Back in high school, I remember listening to this very potent song by Paula Cole called Tiger. It was from Paula's 1996 album "This Fire," which was more popular for the song "I Don't Wanna Wait."
It was a very cool song, even though the lyrics didn't really apply to me. (But that's how I am, I would usually like songs for how they sound and not for their message, moral lesson, inspiration or whatever intellectual hullabaloo. I listen because the music sounds nice, period. But I digress.)
Toward the end of the song, Paula dishes out some really hardcore screaming, and even a quick backmasking. I loved it.
One day my friends came over for dinner- it was the town fiesta (and as it is in the Philippines, everyone's houses become everyone else's houses during the festivities- mi casa esu casa). I quickly showed them this cassette tape (yeah, ancient thing) with a naked female on a swing on the cover, and quickly played Tiger on our stereo component. I looked at their faces, my own face adorn with a look that said "You're gonna love it, I just know it."
When the song ended, my friends looked at each other, then turned to me and said, "Uhm, okay... tiene leche flan (got flan)?"
I grumbled at their lack of appreciation and silently told Paula that there was somebody who cared.
Filed under
childhood
|
It's my prom night! O my gas! Darn, I have to look great in all my pictures. Pressure, pressure! I think I will go for the just-ate-an-entire-watermelon-and-I-can't-shut-my-mouth-back look! I'll be the prom queen, you'll see!
Shiiit! I have competition. I must look better than her. Must flash my perfect smile.
This is such an international crowd! I am so happy and therefore I will smile like I never smiled before!
Two watermelons? Easy!
O my gas, we are perfect together! Me and... my smile!
I will stand out from the crowd. Must unleash the smile.
Food! Food! But no watermelons? It can't be! Nooo! Hahahaha...
Guess where I'm sticking this... Hahahaha...
Now that I've regurgitated all that food, it's time to smile again!
What do you mean I didn't win Prom Queen? With this smile?? There must have been some switching! It's impossible! But in the midst of all this I have to keep smiling...
I bet that loser who won the crown can't smile like this!
I am so it. No matter what. Hahahaha!
This game is the best! It's like eating watermelons!
Hey Luis, stop looking at my mouth! You would hope your girlfriend can open hers like this, huh? Hahahaha!
I think I have found a replacement for my watermelon now...
Filed under
fun
|
What do you know, Hooters just opened in the Philippines at SM Mall of Asia.
www.hootersphilippines.com
But I've been hearing reports the girls over there are blah. I searched for some pics from the net and while they're not the best looking girls in the Philippines, they're
definitely not unattractive. Quite frankly, they look very Pinay, and just rightly so. I mean, this is Hooters
Philippines after all. Some people just have a one-sided idea of what a "beautiful girl" should look like (read:
chinitas,
mestizas, the works). Apparently it's the time of
peninsulares and
insulares and
indios once again. Gimme a freaking break.
See? Not bad at all.
Filed under
night out
|
When I was young, like maybe in preschool, I was part of this school play in which I played a monkey.
It was a contest, and each class had to present a play to get the praises of the teachers, which was the most important thing in the world then. There were three of us 'monkey boys', and to give our parts justice each of us had to dress up in a one piece brown suit, wear a tail, hold a banana in one hand and clown around the stage. I do not remember my lines anymore, but I remember I had to shriek like a monkey whose balls are being cut off while playing about the stage and taunting a beautiful little girl that was 'lost in the woods.' I also had to eat the banana while I said my lines. Which was tough, considering that I had to shriek, eat, speak and jump around at the same time. The director did not bother to have my face made up, perhaps in part because I already looked like a small monkey sans the effort.
In the middle of my performance, I forgot to swallow the banana I was chewing and started to choke. Instinct kicked in, and the next thing I knew I was forcing myself to puke- which I did, and the half-digested banana landed on one of my monkey pals' face.
The audience roared with laughter at my antics and marveled at how realistic our performance were.
My monkey pal, whom I had disgraced, was too stunned to speak.
After what seemed like eternity, he wiped his face with his hand, looked at the mess on his hand, and then ate it.
ADVERTISEMENTFrom Look of The Year, good news for all the young aspiring model. Look of The Year is looking for beautiful and handsome people to break into the business. You can join this beauty contest wherever you are, just send your picture. Anybody who comes to lookoftheyear.com can judge. The more people vote for you, the more chances for you to become a model.
|
Filed under
childhood,
fun
|
I am overwhelmed with the amount of plastic bags being used and wasted in Bangkok. Shop at the supermarket and you're guaranteed to leave the store with at least three plastic bags. If you're like me and you pick up lots of 'miscellaneous' stuff as you make your way to the counter (as if you're stocking up for a nuclear fallout), you can end up with almost a dozen on a single trip.
I remember this eco-tour that I made in the past with my former officemates at Shell in the Philippines. We went to the La Mesa Watershed, and to get there we had to pass by Payatas, this entire community that lives off of trash. Trash and more trash, as far as the eyes can see. It was painful to realize that people living in that area had no choice but to take in the putrid smell every single minute of their lives until they decide they have had enough.
If Thailand won't watch it, the country would be literally flooded with plastic bags. Did you know that it takes 2 decades for a plastic bag to decompose, and 250 years for a plain plastic cup? I hope there'll soon be an internationally enforceable law that will ban the use of plastic bags in supermarkets. Large and strong paper bags would be a whole lot better as a replacement, and the cost is not high if we keep recycling them, so what's keeping this from happening?
Filed under
everyday
|
Incessant ringing
Water in my freaking ears
Riiiiiiiiiiiiing.... it goes. "Hello?"
|
I heard about Payperpost from my friend Flisha and yeah, I'm officially joining the bandwagon! I think it's the real deal based on what people are saying on the internet about it. I'm still learning the ropes about paid blogging and it will be great to learn from an established name like PPP. I have a friend who signed up for payperpost and in just a few months she's already contemplating about getting either an iPhone, which is going to be available in the Philippines in July, or a trip to Singapore from her Payperpost stint. How cool is that?
When you sign up you get "opportunities" to blog about a variety of stuff. Looking at the numerous topics available you are bound to find something you really like, or relate to. A bit of everything for everyone, so to speak, so all bets are off. If you have a high Page Rank your chances at getting better opportunities are very high. Better opportunities equals happy endings, and happy endings sure rock. How do you achieve high page ranks, you ask. There's a plethora of articles about rankings and the hulabaloo about SEO, so read up. That's my assignment as well, coz I'm also new to this stuff.
Paid blogging gives me lots topics to talk about, so expect more posts. Reading about my latest caper with a nose hair trimmer would be fun, admit it.
|
A few years ago I watched our collie Bubbles die.
Bubbles was my favorite dog. He was very playful, respectful and he liked to rest his head on your lap, waiting to be patted on the head. He would never growl or even raise an eyebrow when my little sister Divine would conk him on the head with a spatula. He looked very handsome too, brown and white and fluffy around the neck.
It was December 31. Bubbles suddenly appeared out of nowhere with a limp, looking quite disturbed. My mom immediately took notice and checked up on Bubbles to find out what was wrong. He wasn't bloody or yelping, he just lied down in our kitchen looking confused. He wouldn't nudge when we called out his name, which was unusual.
We concluded that Bubbles was hit by maybe a car when he went out of the yard. Ours is not a very busy street, and when Bubbles would go out he would usually just be standing in front of our little convenience store, content with looking at passersby, and perhaps deep in thought about how tough dog life is. Our house is also located at the bend, so cars would usually slow down to make a turn.
Not taking any chances, we started calling vet clinics in the city to check which one was open so we could bring Bubbles in. Nobody was answering our calls. We started calling friends to call any vets they know. It was New Year's Eve and all vets were on a holiday.
Bubbles died because all the vets in the city were merrymaking. We were helpless as we watched his eyes slowly turn milky white. We were all touching and patting him, begging him to hold on to dear life until after the holiday so he could be hospitalized. My mom was tearful as Bubbles died in my father's arms.
This post is for Bubbles whom I terribly miss, as I contemplate on having my own dog in my apartment.
Filed under
emotion alert
|
My officemate asked me if my place back home in the Philippines was spared from the typhoon that recently made waves, literally, when it capsized a ferry and drowned many. My family lives in Zamboanga City and thank heavens the city has not seen the wrath of typhoon Frank. My heart goes out to the families of those who died and those still missing.
A series of unfortunate events is happening across the globe. Levees in the Midwest in the US are overflowing, hurricanes and tornadoes have been occuring more frequently, an earthquake in China has killed more than 60,000, storms and floodings in Myanmar has caused 70,000 deaths, food shortage is making people take their lives (this is true, I read this from the newspaper), oil prices are higher than ever, deadly viruses are becoming aggressive and affecting thousands... the list goes on. And that's in a span of just a few months.
It really makes you go Henny Penny and ask, is the sky falling?
I am seriously concerned about the state of the world. It's gone freaking haywire! To add to my paranoia, I caught The Reaping on HBO yesterday, which is about the 10 Plagues all over again. Perfect timing. I am officially spooked.
If the world were to end in the coming days, I would feel miserable because I haven't even flown to New York yet, which is something I've always wanted to do. I haven't even fronted for a band, or won the lottery, or watched the 7th season of 24, or settle down and have kids, or eat a mermaid from a seafood house in Sukhumvit Road (the restaurant's slogan is 'If It Swims We Have It' so I'm tempted to ask them if they caught any mermaid lately). And yeah, I'm away from family and friends and that sucks.
There's a lot of things that I wanna do in this life, and notwithstanding the knowledge that everything could be gone in the blink of an eye, it's just not possible to so easily grab your Bucket List and decide to check them off one by one. In case you haven't noticed, while you are on this pretty thing called Earth, everything has a price. We're talking moolah here. You have to spend to see the pyramids of Egypt, y'know.
I know some people will go, Oh you are so materialistic, you can aim to do the simple things that won't cost anything like saying I love you to your enemies or look at the sunset, but hey, that's your list, not mine.
I fantasize about the end of the world though. In my version, asteriods start hitting the earth, the signs that according to the Bible will appear start appearing, and then just when the last blow is dealt, I would suddenly levitate and display my superhero powers to protect the planet. And then God will appear and I will be begging for his forgiveness and He will call it a day as the skies will clear.
Yes, I am the Catholic superhero.
|
Apparently, these things work.
Some of my friends have told me that they are slowly but surely earning a few bucks from blogging. I have always had some serious doubts about money-making schemes in the internet. Post a blog and get paid- sounds too good to be true, right? But alas, the idea was incredulous for me because I didn't understand the economics behind it.
Apparently, here's how it works. Imagine a triangle. One one side of the triangle are advertisers or sponsors. With internet popularity steadily on the rise, advertisers are going beyond print and broadcasting media to sell products and services, and a lot of people use the internet, as you can see:
The philosophy of marketing is simple: Go where there the people are. Hence, the internet has become a successful advertising medium that spans geographical boundaries and makes product presence potentially ground-breaking with just the click of the mouse (or tap of the screen, if you please).
Now on another side of our triangle are
bloggers- those internet-savvy individuals who who write about all things under the sun and post them in their personal websites, online journals or web logs.
Now what happens is that the advertisers (or sponsors) and the bloggers put their heads together to bring out the word about a particular product or service to
blog readers - the potential consumers, the group on the third side of our triangle.
How do the sponsors and bloggers meet? Simple- through websites like
Bloggerwave which helps bloggers make money by letting them know about advertising opportunities put out by the sponsors. All the blogger has to do is to mention or advertise (subtly, if you may) the sponsor's product in his blog posts so that the marketing message gets to the readers. Who can be either sitting in a coffee place in Birmingham, or in an internet cafe in Johannesburg.
The blogger helps the sponsors sell their products and services; and in return, he gets paid for doing so. The more traffic the blogger generates, the more he earns.
Recently some of my friends who have joined the blog-and-get-paid bandwagon have attested that they really have earned from such sites, maybe not enough to buy an island (yet), but moolah nonetheless and they are ecstatic. And that was just my cue. I'll be trying out the
Bloggerwave service and yeah, I will let you know when the first dollar drops in the piggy bank.
If you're curious as well, try it.
Filed under
blog,
bloggerwave,
make money
|
