A Philosophical Question, part 2

Hahaha! I forgot to mention last night had non-philosophical question-and-answer periods. Witness the re-edited version (courtesy of ayn):

Last night:

Ayn: Have you had sex with other women?
Me: No.
Ayn: You watch porn flicks?
Me: No.
Ayn: Pag nanunuod ka ng movies, how do you react to the bed scenes?
Me: I just end up thinking, "where's the action?"

Sorry Joey. Sapakan nalang tayo.

I almost fell off my chair with that one!

And yes, I did forget to mention that Ayn brought Trista the babester (in more than one meaning, right Ayn?) to Sarah's. The little tyke kept running around the whole place, sending alcoholic drinkers scattering like bewildered pigeons.

I exaggerate but it was still fun watching her.

Invader Zim is Here!

I want one of these! (You can check this out here.)

A Philosophical Question

*Groan*

As usual, I'm tired, cranky and sleepy again today, courtesy of an all-nighter Thursday. However, this time it was worth it as I got a crash-course on Philosphy.

It started off with me attending my girlfriend's Thursday atheist group-discussion meeting in U.P. after work yesterday. Due to unforseen circumstances, the discussion was called off and the group retired to the drinking place Sarah's as their wont. Midway between the (I think) 2nd round and third round of beers, a debate arose on the essence of a bottle of beer and whether it was 'natural' or 'man-made' (something to do with reductionism and Darwin's evolution).

Naturally, I tried to follow the arguments and when I figured I could ask questions without looking like a fool, I jumped in. The debate raged back and forth until a temporary respite occurred when one of the guys had to take a piss. It was then I wondered aloud what the hell Philosophy is for.

Courtesy of one of the members-- a former U.P. Philosophy teacher-- he told me (now forgive me if I'm getting my facts wrong here) that Philosophy is the Art of Thinking Critically and cited its prevalent use in life, ranging from political philosophy, economic philosophy, so on and so forth.

He likewise noted that Philosophy is the finding the right question, not the right answer. Because of this, he said, Philosophy is about the process of searching for an answer rather than the answer itself. This isn't results-oriented, he pointed out.

He also told me that argumentation is the proper method used in Philosophy and that intellectual masturbation may not be a bad thing. Lastly, he went into the differences between meaning and practicality and how it relates to Philosophy, whether it all is a "waste of time."

Whew! All in all, a heady state of affairs last night.

Of course, I'm still holding firm that Philosophy isn't of practical use although we do get to use it-- like the air we breathe-- when we think (i.e. think critical). But then again as the group says a lot, Perspektib mo lang yan! ("That's only your perspective!").

Who's Your Techno-geek Daddy?

Hah!

If you scroll down the blog page, you'll see on the right side of the screen that I've finally figured out how to put an image on my blog.

I'm so pathetically proud of myself.

And just so I can do it all over again, here's that picture I placed lower down:




The book description of Legends II : New Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy notes:

Fantasy fans, rejoice! Seven years after writer and editor Robert Silverberg made publishing history with Legends, his acclaimed anthology of original short novels by some of the greatest writers in fantasy fiction, the long-awaited second volume is here. Legends II picks up where its illustrious predecessor left off. All of the bestselling writers represented in Legends II return to the special universe of the imagination that its author has made famous throughout the world. Whether set before or after events already recounted elsewhere, whether featuring beloved characters or compelling new creations, these masterful short novels are both mesmerizing stand-alones—perfect introductions to the work of their authors—and indispensable additions to the epics on which they are based. Beyond any doubt, Legends II is the fantasy event of the season.

Overall, it's a good piece of work despite a couple of weak links. Of course, I thought the first
Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy, Vol. 1 set the pace with its set of immensely popular authors-- despite its own weaknesses. Silverberg did himself proud with the two collections.

Shoot Me Now, part 2

Still can't believe that shit.

At least I added some color to my blog now. I was looking at the whole thing and unless I figure out how to add pictures to this place, it will always look preeeettty bare.

Shoot Me Now

You're Anne of Green Gables!

by L.M. Montgomery

Bright, chipper, vivid, but with the emotional fortitude of cottage
cheese, you make quite an impression on everyone you meet. You're impulsive, rash,
honest, and probably don't have a great relationship with your parents. People hurt
your feelings constantly, but your brazen honestly doesn't exactly treat others with
kid gloves. Ultimately, though, you win the hearts and minds of everyone that matters.
You spell your name with an E and you want everyone to know about it.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Aaaarrrrggghhhhh!!!! You have got to be kidding me.

Tells you how much these things are accurate. Chipper? Vivid? What the fuck?

You Know Who You Are

There's this really funny billboard of a brandy ad over East Avenue that a friend mentioned to me several nights ago.

The text goes in big bold letters: Nakatikim ka na ba ng kinse anyos? (Have ever you ever tasted a fifteen year old?)

After getting over the shock of reading that text, you then see that beside the text is an image of a bottle of brandy called Napoleon Quinse, aged 15 years. (If I could, I'd post a picture of that billboard here. Ah well.)

Anyway, the advertisers behind that billboard were probably wacked out of their minds when they came up with this one.

Bread and Circus

This is a little bit old but I found something striking while watching on television last week's demonstrations by supporters of movie star and presidential candidate Fernando Poe, Jr.

As pro-FPJ groups gathered-- or tried to, anyway-- near the Supreme Court where deliberations were being held over the movie icon's Filipino citizenship and his qualifications to run for presidency, FPJ's wife, equally-popular movie actress Susan Roces, came out from Quiapo Church where she had been praying and exhorted the crowd.

Granted, she called on the restless crowd assembled in Plaza Miranda to disperse and go home. However, what particularly struck me was her exhortation seemed straight out of a movie depicting fiery Gabriela Silang of yore leading the Filipino rebels against the Spanish troops.

And considering how publicity-shy the movie star is (now that's an oxymoron!), I suddenly had the thought that maybe the political opposition was already grooming Poe's wife to replace him in case the high tribunal ruled against him.

Ah, I just love this town.

A Rejoinder

Interesting. Courtesy of a link from Bookslut, Alex Good writes in reference to the blogging rules mentioned earlier:


February 24/04: Blogging

In a comment on the Arts Journal Weblog "About Last Night", Terry Teachout (if that is his real name) suggests some rules for the Internet's literary blogs. In particular he would like all bloggers to give credit to other blogsources for borrowed links.

Mr. Teachout is new to the Internet, so he can be forgiven for spouting off about things he doesn't really understand. Just a couple of pointers:

(1) There is no such thing as a "blogosphere", understood as a "community" with "members" and rules. And it's a damn good thing too.

(2) Repeat after me: Blogsources do not have any proprietary right to the stories they link to. Therefore, you cannot "poach" a link.

Goodreports.net is not a blog. I link to a daily news story and I give no credit to anyone for where I got the link (though I do have the names of some sources on the Links page). That's because (a) it's not their story, and (b) I have no interest whatsoever in what's "good for everybody in the blogosphere."


Later on, he cites:


One of the things that impressed me most in 2003 was the continuing development of a real literary culture online. So far the Internet is behaving more like a print medium than like television, which seems to make it especially attractive to writers and readers.

We all know about the shrinking (or disappearing) book review sections in daily newspapers, but I think a lot of that interest is hopping online. And it is making the leap with a style, intelligence, and depth of reporting that the mainstream media gave up on long ago (at least with regard to books). When I go trolling the blogs for book news and commentary I’m amazed at the wealth of material out there. And best of all, the majority of it is refreshingly independent."

What I was happy about, and what I'm still happy about, is the development of a literary culture. That is, the criticism and literary journalism available online that the blogs link to. In turn, a good literary blog, in my opinion, is one that is grounded in actual book stuff. BookSlut is not, primarily, a blog - it is an online literary magazine with reviews, interviews, and essays. The Complete Review's blog, the Literary Saloon, was only launched a couple of years after the Review had been online, publishing in-depth essays, reviews, and book industry reportage. When I go to BookNinja it's not to read the links.

(Emphasis mine) Blogs serve a purpose. But anyone who thinks that it's the links that are important to the growth and development of an online literary culture is spending way too much time studying their traffic reports and not enough time reading books.


What do YOU think?


P.S. Bookslut also didn't like Teachout's rules. Read 'em here.

A Temporary Interruption

Fuck, I can't think straight anymore. Of course, maybe it's because it's 4 o'clock already and I haven't eaten lunch yet.

Pending sustenance, please standby for intelligible posts...

A Word from Neil Gaiman

From Neil Gaiman's blog (you gotta scroll down a bit), he writes an interesting theory that-- despite the absence of snow and owls in this country-- I would like to test:


Last night I went out owling, with a number of people, led by Sharon Stiteler, official bird lady of Neilgaiman.com, just like in Jane Yolen's lovely children's book OWL MOON.

This is what happens when you go owling. You tromp through the deep snow in the darkness, until you're on the edge of the woods. Then you play a CD of owls hooting and wait for a few moments, silently marvelling at the beautiful starry night and the almost magical stillness, at which point drunk people on snowmobiles roar past incredibly noisily.

You wait in silence, holding your breath, until the sound of snowmobiles and the hoarse singing and yells of the snowmobilers has finally died away, and then, in the pregnant, perfect stillness, you play the CD of owls hooting again, and, after a few moments, as if by magic, from nowhere you hear the sound of another bunch of drunk people on snowmobiles coming toward you.

I don't think anyone's done a proper scientific study on the way that recorded owl-calls can summon snowmobilers, but I think it's pretty much magical.


However, wouldn't it be more fun to use the recorded owl-calls as a kind of skeet-shooting?

"Hoo! Hoo!"

Vroom!

BLAM! BLAM!

Ah well...

The Sleeper Awakens

Woohoo! I picked up my pre-ordered book, Leviathan 3: Edited by Forrest Aguirre and Jeff Vandermeer, at Booktopia over the weekend and I am one very happy cat.

Technically, this wasn't pre-ordered since my order wasn't processed by the bookshop. Rather, they gave me the display copy that someone had ordered earlier. But who cares, right?

This anthology of short stories and a short novel by Zoran Zivkovic was printed by a small-press publishing company, Ministry of Whimsy, who're renowned for putting out cutting-edge speculative fiction and contemporary fantastical fiction. They've also won several awards and nominations for their work.

That makes two of three anthologies I'm on the look out for.

The first one, McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, was handled by Michael Chabon, the author of the Pulitzer prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay and the book-turned-movie Wonderboys: A Novel, which starred Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire.

From Publisher's weekly:

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Chabon teams up with the editors of Dave Eggers's McSweeney's magazine to create a fiction anthology with an innovative, simple concept: the stories are driven by adventurous plots and narrative action, in contrast to the current trend toward stories that are "plotless and sparkling with epiphanic dew," as Chabon writes in his introduction.

The roster includes such heavyweights as Michael Crichton, Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, Nick Hornby and Harlan Ellison. As the retro title might suggest, the collection is heavy on sci-fi and detective stories, often updated with contemporary twists.

Crichton offers a detective yarn called "Blood Doesn't Come Out," in which a disgruntled PI takes out his frustration on his wife in a cheeky spin on the domestic violence that punctuates the pulp fiction of Jim Thompson and James A. Cain. Hornby's contribution is an entertaining sci-fi story called "Otherwise Pandemonium," about a man who buys a VCR that fast-forwards into an apocalyptic future.

In Rick Moody's "The Albertine Notes," a debilitating drug called Albertine wreaks havoc by sending users back in time to relive their memories. Dave Eggers's "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly" is a thoughtful story in which a woman climbs Kilimanjaro to bolster her self-confidence after experiencing a personal crisis, but proves oblivious to the deaths of three porters when the weather on the mountain turns ugly.

Half a dozen or so stories are markedly slight, but overall this is a strong collection.

My opinion? Well, the book is a fantastic undertaking: it combines the authors of mainstream fiction, genre fiction and its subset, speculative fiction. And like the intro says, it emphasizes "adventurous plots" and "narrative action" against plotless stories "with epiphanic dew."

However, as stories go, they're not very exciting. Some stories are good, like Michael Moorcock's and Michael Chabon's. But the rest of the storie are only okay, which is a depressing come-down from all the hype it had generated.

That may not be its fault but if you're born a messiah, you better know how to walk on water and turn water to wine, methinks.

Ouch!

Some sobering news indeed. (Courtesy of Reuters and la gringa again.)


Big Black Hole Rips Up Star, Then Eats the Crumbs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A big black hole ripped apart a sun-like star, gobbled a bit of it and flung the rest out into the cosmic neighborhood in an act of celestial gluttony caught by two orbiting observatories, scientists said on Wednesday.

The doomed star probably went off-course and into the supermassive black hole's path after a close encounter with another star, according to astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory.

As the star approached the heart of a galaxy some 700 million light-years from Earth, the black hole lurking there stretched the star and ultimately tore it into bits. A light-year is about 6 trillion miles, the distance light travels in a year.

"Stars can survive being stretched a small amount ... but this star was stretched beyond its breaking point," said Stefanie Komossa, leader of the international team of researchers who detected the event.

"This unlucky star just wandered into the wrong neighborhood," Komossa said in a statement.

Aside from the sheer violence of the event, astronomers believe this is strong evidence to support a long-held theory that black holes are capable of pulling in cosmic bodies, stretching them until they break and then consuming them.

"This is one of the Holy Grails of astronomy," Alex Filippenko, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley, said at a briefing at NASA headquarters.




Geez. That must have been one particularly bad neighborhood!

Pardon Me if I Don't Stand Close to You...

I've read this before but it seems that this keeps happening. Courtesy of BBC and la gringa, here's the low-down on the risks you run playing a certain Nazarene without running it past the Big Guy Upstairs first:


Jesus actor struck by lightning

Actor Jim Caviezel has been struck by lightning while playing Jesus in Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion Of Christ.

The lightning bolt hit Caviezel and the film's assistant director Jan Michelini while they were filming in a remote location a few hours from Rome.

It was the second time Michelini had been hit by lightning during the shoot.

Neither of them was badly hurt, according to the film's producer Steve McEveety.

Michelini had previously been struck during filming in Matera, Italy, when he suffered light burns to his fingers after lightning hit his umbrella.

Describing the second lightning strike, McEveety told VLife, a supplement of the trade paper Variety: "I'm about a hundred feet away from them when I glance over and see smoke coming out of Caviezel's ears."

The Passion Of Christ, which was filmed in the ancient languages of Latin and Aramaic, is directed and co-written by actor Mel Gibson and focuses on the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus.

Although it is not due for release until early next year, it has already hit headlines after Jewish figures in the United States slated it for being "dangerous" and portraying Jews in a negative way.

Originally titled The Passion, the film changed its title last week after Miramax claimed the rights to the title for one of its own projects, a historical epic based on a Jeanette Winterson novel.

The film now looks set to be released in the States by independent distributors Newmarket Films, who released Memento and Whale Rider in the US.


I suppose Mel Gibson can spring a couple hundred bucks for a lightning rod on the set to be on the safe side...

Weather Report, part 2

(Subtitled: "How I learned to stop breathing and sleep it off")

Well, the day is complete. The incurring rain has set off my sniffle factor and now, I'm breathing somewhat like a snuffling dog. I exaggerate, of course, but you get cranky too if you take a nap and wake up to find you have a sore throat because your nasal passages are blocked.

And as usual, my sleep-sensor in my brain went on schedule and I was rendered senseless for 30 minutes past noon at the office. I cannot stop it. Coffee is useless as likewise eating something. It is inevitable.

If I were to detail my working days, it would go like this:

1. Get to the office around 10.
2. Work like hell to beat my 11 o'clock deadine.
3. Ensure there's something new on the newsflash section.
3. Check websites. Write something interesting in this bloody blog.
4. Make coffee.
5. Tape the lunch break news for the day.
6. Fall asleep helpless due to the bone-chilling cold. Or if the airconditioning unit is conked out, in the sweltering heat.
7. Wake up and work like hell to fill up the newsflash section again.
(Repeat as much as you like.)
8. Eat lunch before going home at 6.

Don't you love the professional life?

Weather Report

I feel off today. Maybe it's the weather-- dark, overcast with patches of heavy sunshine.

I actually feel like one of those meteorological instruments used by weather agencies to check pressure and temperature. Everytime the weather changes and the pressure drops (or goes up), my sinuses turn on the screws in my head and its pain-killer time. Cold, hot, rainy, blaringly sunny-- I can feel it all in my head.

I can even feel the seasons turn-- from the past cold season to the upcoming summer.

While driving to work last week, I had the window open and I could feel the sunshine on my pants leg burning through the jeans material and onto my skin. Crap. Summer is really on its way and it looks like a hot one, folks...

A Nest of Paradoxes

See Selena? I can do honesty.

This whole blog make-over reminds me of an early conversation with Selena (which she later brought up in her own blog) about the need to write and the battle of honesty and anonymity in a phenomenon such as a blog. Now, granted I may have already fuzzed things in my memory such that this may not have occurred, but I do know for sure my own struggle to define what my blog is supposed to do and what limits I should set for myself.

I remember trying to discern the varied definitions of the blog-- a pseudo-paradoxical diary or a mastubatory experience of the worst kind? I remember searching for the reasons why people blog and hoping to find my own in such an effort. And I remember the questions:

Should I hide behind the masks of nom de guerres or nom de plumes while writing in this semi-kinda-sorta journal? Do I dare flash the true nature of my personality to unsuspecting internet passersby while delivering juicy-- yet ultimately boring-- accounts of my life and my fiction? Do you (or I) even care about what happens in my blog? Does it matter? Is there life on Mars?

Hrmmm... got carried away there for a moment.

Thankfully, it seems like I'm not the only one confused by the paradoxes swarming over this thing called blog. In his weblog, published author John Shirley comments that:


Another paradox is that this is a kind of log, in which I write about what's on my mind that day, or things I experienced, and yet I can't really talk about what's on my mind. It's too personal--sometimes yes I talk about personal issues but this one involves someone else in my family who, it seems to me, is in deep trouble, and if I talk about it I'll be exposing them in public, and, well, it'd just generally constitute a Bad Thing. But my heart is burdened with it. I have to "let someone go" and it's very painful.

If I were to get into it here, it would be an exercise in self indulgence--or it would seem that way. WHo wants to go to a blog and hear some guy sighing about something sad in his life? All I can do is just express distress in this way, just like putting out a flag that says DISTRESS on it, without expecting any response, without being able to enlarge on it. If someone responds to the flag like a Coast Guardsman to a distress signal, I'll only shake my head and say, "That's all I can say about it. The flag. Distress."

This blog already is only borderline entertaining. Blogs are not made for soul searching in public. People should have the good taste not to whine pointlessly in public. And the public mostly surfs the internet, when they're not researching some project, for entertainment. The internet seems designed for attenuated attention spans, and I'm as bad as anyone else in that regard.


Another account from Terry Teachout at Arts Journal gave some interesting points about blogging. Read it and see which ones hit the nail on the head and which ones are way off-base for yourself:


TT: Notes on blogging

1. It’s almost impossible to explain what a blog is to someone who’s never seen one. That's the mark of a true innovation.

2. I know very few people over fifty, and scarcely any over sixty, who "get" blogging.

3. Blogs without links aren’t blogs. Blogs without blogrolls aren’t blogs. Blogs without mailboxes aren’t blogs.

4. The blogosphere is a pure market—but one in which no money changes hands. If you can afford the bandwidth and your ego is strong enough, it doesn’t matter whether anybody wants to read what you have to say. But the more you care about how many people are reading your blog, the more your blogging will be shaped by their approval, whether you get paid or not.

5. Politicians and celebrities rarely make good bloggers. They’re not interested enough in what other people are thinking.

6. Blogging puts professionals and amateurs on an even footing. That’s why so many professional writers dislike and distrust it.

7. The whole point of a blog is that its author controls its content. That’s why no major newspaper will ever be successful at running in-house blogs: the editors won’t allow it. The smart ones will encourage their best writers to blog on their own time—and at their own risk. The dumb ones will refuse to let any of their writers blog, on or off the job.

8. For now, blogs presuppose the existence of the print media. That will probably always be the case—but over time, the print media will become increasingly less important to the blogosphere.

9. Within a decade, blogs will replace op-ed pages.

10. Blogs will be to the 21st century what little magazines were to the 20th century. Their influence will be disproportionate to their circulation.

11. Blogs are what online magazines were supposed to be.

12. Art blogging will never be as popular as war blogging. More people care about politics than the arts.

13. Blogging is inherently undemocratic in one important way: it privileges literacy. Like e-mail, it is dividing the world into two unequal classes: people who feel comfortable expressing themselves through the written word and people who don’t.

14. If you want to be noticed, you have to blog every day.

15. An impersonal blog is a contradiction in terms.


On a personal matter... hey Selena, I love what you've done on your links section! (Don't be a stranger, eh?)

Summon me and know sorrow

And what was I reading the whole night?

'Twas Stormwarden by Janny Wurts, the first book of the Cycle of Fire.

Here's the back copy:

"Written in the records at Vaere is the tale of the binding of the Mharg-demons by Anskiere, wizard of wind and wave. Anskiere was aided in this task by Ivain, master of fire and earth, for the skills of a single sorcerer were not enough against so formidable a foe.

It is further recorded that at the moment of greatest peril, Ivain betrayed his companion out of jealousy. Nonetheless the demons were defeated, the wards sealed, and Anskiere survived to swear a powerful oath against his betrayer. So potent was the magic in the words spoken by Anskiere that sailors who have visited the site claim the winds there repeat them to this day:

'Your offence against me is pardoned but not forgotten. This geas I lay upon you; should I call, you, Ivain, shall answer, and complete a deed of my choice, even to the end of your days. And should you die, my will shall pass to your eldest son, and to his son's sons after him, until the debt is paid...' "

Wurts actually mixes light doses of science-fiction with fantasy in this trilogy of books, which turned me off when I first read the second book Keeper of the Keys. However, I relented after I discovered-- and enjoyed-- her other books, which were straight-and-straight fantasy.

Besides, I found this one at the bargain shelves of Booksale. At less than a hundred bucks, I'm not complaining...

(And I finished it, too.)

Zombie

I'm damn sleepy.

This is what I get for staying out late last night and coming in around 4 a.m. I guess I'm not that young anymore if I really have to have 6-7 hours of sleep every night.

Lemme see... I ran a few errands in Robinson Galleria after leaving the office and I dropped by the Podium to checked out Ink and Stone bookshop to see what's new. Joy of joys, they had Legends II: New Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy. (Drat, I tried to load a picture of the book here but I can't seem to figure out how to do it. Hmmm...)

Anyway, I then proceeded to Starbucks Katipunan to read and wait for my SO, who had her regular Thursday meeting. Around 12-ish, I finally got the call and headed on down to Sarah's, the perennial drinking place of U.P. students. Surprising for me since I hadn't been there for quite some time, there had been renovations made at that place-- including a small fountain in the middle. (What the fuck?)

Mind you, the renovations weren't half-bad. But considering that Sarah's is just a house transformed (barely) into an open-air beer garden and whose only claim to fame is that U.P. students dearly love their cheap beer, this was a big step up. (This despite a city ordinance forbidding places that serve alcoholic drinks so-and-so meters from a school. I hear Sarah's is a regular phoenix too, enduring several no-serving-of-beer-anymore periods but always rising up from the ashes. That and U.P. students can't bear being without their beer.)

But my main gripe was their men's bathroom. Basically, the men's bathroom at Sarah's was a small toilet bowl set flush (no pun intended) to the bare cement floor with corresponding concrete walls surrounding the fixture. The place stank to high heavens since the toilet bowl didn't even have a water cabinet to flush-- it was just a bucket-of-water system in that place. (You would not want to touch the toilet bowl rim. It was that bad.)

Now, after the renovation, the toilet bowl is still there sans water cabinet. But now the bare concrete wall and floors have nice, generic flesh-colored tiles.

Good grief! Where did that come from?

The Grand Entrance

As the age-old, oft-repeated question goes... what's with the new look?

Well, I was getting bored-- and boring-- with the blog.

Let's face it, I really didn't have much to say considering how limited my topics were on the blog. I wanted to use this blog to get a little writing exercise (i.e. force myself to write) but writing about writing and reading doesn't really hold a candle to the actual activity.

So I figured, I might as well write about other stuff.

The way I see it, I'm in a unique position where I am. Despite my being stuck 9 hours in an office, I'm rather well-informed of the world both inside and outside the internet. With my network access and position as online news editor, I have a pretty good view of what's happening outside my office without my stepping a foot in that direction. You want to talk about the issue of FPJ's citizenship? The upcoming May national circus-- er, elections? The spread of the avian virus? The Friendster phenomenon? The question of whether Kris Aquino should allow Joey Marquez a handle on her son, Josh? I probably have a good idea about it.

Besides, it's a dangerous world outside. Why would I want to leave my air-conditioned office for that? Ugh.

A Cheery Look at Parenting

As my opener for this blog, here's a little something to drive up your laugh quotient for the day. Especially for those with kids.

I pity his kid. Granted, I'm laughing so hard but I still pity his kid.

(Courtesy of the Bookslut.)

A Soft Opening

Well, as you may have noticed, I've gotten myself a new look.

Not just a new title, but a new blog complete with template (with a few little tweaks here and there).

A little more polish and I'll be open for business...

Testing...