I've known it forever—I'm a big fat geek.

TIGHT SHOT ON THE PICKET LINE PLEASE

I have a theory. All those people you see on TV marching and rallying for GMA to resign are jobless. Or that's what they really do for a living (or a meal). Honestly, does anyone holding down a real job have the time to spend out on the road waving a placard, day in and day out, just waiting for Gloria to pack up and leave? Ok, so you've got all those politicians and business leaders rallying too, but do you notice they're all rich and old? Almost everyone I know under 40 is still at work whittling away at their credit card debt.

Vanity

2005-07-13T02:47:00.000+08:00

I had a two-hour long-distance conversation with my mother last night (this PLDT promo has got her hooked) about how I should start looking after myself. As my 31st birthday looms on the horizon, she gets more and more concerned about how (1) I don't even have a skin care regimen, whereas she's had one since she was 16; (2) I've stopped caring all that much about how I look in public, but we both think this is just a phase; and (3) I may need eyebag-removal surgery and/or liposuction very soon (she's offering to pay for it) if I don't at least try to sleep more and start losing weight.

My mother is a funny woman. The reason she's concerned about my general appearance isn't so much that she's worried about my self-esteem or that she's terrified my current state of dishevelment will ruin my chances of landing a suitable husband—it's because she's worried that the older I look, the older SHE'LL look. This is the woman who insists that I LIE about my age and tell everyone I'm 27 (I've been 27 for 3+ years now) just so she can persuasively lie about her age and pretend to be a decade younger. It's like she doesn't think her friends can count. Haaay.

Vanity. It's my favorite sin.

Why Perishables?

2005-07-12T05:50:00.001+08:00

Because unlike the true writers, who can shell out that wonderful timeless stuff all day everyday, I am a self-confessed hack and the drivel I hammer out tends to rely on cheap gimmicks like pop references and inside jokes to make the material readable. Pop references and inside jokes, as you well know, have limited shelf lives. As such, this blog is nothing but a compilation of perishable postings (please discard properly after reading) selfishly written for this blogger's personal amusement and much-needed stress therapy rather than as an entertaining waylay for passing readers or, God forbid, an actual contribution to the human record.