At the market

When I was little I used to tag along on my parents' weekend market trips.  One entered the market through a sort of unfurnished lobby, which divided the main building into two: the fish stalls to the right, the meat stalls to the left. The meat stalls were dry and seldom crowded, and I liked them better because of that; unfortunately, my parents used to spend more time in the fish section, which was dark, dingy, hot, and muddy. People pushed and shoved and screamed at each other. My feet used to get muddy all the time, which I didn't like, and which was why my dad used to carry me all the time while he and my mom looked for fish worth buying. 

The market looks much better now, the stalls in less of a disarray than I remember. Still, some things never change: the kids in the oversized shirts offering plastic bags for you to put your goods in, the man with lipstick, a lisp, a butcher's knife and a slab of lumber for a chopping board, and the fruit stand from where we bought the apples and guavas that I so enjoyed as a boy. 

 

Tagged childhood market

So who died again?

We met with great surprise the news that Osama Bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, was killed today by US Navy Seals in a military operation just outside Islamabad, after years and years of searching for him in the caves of Afghanistan.

Which is why we were equally shocked by this lower third, which appeared on CNN:

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INSIDE OBAMA'S COMPOUND
First pictures of the chaos following his death.

Gasp, has the President of the United States died? And why are the networks showing us picture of the White House, his "compound?" Hopefully this is a clerical error, much like this one, which appeared on the Manila Bulletin the day after Cory Aquino's funeral:

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WITH UTMOST CARE. Military honor guard carefully moves the coffin of President Arroyo out of the Manila Cathedral. (Photo by Tony Pionilla)

Of course one slip is more welcome than the other.

Tagged barack obama cory aquino gloria arroyo news osama bin laden

The HumancentiPad.

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Kyle Broflovski doesn't read iTunes's Terms and Conditions and is forced into being part of Apple's newest revolutionary product: part beast, part machine—the HumancentiPad. The episode even includes a Filipina hooker joke. View the entire thing online here.

Tagged south park apple video

Fashion lessons with Little Bro

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The 'unaffected hipster.'

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The 'Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II.'

4.30.2011 in pictures

Wet roads, fruit stands and (relatively) clean gas station bathrooms.
Tagged Day in pictures

OMG, a resignation!

Will and Kate have wed! We can't call her Kate anymore; she's Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and she's married to William, Duke of Cambridge. Duke, ok, not "Dutch." He's a prince, not an ice cream flavor.

Penoy, despite not having been invited to the wedding, has a wish for the couple: privacy despite the media's unforgiving eye. He says he knows how it feels, then smoothly segues into his nth plea to the Philippine media to please stop bugging him so much about how he's faring in matters of the heart. Dear Noy, suggestion lamang po: do your job, man. Then we'd have other things to talk about.

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Noynoy shares William's hairstyle but not his luck in love. We've received information that he's sending the newlyweds a wedding gift: a box of Regroe. He would have given William an Svenson discount card—he has tons of them, we're told—but it simply wasn't practical.  

Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez tendered her resignation to Penoy this morning, citing concern for national interest. LOL, funny how suddenly we find out that Merci was aware there was even such a thing. Great, Merci, you might as well row over to the Atlantic and help the Titanic's passengers. Thankfully, Merci is still not immune to suit, so despite precluding an impeachment by resigning she still isn't safe from justice. That is until you factor in our being in the Philippines, where we can believe that going to bed with your hair wet will result in blindness more than we can believe injustice.

Oh well, hurray hurray, let us make merry in honor of two nominally important people on the other side of the world who have entered into a contract!

Tagged Britain Ombudsman Penoy news opinion royalty

4.28.2011 in pictures

Overcast skies, lush foliage and a minor road accident.
Tagged Day in pictures

Le Moleskine bags and pens, anyone?

Moleskine makes really good notebooks, which they say are the same ones Chatwin, Picasso, Van Gogh and other highbrow artists used back in the day. Super-smooth leather covering, fantastic paper that will accept almost any ink very well and craftsmanship no one can complain about. (Every Moleskine is hand-made. It's like Vuitton for notebooks.) I myself own two: a daily planner, hard cover, and a simple ruled notebook, soft cover, whose back pocket has torn open (my fault, I mishandled it), but is otherwise in top shape despite being two years old. 

But why am I yammering on and on about the Moleskine? Well, because the company that makes them is expanding like a Moleskine back pocket! They're making bags and writing instruments now. They've even made a fancy stop-motion video for their travel collection.

Moleskine Bags in Hyper Stop Motion from Moleskine ® on Vimeo.

 

Very nice. The city bag looks well worth getting (if it isn't too expensive of course). 

As for their writing collection, when word first came out about it a few months back, I was thinking they would go the way of Montblanc and Cross and make fancy rollerballs and fountain pens. Apparently they've gone the opposite direction: flat and rectangular BiC-like rollerballs and pencils (wooden, not mechanical). They aren't exactly drool-worthy; in fact I don't see how they're better than a BiC or a Panda pen (Filipino writing culture represent!).

(Side note: Wired points out that the bags are plastic, and that the only thing they have in common with the notebooks are the elastic band and the hefty price. They also accuse Moleskine, very sneakily, of "cashing in." They may have a point. Still, nice city bag!)

Tagged Moleskine bags lifestyle notebooks pens video

Hi, I'm Dean, and I'm a Satanic tactician!*

*term coined by Maro.

Here's the latest from them fine folks over at Intramuros: apparently, because I support Reproductive Health, I'm a Satanist! Wait, no, scratch that, I'm a person using Satan's tactics. That should upgrade my seating from Hell to Purgatory. 

Speaking of the Devil, Apple has announced that the iPad 2 is coming to the Philippines on April 29. May we take this opportunity to disabuse any potential buyers of the idea that the iPad 2 is worth buying. Three reasons not to buy an iPad 2, and buy the original iPad instead if you were thinking about a purchase:

One, crappy camera. No, it's not better than the original iPad's (which doesn't exist), it's unnecessary hardware. Don't pay for something you won't be able to use. The front-facing camera, I can see the sense of. But the rear-facing one? If I want to take a picture of something and don't have a digital camera on hand, I'll use my phone, not a humungous rectangular piece of plastic. And even if you prefer the latter, the iPad's cam is crap. (I don't have one myself but the reviews are in chorus on this point; even the Apple fanblogs will use the word "passable" or some other euphemistic synonym.)

Two, unnecessary speed bump. "It's got the A5 processor," says Dear Leader Steve Jobs. "That's one more than A4!" Please, the iPad's zipping fast enough. (Again, I don't have one, but those who do have no complaints. And I fiddled with one at a reseller a few months back and thought, "There's no way this can get faster.") The speed increase of the iPad 2 is statistical, at best; yeah, it's there, but it won't affect your experience. Just your bill.

Three, price tag. Of course it's more expensive, because it's newer. That's just the way things work. OR, to put it more clearly for them pedants, the original iPad has now become cheaper because it's not the newest model anymore. So if you buy the original iPad, you lose very little in features while gaining (that is to say, not having to lose so much) money. 

If this litany has not dissuaded you from buying the iPad 2, this can only mean one thing: you're rich enough to afford not just one, but two iPad 2s. I will be waiting, please contact me so we can get the shipping sorted out.

But wait, there's more! Apple has finally spoken up on the issue of their iPhones tracking user movements in a (very cute, may we say) Q&A press release. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered, though. Why was the data insecure? Why was it so easy for anyone who could gain physical access to the device to obtain the information? What other personally identifying data lies prone in our iDevices? Pray tell. 
Tagged CBCP apple gadgets ipad ipad 2 iphone reproductive health technology

Document from the not-so-distant past

And, come to think of it, from the not-so-distant present.

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It's the booklet thingy chock-full of hifalutin words that came with my Ateneo de Manila University application form (which, if memory serves, cost me Php650)!

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I qualified for the Political Science program. (I applied for AB Communication too, I think.) But an Ateneo education is not only expensive but also sectarian, so I opted to go to the school across the street with the naked man out front. It seems like so long ago now.

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