Friday, December 29, 2006

at night, flowers of corals bloom

At night, flowers of corals bloom orange and yellow--
branches of underwater cherry blossoms, heavy and ripe.
Soft sponges of tangerine and grape juice pad the walls
while their pulp carpets the low stair steps
that climb down deep from the sky.
Lionfish spread their gossamer tendrils
and take flight on their vermilion wings, mane aflame.
Thousands of eyes, more than their sisters in heaven,
shine light back and keep an unblinking watch over the evening.
Bright red fish with gashes of iridescent warpaint
that shout glances in insult throughout the day
sink like weary children into beds of anemones, at its end.
Feather stars languidly stretch their arms and curl back,
daintily skip home over oiled staghorns and antlers.
Spanish dancers that whirl their skirts in tempo
to the percussion fish beat on the reef,
slow down to bow and curtsy,
as the hush spreads over like a blanket.

At the heart of the sea
lies a little boy
who slumbers with his fists fast against his cheek
whose breath pulls the tide in
whose every sigh rushes it back to the shore
inexorably
again and again
until the dawn.




Bohol, 29 December 06

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Meanwhile, Outside Manila

Tagaytay
"Should I stand outside the church and stand guard in case a group of assassins arrives?" Junior asked Daniel and Gay, just before the wedding started, referencing Kill Bill 2. The running joke was that church looked like it oughta be in the middle of tumbleweeds, dusty wind and Mexico. Eric, the best man and who'd never been to Asia (much less the Philippines) before, didn't get the joke and asked me ten minutes later: "Uhhh, does this kind of thing happen a lot here?"

Ah well. Welcome to the Philippines. Where all sorts of unimaginable things are plausible.

Anyway. The wedding and our stay in Tagaytay was somekindofwonderful.

Sonya's Garden was simply amazing. This place is tucked away in Tagaytay, run by a former civil servant who found her calling in creating this space. It is a flower garden, with a bed-and-breakfast, a bakery, small store, arboretum and spa. Flora you'd never seen before, with the prettiest large and small butterflies flittting through it.



Images courtesy of clutteredthoughts

I couldn't get the geography in my head right, but it is full of winding trails with hammocks, day beds and little nooks at random corners. The cool winds above Manila run through bamboo, metal and glass chimes scattered throughout the property. Each cottage and room is an eclectic but lovely mix of wood, colored/stained glass and fabric; with Filipino-Spanish architectural and interior design influences drawing furniture and artifacts from all over the region. The showers are in airy rooms with white cotton curtains and over a pebble and loam ground that soaks the run-off into itself. The food is hearty and the salads are crafted from home grown plants and spices.

Bohol
Currently in Bohol. The hotel has wireless access for free in the lobby, wouldn't ya know. Three sets of honeymooners and a baby. No thoughts, just diving. Hoping to reach the stage where I just close my eyes, or dream, and I'm still plumbing the depths of the deep blue. I miss diving in Tioman, where I knew the lay of the land (or in this case, the sea) pretty well and where my best memories of diving remain. Sitting on the deck of Roger's Wreck with Junior, watching schools of fish wend their way over and above us. The night we tried to establish first contact with a couple of octopi (I was still under the magical influence of the book, Secrets of the Underwater World). The manta ray that swam with us until we finally ran out of air.

Things of note we've seen so far over the past couple of days (unfortunately, am not diving with a camera so will just steal shots from others to approximate).


Black frog fish. Almost didn't see it. It was as black as a singularity. I could only tell that it was alive when it opened its maw and shone its tiny, brilliant white pebble-like teeth.


Dragon fish. Seeing them made me want to draw dragons again, like I did the summer before highschool.


School of barracuda. Hundreds upon hundreds passed within three or four feet of us. I tried to ask them for directions to Sydney but was ignored.

Friday, December 22, 2006

Have TV, Will Travel

Makati
The trip to the Philippines so far has been about lounging at the Shang, taking care of Gabby, stealing time+space for cigarettes, and getting ready for my sister Gay's wedding. And killing my brain with iPod+TV.

Be warned, here there be spoiler alerts.
1. Who guest stars in "Veronica Mars" Season 3? A bunch of familiar faces. Ed Begeley, the guy who plays Maxwell Sheffield on "The Nanny". But the only comparable cameo to Joss Whedon in Season 2 was Laura San Giacomo, picking it up with Enrico Colantoni where "Just Shoot Me" left off. Oh, and the word "frack" makes an appearance in episodes 2 and 3.

2. Where does BSG leave us mid-season? "Unfinished Business" was excellently scripted and shot, but the morning after? Lee and Kara frack it up again. No big surprise there.

3. I've discovered that the Cartoon Network in Manila is way cooler than the kiddified, sanitized version we get in Singapore. Adult Swim rules! So far, I've caught Aqua Team Hunger Force and Sealab 2021. Hee-larious.

4. Bones! Brennan's finally re-united with her family, only to be left behind again. And her father is one scary SOB. But he loves her. So that works.

5. As for Voyager: Seven of Nine finally makes an appearance! But, more importantly, Season 3's cliffhanger with Species 8472 is concluded and Kes finally kicks ass! But why lose Kes, I wonder? If they wanted to bump off a cast member to accommodate the Borg chick, why not get rid of Neelix? He annoys people--and who wants to be reminded that Kes actually had sex with that guy? Shudder.

Related to my sudden acquisition of Voyager seasons 1 through 7 is a little trip to Greenhills. After scouring what used to be the marketplace for pirated DVDs for a couple of hours, Jr and I (with Gabby in tow) gave up, dejected. Well, I was dejected. Due to recent raids on the swashbuckling Freedom of Information Fighters, nobody would help me find them. Irony of ironies, 15 seconds after we started waiting for our ride to pick us up, a shady character sidled up to Jr and asked him if he was interested in porn. I asked him if he had Star Trek Voyager instead. We were led away from the clean, well-lighted place to sordid alleys colored in urine and littered with construction-site rubble. We were led through narrow paths past unmarked doorways, into a room with a whole passel of dubious characters, purveying gems like 6 Feet Under, Queer as Folk, Deep Space Nine and so on. For better or worse, we only had enough cash for Voyager. The others will just have to wait.



I realize my brain is dribbling out of my ears

Thursday, December 07, 2006

the most recent end of romance in this world

Good idea: seranaded in bed by my husband
Bad idea: he sang "Sit on My Face" by Monty Python

"Sit on my face, and tell me that you love me
I'll sit on your face and tell you I love you, too
I love to hear you ORALIZE
When I'm between your thighs
You blow me away

Sit on my face and let my lips embrace you
I'll sit on your face and THEN I'LL LOVE YOU TRULY
Life can be fine if we both sixty-nine
IF WE sit on our faces in all sorts of places and play
'Till we're blown away"


Need I say more?

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Amsterdam

After a few days in Brussels for work (1), I took the 20-minute flight to Amsterdam for a couple of days. I'd never been to Amsterdam before but had always wanted to visit.

Walking through the streets past the canals, I think of you and wonder whether I step over the paths that you took over ten years ago. Beneath the smoggy stars above us, we dreamed of sailing here together. You were supposed to show me where you learned to blow glass, in a tiny room in one of these beautifully bricked buildings with their slanty attic rooms. This dream was one of many touchstones that allowed me to keep the faith, so many years ago.

So here I am. Where are you?


Walking around Amsterdam puts one in a perpetual state of arousal. Not so much due to the big-breasted, dead-eyed women in the windows of the kitschy red light district; but more due to the inordinately dense, transient population of potheads and others of altered mental states.

Thank goodness I was here with Aki.



Alone today, my last before going home, I walked through thankfully sun-lit skies with a clear head. I jogged around the park in front of our hostel in the morning. I started writing a new story. I walked to the Van Gogh museum. Van Gogh was one of my favorites (I even had a reproduction of wheatfields--or one of his wheatfields???--on my bedroom wall, when i was a kid). But I was oddly unimpressed.

To make up for that, perhaps, I got all emotional at the Anne Frank house. What slew me was an interview with one of her childhood friends, who saw Anne again--for the last time, shortly before Anne's death a month before liberation--in a concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen.


my brain is cynical but my heart still bleeds

(1) Post script on Brussels. The meeting itself was very good and pride-worthy. But more on Brussels included, inter alia, hanging out with the indomitable Alba Lamberti, Crisis Group Lobbyist Extraordinaire. A brief drink on Thursday night with her and a motley of Brussels's thinktank types, one telecoms exec (who was not Indian but decidedly English, emphasis his) and one unhinged Hungarian or Israeli (he couldn't decide which) artist. He was ostensibly a sculptor. (2)

So, on Saturday afternoon, finally free, I hung out at her apartment, which was maddeningly close to my hotel (the outrageous directions Alba gave me, I will not repeat here). A few hours of gossiping with her and her friend Rachel, and I was then off to catch my flight to Amsterdam.

(2) Conversation apparently went like this, translated from French:

Alba: So, whaaat are you doing in Brrrussels?
Dude: Eeuh, I'm an Artist.
Alba: Oh reaaally? What kind of an artist?
Dude: (pause)
Alba: (helpfully) A sculptor?
Dude: Oh yes, yes; a sculptor.
(thereafter, about an hour later, he introduces himself to me as a sculptor.)

doodles from a boondoggle

there is a growing gulf between
who i think i was,
who i think i am,
who i'd like to be;
what a friend i was,
the friend i am, to whom,
what a friendship means.

looking at myself in a mirror
is like looking through a window
at a construct for which
action dictates thought.

there is a speeding disconnection between
why i think i love
who i love, i think;
what love promises,
what death means to me;
what love means to me,
what death promises.

inch by miniscule inch,
day by absurd day,
i push the boulder further up
along a slanted point of view.

the door is closing
on what i thought i know,
on my self i thought i knew.
the link is breaking between
what i write
and think;
why i think i write.

brussels, 2nd dec 2006


instead of paying attention to the state of
managing hazardous substances
in the world today

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Insight into the European Union's Capital

Having taken the train from Paris the one and only time I'd been to Brussels before, I had my first encounter of the international airport yesterday.

Whereas navigating other airports is usually from a straightforward point A to point B, I had to walk through a confusing labyrinth of corridors and channels going up and going down, left, right, left again--with the aid of ambiguous and conflicting directional arrows. I had a sense that the airport wasn't that big but with the time it took me to get around, I may have travelled its length and breadth twice over. Ultimately, I had no recourse but to have faith in the yellow signs taunting me with the word "Exit" at each lap, even if I distinctly felt like the butt of some cosmic joke.

I did get out of the airport, by the way, so all's well and so on. Welcome to the European Union!


I need a chocolate fix!

Friday, November 17, 2006

boundaries

questions better left unasked
calculus teaches you that the line described along certain points may only push itself along certain limits, inexorably defined by the equation or function it is bound by. i learned that the hard way.

i firmly believe that sexual orientation is indeed preference, born of a series of interaction and response to a host of stimuli one's whole life, particularly during one's formative years. we all start with equal propensity toward homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality; develop preferences within, among and along the borders of these distinctions.

so. today. i almost completely fucked up a friendship over a stupid question. alcohol is not a better friend than someone of flesh, blood and feelings.

sometimes, when you ask someone about their identity and self-definition, it crosses that line in the sand between what can be discussed openly between friends, and what gets you told to fuck off. in retrospect, there were at least two or three, maybe seven or eight warnings, before the final die was cast. by asking the unaskable, have i cemented the end of a friendship? was there even a friendship to begin with?

i really should be banned from getting drunk.

unaskable questions. should remain unasked, is the moral of the day.

my on-going project: no working title
There are five of them. A lawyer, two engineers, a doctor and a magazine freelancer. Butcher, baker, candlestick maker. They've been friends for years, mainly due to circumstance. In an anonymous city of transents and constant change, frequency of interaction begets friendship. They are friends of friends whose paths intersected at some point, and now they meet every now and again due to one thing: an unmitigated lust for the written word and an obsession over the sound of their own voices. Maria, sophie, eric, catherine and ed.

Sophie takes a sip of her drink. The dinner, as other events before it, has proceeded as expected. A word or two about the government, a comment here and there on world affairs, a bray of laughter, an exclamation of indignance, a sly remark, a caustic comment. It was familiar form of a home.

Ed is absent. But he had a story to tell and Catherine dutifully brought a copy, which is passed around and read with half an eye by each of them.

Maria goes through the text as the conversation meanders over Ed's absence. She notices that Ed refers to a short but telling account of the brief affair they had two years ago. Marie fumes internally, careful not to manifest her distress. If she and Ed had agreed on anything, it was to keep their dangerous liaison out of their writing and away from any scrutiny. She arranges her face before looking up. Ed has written about the patterns that her skirt had left on her thigh that first night. The bastard is making her blush.

"He's gotten a little self-indulgent, no?" she says archly.

"That's hilarious, coming from you", drawls Sophie, tapping the edge of her cigarette into a makeshift ashtray. Maria makes a face at her. Maria hates smoking indoors and barely tolerates Sophie's penchant for chain-smoking at their soirées.

"there's hardly enough tell of his sexual exploits in this one," Eric snickers.

Sophie rolls her eyes and grabs the paper. "We've been over this before. Ed's frankness when it comes to sexuality is braver and more honest than anything we've written. Any of us." She juts her cihin in Maria's direction. "Virgin maria is discomfited? that's not a surprise."

"I'm not a prude or anything remotely similar. He's broken the rule about not writing about us." Big mistake. Eric pounces on it and asks what she means.

While maria flails around for a reply, Sophie interjects her assent. "Thinly disguised, I'm pretty sure I'm 'Anne' and eric is 'Marc'." She grabs the paper and reads aloud.


i need a hug

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Oh Well

At the office with my earphones on. Just discovered a great new Fiona Apple song.

What you did to me made me see myself
Something different
And though I try to talk sense to myself
But I just won’t listen
Won’t you go away, turn yourself in
You’re no good at confession
Before the image that you burned me in
Tries to teach you a lesson
What you did to me made me see myself
Something awful
A voice once stentorian is now again
Meek and muffled
It took me such a long time to get back up
The first time you did it
I spent all i had to get it back, and now it seems
I’ve been out-bidded
My peace and quiet was stolen from me
When I was looking with calm affection
You were searching out my imperfections
What wasted unconditional love
On somebody
Who doesn’t believe in the stuff
You came upon me like a hypnic jerk
When i was just about settled
And when it counts, you recoil with a cryptic word
And leave a love belittled
What a cold and common old way to go
I was feeding on the need for you to know me
Devastated at the rate you fell below me
What wasted unconditional love
On somebody
Who doesn’t believe in the stuff
Oh, well.


for no one, but fiona, in particular

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Final Flashback: In the beginning

My earliest posts. Bring back memories...

Saturday, July 06, 2002

i am trembling with hunger. nine fucking o'clock, alone in school, only food available is from the vending machines downstairs. i have just stuffed my face with 9 oreos and am starting to stabilize. if only i could have them as God intended, with milk, i'd be fine. been reading willowtree for two hours. how's this for procrastinating? sigh.

i could get the hang of this.

posted by teá rosales at 8:16 PM

ok i have just spent nine hours watching 4 DVDs of old Sex and the City episodes. Am now at Carrie & Mr. Big's second major breakup (when he comes back from Paris). My eyeballs are spiralling inwards and one is bigger than the other. my main man is away and i have nothing better to do. o bla di o bla fucking da :)

and i don't even like the show. that much. it's just that, politically incorrect as it may be, i find it funny.

posted by teá rosales at 10:58 AM


Friday, July 05, 2002


ok so my friend is heartbroken. she met this guy on the net, through a flesh-and-bones friend (as opposed to a cyberfriend) and he's studying at oxford and he's cool and he has screwed a lot and he's nineteen and he's hot. so they've been friends for a while, two or three years?, and they chat and they send text messages over the phone. then about half a year ago he starts pestering her to go make out with him, for fun. and he gives her this drill about how it wouldn't mean anything, what's a fuck between friends? a virgin and unfortunate Carry Bradshaw acolyte, my friend finally sez yes a couple of months ago. they make out, nothing but hymen intact. they make plans to do it again, in the meantime she escapes to another country as a sexual refugee and from the safe distance of about 5 kilometers she emails him that it is "not nothing" to her. and she can't just share some body fluids like that without feeling something. then she never sees him again except by some weird crossing of paths, and she never hears from him again, except for a strange phonecall asking if she owned a fax machine.

so. there's nothing else to do but:
1. get a diana ross CD and learn the lyrics to "i will survive". gladys night and the pips would be more therapeutic, actually.
2. watch all three seasons of "sex and the city" on DVD non-stop from 10pm to 10am to remind you that things are ok since love is dead in manhattan anyway.
3. take control of your weight and lose 15 pounds through exercise and a healthy diet.
4. take the time for facials and fixing up your nails.
5. blog! :)

posted by teá rosales at 2:20 PM

morning. got to school intending to work really hard today. damned laziness set it. spent over an hour reading other people's blogs. need coffee. having some now. have not gotten into the habit of self-indulgent writing yet. feels really awkward. this is the consequence, i think, of finding the one person i want to be with in life. not a lot of valid misery to write about, and who writes when they're happy? so i thought i'd talk about books and movies, maybe music. mundane, mundane, mundane. i really should get work done today. i really should.

posted by teá rosales at 9:50 AM

Thursday, July 04, 2002

don't tell me this does not work on macs


me on my birthday, march 2002

Another Flashback: Censored Words of Wisdom

advice i would give myself at eighteen
Tuesday, July 09, 2002


1. there IS such a thing as true love
2.don't be afraid of sex. have as much of it as you can, with as many different partners, this year.
3. living together is not a sin.
4. never have sex without a condom. even if you don't have to fear getting pregnant. hormones will make you fat and stuffing anything up down there will never cease to feel awful.
5. while having sex with as many partners possible this year, try to educate them about wearing condoms. too goddamn many of them fathering unplanned children. think of it as a public service.
6. no, you will not never grow fat. you are not too thin so stop trying to get in the habit of eating more.
7. it is ok to be jealous.
8. if and when you get married, never ever live with your in-laws no matter how broke you are or how nice they seem. if you can't live on your own, don't get married. if you need help from others, set a clear timeframe on up to when.

here's something funny: go to merriam webster online. type any word (real ones only) in the field for "dictionary". click on the "pronounce" icon. hehehehe. five minutes ago, i was typing stuff like "vagina" and "penis" and chortling to myself. i have the mental age of a twelve year old.

Another Flashback: Rage Against Ani Desierto

No to Ani D for the Philippine Supreme Court!
Thursday, July 18, 2002


I cannot believe that Ani Desierto is even being CONSIDERED for appointment as a Supreme Court Justice.

FYI. He lost his credibility early on as an Ombudsman over the Kuratong Baleleng case:
1. Ombudsman Desierto overruled his own committee's findings that Philippine National Police Chief (now Senator) Ping Lacson as well as other police chiefs should be charged as principle respondents. What had been reported as a shoot out between a bank robbery gang may have turned out to be a "rub out" or execution.
2. The eye witness who identified Ping Lacson and blew the whistle on the rub out, police officer SP02 Ed de los Reyes, also swore in an affidavit that a man named Faustino "Pong" Salud (ano ba yan? may Ping, may Pong!) had tried to bribe his family on Ping Lacson's behalf.
3. An insider at the Ombudsman's office later revealed that Pong Salud had sold Ani Desierto 10 TV sets at unbelievably low prices. In his own defense, Ani said that Pong was an old friend. Plus he gave away the TV sets as gifts to his staff. Baka hindi naka tanggap yun nagsumbong?

More about Ani Desierto, the Kuratong Baleleng case, and his expensive house-buying available from this Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism article.

Ani Desierto has also bungled the prosecution of only the biggest (documented) plunderer since Marcos, Joseph Estrada, who is in an airconditioned hospital room when he should be on death row! (gratuitous aside: no to the death penallty!)

And to make things worse, while names like Hayde Yorac and Simeon Marcelo are being floated by civil society groups as Desierto's replacement, so are names like Antonio Carpio, whose law firm has represented Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Mike Arroyo. Given fat ass Mike Arroyo's penchant for corruption, this might present some sort of insurance for Madame Presidente.


Ani Desierto. No wonder he and Darth Vader have the same nickname.

Another Flashback: KL Travelogue

KL
Monday, July 22, 2002



the trip.
last weekend, the bear and i took a bus to Kuala Lumpur, which is just 5 hours from Singapore. we had the best time! we stayed at the Ritz thanks to a credit card freebie. we brought these really yummy smelling bath melts and stuff from an australian store that unfortunately closed down a few months ago, called lush. (need i say more?) in the huge bathtub, we gave each other facials (peach and almond scrub, i believe) which was, for some reason, so much fun! we kept giggling and saying how much we were enjoying ourselves. this is something that i recommend all couples (or at least very good friends) must try! this and using your bodies to paint fabric blinds -- a trick we learned from this sweet chick (to chick!) flick called Better than Chocolate.

dolling up.
we went to this pretty garden wedding of a friend of mine in the afternoon. the great thing is that we tried my recently-discovered way of dolling up for a party. here are my secrets to confidence at a party where you hardly know anybody:
1. give yourself a nice fruity facial (or do a mutual facial with your date!) exfoliating ones are the best because when you wash it off, your face feels soft and ultra fresh and your skin and hands smell so nice you raise your fingers to sniff all night.
2. take a nice relaxing bath. scrub where you're too hurried to scrub during a normal shower. really massage your scalp and condition your hair if you want.
3. do your nails (or have your date do them for you. i swear, he really did!). i like a nice transparent polish with specs of reflect-y thingies that look as if they're stuck directly onto the surface. they're amusing and you'll find yourself just watching them reflect light.
4. do your eyebrows and your pits, or whatever facial/body hair normally makes you feel uncomfortable.
5. dress in soft fabrics. go bra-less! it's very liberating, very natural, and very sexy especially if you're pretty flat, like i am. doesn't work as well for, er, more full-busted ladies.
6. don't wear make up!!! after a facial, the worst thing to do is pile dust on your scrubbed skin. you'll feel uncomfy, wondering if your mascara is streaked or if there's lipstick on your teeth. but then again, this is of course on case-to-case basis as i, personally, never got used to make up in the first place.

eat shop man woman.
so we did just this (except he normally goes out without a bra anyway). we went to the party, were fabulous, and afterwards ate at this great lebanese restaurant on Bintang Walk, near our hotel.

after a night of marathon spooning, we had breakfast at a roadside eaterie the next morning. roti pratha with butter and sugar. and the best calamansi iced tea in the world! we did some shopping and bought a lot of great pirated DVDs (including mulholland dr., dr. t and the women, the royal tenenbaums, "o") for only 8 ringgit each -- about PhP112?

we went back to the hotel, had another bath, checked out, and walked around the shopping district. we chanced upon this great place to eat called "Bangkok Jam" -- not too expensive and they managed to create a really relaxing environment of dark wood, fabric, stones, and running water. The food was the best thai fare I've ever had outside thailand. And, in my humble non-thai opinion, it was pretty damn authentic. there was this desert i had in phuket once that i was really looking for since (i couldn't find it during my last trip there, to khon kaen which is up north) and Bangkok Jam amazingly had it.

so. anyway. we took the bus back to singapore and watched Donnie Darko (another pirated DVD acquisition!) on his powerbook. It really was a great weekend. :)

all in all, KL is a very nice city. better and cheaper than singapore. i think the experience is just generally pleasant. in any case, Bintang Walk is a good place for foreigners who want to get to know the city.

woman in chains.
one thing that stood out though. all the women in black chadors. i'm not sure if the term is right, 'cause depending on the country they can be called tudung or the burkha. essentially, i'm talking about what can be just a headscarf or a full body covering that devout muslim women wear. i'm not very knowledgeable about this but i wrote two papers about muslim women, once as an undergrad and another just a couple of months ago. at the onset of puberty, muslim women are expected to cover aurat or the sensitive parts of their body including the back of the neck and the limbs.

so many of the women we saw were clothed in such coverings, many of which were either tourists or migrants from the middle east. there were really old women, shuffling across the room, who had probably worn the chador for decades. women of indeterminate age, veiled from head to toe but for their beautiful eyes, walking alongside their husbands in plain shirts and jeans. we saw women whose faces were completely shrouded. all were in shimmery black.

the bear said, of the daughters skipping merrily around their parents, they look so carefree now but when they reach that age, BAM!, they get wrapped and sealed. the bear blamed the men. how can a husband let his wife suffer like that, he wondered. i blamed them both. i said that whatever liberties i enjoy today are because my foremothers didn't sit around twiddling their thumbs.

but the self-righteousness of our conversation still gave us pause. was there any victimization? is there any blame to lay?

i guess all i can really say is, i would hate for that to happen to me.


so anyway that was my weekend.

Another Flashback: A Rant on Steve Jobs

This dork-wannabe's feedback on Apple's .Mac website.
Tuesday, July 23, 2002


I was extremely furious about the change from free iDisk to .Mac when it was announced at Macworld New York. I have signed the online petition as well. However, after reading Adam Engst's column on www.tidbits.com, I find that he makes very good points on the value of .Mac.

Essentially, I'm suggesting an iTools/.Mac compromise in which .Mac has all these additional features while iTools just has limited features that serve as a trial or attraction for people to adopt .Mac if they are willing to pay for it.

1. Why not adopt Adam Engst's suggestion of keeping the mac.com email address free? This significantly reduces the bandwidth and disk space requirements of a free service but still helps promote the use of the Mac.
2. Adam Engst pointed out that .Mac features are built into Mac OS X itself and into applications like iPhoto: "It doesn't look good if high-profile functionality like having the iDisk be available from a Finder menu or HomePage publishing of Web photo albums simply doesn't work if you're not a .Mac member. It's poor user interface, and a poor user experience." So why not continue to offer free iDisk space but only, say 10-20Mb worth? People might still opt for the 100 Mb that .Mac would offer. And all the new features would only be available on a paid .Mac account.
3. This allows you to still attract students like myself and other users who wouldn't pay for a .Mac account because it's too expensive, but would love to enjoy the Mac experience anyway. I think that you are still trying to attract people to buy the Mac and iTools was a very strong attraction in the past. Buying into .Mac doesn't make sense without buying an iBook or iMac, so if you can attract buyers in the first place and alienate your existing customers in the process ... then what's the point?

This was a very risky decision for you guys to make, right in the middle of the initially popular "switch" campaign. Instead of having millions of unpaid supporters who would have helped your campaign for new users, you're losing 70% of them. See Tidbit's poll on this subject.

This is the first time that Apple ostensibly aped Microsoft rather than the other way 'round.

Think different. Not like Bill Gates.


The Sith have inflitrated Apple's finance department, Obi Wan.

Flashback: Rage against the Machine

Resurrecting a few posts from my old blog, circa 2002, which lasted for a month. Let me talk about my old blog for a minute. No, actually it'll just take a couple of seconds. I didn't tell anybody about it. I published it under the pseudonym "Teá Rosales". My email address was wormeater@mac.com. I started it around the time I was submitting my thesis, as a form of "AAAAAAGH THIS IS NOT HAPPENING TO ME I MUST DO SOMETHING UNRELATED TO MY RESEARCH OR I'LL EXPLODE!" Enough said. Here's an old post.

Spielberg does it again: an unsolicited review of Minority Report
30 July 2002

If you loved Saving Private Ryan and didn’t even see The Thin Red Line or if you thought that AI was the best science fiction movie you’d ever seen, then you might want to spare yourself from this rant.

Minority Report was amazingly stupid. Sure, the eye candy was impressive. But then again, visual effects are hardly considered spectacular any more. My first problem had to do with loopholes in the story the size of Shrek’s ass. Why did Anderton use a gun that could kill, when everybody else was using nonlethal weapons?* Why could his original eyes, that betrayed him in a shopping mall, not alert the autho-ri-tahs when he was breaking into the Precrime building to get Agatha? Or into the organ-piping jailer’s, both for him and his wife? And the biggest whoDUHnit of all, why would the old geezer, who could pay somebody to pretend to strangle somebody, not just pay somebody else to really do the job? And how could the old guy strangle Agatha’s mother in the first place? And why would the old guy give Anderton’s wife Anderton’s gun in a box full of personal effects?* Did they give her all the dope they found as well?

Secondly, the whole movie was a series of rip-offs from better sci fi movies from the past. The sleek lines of the Precrime unit building hinted of Gattaca. The scene with Tom Cruise getting his eyes replaced, with those little metal wires to keep his lids from shutting – Clockwork Orange. The joint where you could extract people’s memories? Strange Days. The bear contributed another one: Johnny Mnemonic with regard to the data embedded in a person theme, but I personally think that’s a bit too far off.

And was it just me, but was Agatha played by the “Childlike Empress” of The Neverending Story? Yet another rip-off …

*contributed by the bear


No, no, don’t make me watch another post-1980s Spielberg movie again!…

When I grow up, I want to be...

So being 30 is the new 21. Well, I'm just about to pass the post in a few months.

When I turned 29 in March, I decided to get my inevitable mid-life crisis out of my system. Or so I think, as it's always possible that l'll find myself unexpectedly spun as I usually do. To paraphrase Carrie Fisher, I don't lead my life, I just follow it around.

The turning point in one's life is rarely a catastrophic event. It's in the daily choices one makes between getting up in the morning and going to bed at night. Is this the day I'm going to go berserk and book myself on a flight to East Timor?, one might ask oneself. One decides not to, and the day will pass uneventfully, like other days.

Is this the day I start writing that epic novel? The novel that would encompass politics, history and humanity? Win me that Palanca award*? The fact of the matter is, I'm not much of a writer. I kind of realized that in college. I have a few short stories to my name, one or two I may even be proud of (one even in Filipino!** But, unless I change careers and decide to be a postal worker instead, as well as drop some acid, I highly doubt that it's in the stars.

Is this the day I finally start working on my grad school applications? Sometimes, I feel that I've lost sight of why I want to do my PhD in political science. Granted, I really enjoy being in school and living the life on campus. So, it's a lifestyle choice rather than a vocation, really. I pretty much stink at writing and research. I have the ambition, possibly the talent, but not the skills and the dedication to detail.

Have I just lost any sense of imagination? Do I simply lack the ability to re-think myself? Have the options to choose who I can be in life (butcher, baker, candlestick-maker?) closed up on me?

Hell, I should be working on my article on East Timor instead of blogging. Zurds of Kasarinlan, whoever you are, forgive me!


* The Carlos Palanca award is the most prestigious literary award in the Phlippines. When I was a junior in high school, I made it my life's ambition to be the youngest recipient. Well, it felt like a valid life's ambition for a while. I also wanted to be the youngest ever Star Trek TNG novelist; needless to say, that didn't last. Why I don't think Filipinos or, well, me, can credibly write science fiction will be reserved for another post.

** It was a writing assignment for my Filipino language and style class which was oddly but rewardingly a required general elective. Reqiuired general elective; does that actually mean anything? Anyway, it was Domingo Landicho's class. Now that, and my history with a certain classmate, plus a good dose of alcohol, requires another post.




when i grow up, i want to be... murphy brown!

Friday, November 03, 2006

another drunken post

ok last night's entry was definitely the result of sudden respite from a week without alcohol. but tonight continues the abject lack of sobriety.

so noteworthy events of the day. it started with a flurry of indignant messages on my phone. "have you read your email?"; "he thinks we're disgusting"; and so on and so on. what happened is this:

some colleagues and i have hamsters at the office. strange but true. our excuse? stress therapy. but one colleague had the nerve (and i mean this in its neutral sense) to put his annoyance in writing. faced with the prospect of moving to our side of the office, he balked on account of his (1) allergy to animal fur; and (2) abhorrence of our way of life.

judgement of this individual aside, it sparked off a short-lived debate of what should be done. how should he be tortured slowly and painfully? should we be forced to rid the office of our furry companions? the end result was (1) various schemes for retribution; and (2) the decision on a total ban of rodents and similar pets at the office.

the cool factor has thus decreased significantly. and, with regard to other issues of office layout and so on, i was gravely informed by our main man at the office that the final decision on who moves where was not based on rational choice but a tragedy of commons: spreading the misery and dissatisfaction as uniformly as possible.

which brings me to the lesson of the day: as organisations grow, the tendency for bureaucracy accompanies it; and mediocrity rather than individual excellence is the norm.

no wonder governments are generally fucked up

Thursday, November 02, 2006

This one is about relationships

Relationships. That indefinable space between two people. The trajectory of my relationships, by type, in life evolved from family to friends to lover. Each in itself follows its own internal logic, yet there is something generalizable about relationships as well. Usually, people lay greater emphasis on the lover in their life, as if this is the definitive, primus inter pares, of all interactions. But each relationship needs to be tended, no matter what priority it receives in one's hierarchy of affinity.

Despite universally-recognized categories of how A should relate to B, depending on how their relationship is labeled, one could argue that each relationship is unique. Each relationship can only be defined by those in it.

A ---> B : positive and direct.
A ---> 1/B : inversely proportional
A=/ B : no relation

I am B. Which A are you?, is the question.

The fundamental, irreducible component of scientific inquiry is determining causation and the relation between two or more variables. A acts upon B and the effect (or lack thereof) is measured.

If instead of an individual A but, instead, a set A where all its elements are people who you've met, is B simply the effect of A? Can a person exist without others? Or are we the result of interaction upon interaction; mirrors, echoes, shadows?

Can one know oneself without reference to the other?

Today's story is about friendship. What is a friend? Someone to hang out with? To get drunk with? To spend time with yet be sexually off limits to? An A from whose opinion and regard has an ineffable effect on Subject B? A keeper of confidence, a pillar of support, a shoulder to cry on?

But isn't friendship the most pervasive among the thousands of permutations any given relationship may be made of? Isn't it the most mature and highly developed interaction among any pairs or groups of individuals? Should we not all strive for a genuine friendship to develop with our family members, our acquaintances, our lovers?

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

A Story a Day

So I figure this will be worth it if I can find one story a day that is worth telling.
I look at my earlier self in the mirror and bring out the measuring tape, the weighing scales.
tinimbang ka, nguni't kulang
Odd that a biblical reference comes to mind.
Interesting how we can be unyieldingly hard on ourselves.
Interesting how oceans of words can gush forth from my mouth on an hourly basis but I find myself at the end of a blinking cursor without a single word to redeem me.
At the end.
At the very end.
The only thing worth a damn was being home in time to put Gabby to bed.
His laughter echoing in the chambers of my chest, while his mitochondria-powered cellular mitosis buzzes on.


Good night, Moon.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Jack White Telling Tales

Fueled by Jack White in his new reincarnation in The Raconteurs. Holy shit I haven't blogged since the last months of my grad school days, as a form of procrastination before submitting my thesis. Then, it was under a nom de keyboard and nobody knew about my blog except a couple of random bloggers from Manila. there was willowtree, who's husband was a coke addict. and there was barquentine, who was a kindred spirit when it came to poring over every character and literary device in Mervin Peake's "Gormenghast" trilogy.

So, this post is about The Raconteurs. I've always liked the White Stripes and I kept on reading about The Raconteurs months ago when the album first came out. I listened, I liked, but nothing more than that. But I've been listening to it nonestop all day. It is fucking excellent. So many good tracks:

- brokey boy soldiers, obviously
- together, which is kinda hokey but sweet
- yellow sun, which works for me and my affinity with all things solar
- call it a day, which is just one of the best break up songs ever; second only to "the goodbye song" by the moldy peaches and "walk away" (and practically everything on the You Could Have it So Much Better album)


you want everything to be just like
the stories that you read but never write
you gotta learn to live and live and learn
you gotta learn to give and wait your turn