Good News and Bad News

I got very sad upon reading the news the other day, and learning that if we don't change the way we treat our marine life, there will be no wild fish left to eat in the whole world in 50 years. 50 years!! I'll still be alive by then, and there'll be nothing left for me to eat! I'll be ancient AND hungry! Seriously though, that's pretty depressing news. The Philippines in particular has (or used to have) such great marine biodiversity, but with overfishing, dynamite fishing, and the like, it's all disappearing very quickly.

On the plus side, (former) Pastor Ted Haggard who headed the National Association of Evangelicals has admitted to "sexual immorality" and was booted out by his religious group. How is this good news, you ask? Well, in the sense that hypocrisy has been unmasked, that's how. His earlier admission that he bought methamphetamine but did use it; then, that he hired a gay prostitute but only got a massage was just ridiculous. Not to mention that he was vocally against gay marriage even as he was paying for gay sex.

It seems the prostitute/escort, who was named Mike Jones, went public with the allegations that Haggard had transactional sex with him because the leader has supported a measure that would ban gay marriage. Jones said he was also angry that Haggard condemned gay sex in public.

Who would have thought a prostitute would have more balls to stand for his beliefs than a national religious leader? (Then again, with other developments in the news about religious figures, that may not come as too much of a surprise anymore.)

Going Crazy from School Work

This is going to be a brief entry to state that the load this semester is just crazy! For some strange reason, I thought I would coast along this semester. Well, apparently I was misinformed. I'm just dragging myself from week to week trying to remember when papers or projects are due, then inevitably cramming to meet the deadline. This is one time when I wish I had made time management a priority as far as developing skills is concerned. (right now my amazing ability to remember people's birthdays is not very helpful.)

Don't get me wrong; I'm not exactly lamenting my lot in life. I would still rather be spending sleepless nights trying to stretch my five-page paper into one that's 15 pages long, than holding a staff meeting in the office. Life is still pretty good; I just have to remind myself of this whenever I start to lose hope of turning in a paper on time and feel like pulling all of my hair out.

When Fashion Gets Ridiculous

I'm going to be totally shallow here, and do some uncharacteristic ranting about fashion. Some friends of mine have heard my take on this matter, and since they're sick of hearing me talk about it, I had to find another place to vent.

A few months ago, all the women's magazines and fashion experts announced that the new trend that was going to take the world by storm was skinny pants, and leggings. I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. LEGGINGS! SKINNY PANTS! Suddenly, I was barraged by images from fashions past- visions of supertight stretch "baston" jeans with side zippers, as well as women in leggings outlining each and every sordid detail of their saddlebag thighs (mine included). There's a VERY good reason those went out of style years and years ago. They make women look short! They're unflattering! They're downright UGLY. Next to oversized shoulder pads, these were fashion mistakes that never should have been committed again.

Sure, Hollywood stars can carry them well. Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie, Mischa Barton, all look fabulous in them. Then again, they all probably weigh 80 pounds apiece, and they'd probably look good EVEN in oversized shoulder pads. The point is, skinny jeans (and leggings) are only meant to be worn by SKINNY people. Which means, only about twelve people in the whole world can pull them off with panache.

Call me envious, call me bitter. I just hate how fashion experts are saying that bootleg jeans (which are universally flattering) are OUT, and these silly skinny pants and leggings are in. Of course, I also know they're trying to make more money since women have been hanging on to their figure-flattering bootlegs for dear life, and haven't done as much shopping in the past few years as they usually have. But come ON! Women finally find something that looks good on almost everyone, and there you are trying to convince them they'd be better off wearing something that makes their legs look like sausages.

On the plus side, this trend has been around for a few months now, and I'm glad to report that women have not embraced it blindly. I've only seen a few trend followers actually wearing these things, and thankfully, it's usually because they're one of the twelve people who actually look good in them. It's nice to see that women are no longer total slaves to fashion, and that some of us have actually realized that some trends are just not for everyone. I for one will wear my bootleg pants till kingdom come.

Myheritage.com

There's a website that Caye told me about called myheritage.com, and among other things, it tells you which celebrities you (supposedly) look like. You upload a picture of your face, then the site scans it to see which among the celebrities in their database you look like the most. The site suggests uploading several pictures of yourself to see which celebrities come up the most consistently.

Now, this CAN be an ego-boosting exercise, since the celebrities in their database are all goodlooking. So it's very likely that your match will be a lot more gorgeous than you actually are. However, be warned that their face-matching program does not take into account your gender. So, some of your matches might be members of the opposite sex. If you're a woman and you are told that you look like Wesley Snipes, this is not likely to be flattering. So if you have a fragile ego, take heed.

Here is an example of the results that I got. You can safely assume I did not choose the one that said I looked like some dude.

Crazy About Gadgets

I can't believe that my gadget-lust has been reactivated after being dormant for quite some time by Apple's latest offering. When Apple came out with its laptop, the MacBook Pro, I was able to resist buying one for myself (admittedly, the fact that its cost was way beyond my card's credit limit may have played a bigger role in this than any prudence on my part).

But this new iPod Shuffle, which Apple touts as the smallest mp3 player in the world, is making the consumer in me positively salivate with covetousness. It's just so small and sleek, and at $79 (probably a little less with my student discount) for 1 GB of space, enough for 240 songs, it seems like such a bargain. I don't even care what the reviews may be. It just looks so... cool. (OK, I'm shallow.) Well, I COULD use my current iPod shuffle as a flash drive to put my school files in and justify the purchase. After all, if my old shuffle is being used for academic purposes, then I'm left with no choice but to buy the new one, right? RIGHT?

The Dirty Restaurant

Here's a story I forgot to post while on my summer break.

One of my favorite restaurants in Southern California is a Thai restaurant which we fondly refer to as "The Dirty Restaurant". Aidan was the one who baptized the place as such. Since they say children never lie, and most kids also have lower standards of hygiene, you can imagine that it is not the kind of place that the private investigator also known as "The Monk" could abide.

Whenever we eat there, we have to wipe the glass table top with a napkin, which always comes up black with grime and dust. This does not diminish our appetites at all. In fact, we always end up eating more than our stomachs were naturally born to bear. But... I am not here to talk about the food. (If you want to know more about that though, you can check out my food blog.)

One other attraction this restaurant holds for us (that could also be called dirty, in a sense...) is a rather indecent pen holder that the owner/manager of the place uses. As this picture shows, it is a woman lying on her back, and you insert the pen in her (you guessed it!)... crotch. Classy! We've noticed this pen holder for quite some time, and I decided to take a picture of it during my last visit.

There were no other people when we went there for lunch, so that was perfect. I didn't want to be obvious about my mission, because I didn't want the restaurant staff to be offended that I was taking a picture of their prized possession for fun. (I also didn't want them to think I wanted to order a similar pen holder through the Internet with the help of a photo). So I waited for our waitress to go to the kitchen and tell them about the food we ordered, before sneaking to the counter where the pen holder lay. I turned off the flash of my camera, because the light might call their attention to what I was doing.

I managed to take a couple of pictures, but then I realized that there was no pen in the holder. My daring increased as I successfully took more pictures without being spotted. Since I wanted my pictures to communicate exactly what this woman was for, I wanted to take a picture of the holder with a pen in it. So I scrounged around the counter for a pen which would do the trick. "Another lucky break!", I thought, as I found one. So I stuck the pen in the... ummm... holder, to make the photo op perfect.

And that's when my mission went awry. The pen wouldn't go all the way in, and kept falling off. Well, that just wouldn't do for my picture. So, I pushed the pen in harder. This time, the pen DID stay in place. However, this also resulted in the woman moving her head in rapture, and saying (quite loudly for a pen holder) "Ohhhhh.... Feels so good! Do it again!" Apparently, the woman says (moans?) different things when pushed to bear a pen.

Since there were no other people in the restaurant, the woman's pronouncements were heard loud and clear, all the way to the kitchen. The owner (looking just a little peeved) soon enough came out to the counter and took away the pen holder. He probably didn't like us playing with his little toy. We may never get a glimpse of the amazing orgasmic pen holder again. It's a good thing then that I was able to photograph it for posterity.

Gil's Romantic Story about His Wife

I've left lovely Cali and its perfect weather and am back in good ol' Columbia, Missouri and its horrid humidity. It was raining so hard in Missouri the day I flew back, that I felt like I was back in the Philippines. Then when I opened the door to my apartment, the hot stale air blasted out of it, and it really felt like I had opened an oven door. Aside from the horrible weather and missing Kuya, Liz, and Aidan (as well as the great food over there), it's been good to be back and be with my school friends.

Today was the first day of school, and it brought me back to when I first got here. I remembered one of the first people I met here in Mizzou (my school's nickname), the very interesting Gil. As I have mentioned, he is already back home since his degree took only a year to complete. Here is another one of his stories which I just recently remembered (KB, this one's for you).

One day, I was asking him about his family in Ormoc. He was having a hard time adjusting to student life in the US, because he sorely missed his wife and kids.

Gil: My wife is a wonderful woman. She has a very strong personality, and she's a good mother.

Me: It's great that you feel that way about your wife, even after being married so long (a little less than 20 years).

Gil: Did you know that my mother dreamt about my wife long before I even met her?

Me: (Thinking that it was one of the most romantic things I had ever heard)
Wow, that's amazing! So when you brought her to meet your mother, she told you that she was the woman in her dream, and that she was THE ONE?

Gil: Actually the moment I met her, I already knew for myself.

Me: Aww, that's so sweet.

Gil: The moment I laid my eyes on here, I knew she was going to be my wife. You see, my mother said that she dreamt that I would marry a woman with a moonface.

Me: Oh.