Man On A Street

A friend tells me how he went drinking with a buddy who guards a vacant lot owned by Cebu's Aznar family—it had a lot of trees. It was almost dusk—for pulutan they shot down a fruit bat off the trees. This one had a baby clinging to it. They ripped the baby off the dead mother and it screamed and screamed this high-pitched scream until they too added it to the menu. [It's heartbreaking how phone cams allow one to easily create snuff films]. You're lucky, Stellaluna. Tastes like chicken—a very bony chicken. People often say exotic meats taste like chicken—monitor lizard, python, frogs . . . (so why don't they just get a f@#^ng chicken and have done with it?). And why hunt at all? There's better food at the market. You can always get a burger —predator's prerogative my @##—predators kill out of necessity, not for fun. It's hardly a sport—flushing out and killing unsuspecting animals just for the heck of it is not sporting—give the game a gun and let them skin...

"I would rather be hated for what I am than loved for what I am not." ~André Gide The author appears to know the problem but still needs time to work on the real solution. Advice: You do seem to know you're obnoxious (and that's good because knowing the problem is half the solution). But if you say you don't want to be plastic about it, then, for once, can't you try to be really—actually—uhm—lovable? That would make the world a better, safer place. No, the world does not really hate you—it doesn't have the time. How can one truly hate/love what one doesn't truly know? The world just does not love you. It saves time. The real opposite of love is fear. One fears what one does not understand. More blood has been shed because of fear than because of hate. Strike now, sort out later—that's been the way for many. Real hate should be reserved for the incorrigible. If you are one, then consider the hate well deserved. My real enemies—and my real friends—ar...

I like Joe Talisic's design for the Proudly Pinoy logo: It bested 297 other entries. I've always thought the best symbol linking these islands is the sea -- and the gem of the seas would be a pearl or a shell -- like the Department of tourism logo I agree with their jab at the London Olympics 2012 logo ("it's not a logo, it's a brand" my @$$): "really really awful." July 4 is almost here. Happy Independence Day (from America) Philippines! Edit Feb 17, 2010: The proudly pinoy website has been inaccessible for some time.

Don't go gentle . . . I am fascinated by the fact that human beings laugh; they are the only animals to do so. They are also the only ones who know they are going to die. ~Umberto Eco (in an interview by James Runcie, 1989) And don't forget tears: Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they might have been. ~William Hazlitt

Mall-day—just strolled around—oohs and aahs in the appliances section—large LCD tv screens with high-definition demos. Something's wrong with movies shown on HD—very very clear but the "movie-like" quality is lost. It's as if i'm watching "The Making" and not the movie itself—movements are fast, fluid and everything but i feel like watching the shooting, not the movie itself . . . the 'believability' (suspension of disbelief [?]) is gone. I can imagine HD would be fantastic on many documentaries . . . but on movies? Falls flat. A movie, like any good work of art, relies on the creative participation of the viewer's mind. Too much definition leaves nothing for the imagination. HD is to movies as politically correct is to language—it kills the flavor of the thing. Charles Bukowski sez: "An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way." HD in movies is t...

"As with most fine things, chocolate has its season.  There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate." -- Sandra Boynton, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion" (Brought to you by Fortune command line program, samples here .)

Keep It Simple S__[nsert the rest of favorite 's-word' here]! Today I just remembered a really big word -- ' discombobulate ' -- and found out its real definition -- exactly the opposite of what i always thought it was. I often thought 'discombobulate' meant to clarify, make less confusing, organize. Just the very opposite -- it means "to confuse". I dunno -- 'combobulated' sounds like a very confused situation to me -- so to discombobulate -- at least to me -- meant to take the 'combobulation' out of your life and make it simpler haha. Words sounding like what they mean are called onomatopoeia -- i don't know the antonym -- words sounding the very opposite of what they mean -- it's like, the word for 'whisper' is 'bang!' I know there's a word for them -- diplomats and politicians use them all the time . . . " Bhangbhangduc "!

"All art aspires to the condition of music." ~Walter Pater

One of my housemates (and two of my teammates) just returned from a five-day escapade to Palawan. As presents, she gave us fish-shaped wooden keychains and a bag of tarts. Thanks. Yep, i've tasted ones from Davao, Bacolod, Baybay . . . almost as if . . . whenever a place campaigns to make itself a tourist haven, its native delicacies invariably get supplemented by tarts. . . . I meant the food.

"An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way." -- Charles Bukowski, "Notes of a Dirty Old Man"

Noted down two years ago: "If you're going to be sarcastic, it helps not to put your foot in your mouth. And if you're going to be snobbish, it helps to know at least the basics about what you're being stuck-up about." -- Guppy06 diwancioNO@SPAMearthlink.net

In Nobeoka City (Miyazaki Prefecture), old women shamans are called Totoro no Babayan . In ancient Philippines, priestesses/women shamans (and when these were in short supply, their male crossdressing substitutes) were called Babaylan .

Some people need to cling to their illusions more than others...

I'm still at the beginning of Akira Kurosawa's 1990 movie 'Dreams' (Yume). First episode. Rain falls while the sun is shining brightly. Mother tell's child: "You must stay home because in this weather, the foxes (kitsune) hold their wedding processions and will be very angry if anyone sees them..." When we were children, we were also told that in this kind of weather, the tikbalang (supernatural beings with human bodies, horse heads) hold their weddings. In some places, they say when the sun is shining and it's raining, the Devil is beating his wife. The belief in sunshowers being associated with the wedding of supernatural beings is too common to be a coincidence... But there's one belief linked to sunshowers that i'd like to be true: sunshowers are favorable for growing mushrooms... ;)

Commuter -- sitting across me in the public utility jeepney: "His backpack is The North Face while his own face is going south." Yin-Yang.

In title-making, make sure da optical distance between curved edges of letters is smaller than dat between parallel edges -- in dis case, between 'o' and 'd' vs between 'd' and 'i'. 'Foo Die,' / f u'd aɪ / in my native Waray language sounds like coño.

[For those viewing my Friendster blog:] My Facebook account is feeding off this blog. Now i'm feeding off a Facebook note . And Facebook will feed on it too ( Ouroboros -- the Celestial Serpent , feeding on its own tail -- talk about wormholes, hehe). So I won't post the whole note -- or Facebook will post the whole thing when it already has one. To read the note, just click on this link. ;) [If you're already on the Facebook notes page, just read the previous note.]

Anti-Cyber Boso Bill (House Bill No. 4315) is dangerously close to being approved as a law by the Philippine Congress. This will make it a crime to "video tape, disc record," [an 'indecent' act] or "replay" or "share, relay or exhibit the contents thereof in any form" or to simply possess any of these -- with up to six years imprisonment and Php 500,00.00 in fines. Oh, and anybody can sue the alleged culprit when this bill becomes law. Anybody can sue me if i use my cellphone to make a video of my dick. [On second thought, better make one and more than that before i lose my right to do so.] Ow gawd -- so people are allowed to make any home movie -- just don't make a home movie of you making love, or any act perceived as indecent by -- ok, who defines what's decent and what is not? The real test of decency is not clothes (or lack thereof) but motives. The office of BUHAY (LIFE)  Party List Representative Irwin Tieng, author of the bill, is...

"Each of us bears his own Hell." -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) via da Fortune command on the Linux command line hehe -- and when i typed 'fortune' again, i got this: Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie. Very profound.

"You're not an asset to the company." — often heard from asses to the company. Why settle for shampoo? Demand real poo!

Fortunate is one who has found work he loves, and is well paid for it. But in this less than perfect world, love is often paid with ingratitude....

On the high wall, back of my current apartment (Cebu City), grows a little Bo fig -- Ficus religiosa -- the sacred fig -- said to be the tree under which the Buddha achieved enlightenment. [caption id="attachment_215" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="The little Bo fig at the back of my apartment"] [/caption] I don't know if anyone else has reported the connection, but i think the Bo balete is the tree that best represents Cebu. I noticed it was everywhere when i first came to Cebu city-- mostly on walls and unkempt areas -- warehouses, old residences, thriving on the city's limey soil. In Visayan, Cebu is Sugbo. While others may argue the term came from something that has to do with "current" -- as in "sinulog" , i find it more convenient to "see bo" in sug-bo. Others, no doubt have noticed this connection -- and have, in their own way, found ways to express it. I once saw a bo tree being grown as a d...