Archive for category: Stuff

The Philippine Star reports that Saturday peaked at 35.8 degrees Celsius (roughly around 96.4 degrees Fahrenheit) here in Metro Manila.  The high temperatures meant a trip to Bench Fix at Podium to get a haircut, and getting as many Quickly taro shakes as I can into my system.  I’ve taken to filling my beer glass with more ice cubes at the risk of diluting below-zero beer, smoking menthol cigarettes, and wearing thinner jackets.

Yes, it’s that freaking hot.

I found this at the Silliman University website:

Call for Submission of Manuscripts to the
49th Silliman University National Writers Workshop

The Silliman University National Writers Workshop is now accepting applications for the 49th National Writers Workshop to be held May 3-21, 2010 in Dumaguete City.

This Writers Workshop is offering fifteen fellowships to promising young writers who would like a chance to hone their craft and refine their style. Fellows will be provided housing, a modest stipend, and a subsidy to partially defray costs of their transportation.

To be considered, applicants should submit manuscripts in English on or before March 19, 2010 (seven to ten poems; or three to five short stories; or three to five creative non-fiction essays). Manuscripts should be submitted in hard copy and on CD, preferably in MS Word, together with a resume, a recommendation letter from a literature professor or a writer of national standing, a notarized certification that the works are original, and two 2X2 ID pictures.

Send all applications or requests for information to Department of English and Literature, attention Dr. Evelyn F. Mascuñana, Chair, Silliman University, 6200 Dumaguete City.

Woot!

I don’t know if your mid-twenties should classify you as “old,” but I like to think I’m a hodgepodge of obsolesence and idiosyncrasy in fashion.  Black shirts weren’t as cool as they were when I was younger.  Nobody wears jackets in the oppressive heat of Manila.  Button-down jeans are so last century.  High-topped Chucks and boots are pretty much passé.  Long hair is a vestige of a bygone era: these days, it’s no longer fashionable because it’s perfectly acceptable.  Heck, I needed to ask a friend if the frames of my new glasses are more… well, “cosmo.”

Yet colorful trucker hats that are carefully balanced on top of your head aren’t.  Every offensive class-related slur can cross your mind, until you realize that almost every young man is wearing one of these hats.  It’s the “in” thing, so much so that I don’t know if it’s “gangstah” or “Rastah.”

Like everything involving fashion and the latest trends in headwear, I don’t get it.  Maybe I don’t even have to get it.

Wikipedia turns nine years old today; it first went online on January 15, 2001.

Yes, our favorite free online encyclopedia shares the same birthday as Butch Dalisay, Mario Van Peebles, Martin Luther King, Jr., Shane McMahon, and Molière.  Wikipedia shares the same anniversary day as Coca-Cola, basketball, and the Boston Molasses Disaster.  Wikipedia was born on the January day when The Black Dahlia was murdered, and the good people of Malawi celebrate the heroism of John Chilembwe. 

All that information, of course, is from Wikipedia itself, including the fact that Brad Renfro – star of Apt Pupil and American Girl – died a couple of years ago from a drug overdose.  The first-ever Super Bowl was played in January 15, 1967.  For F4 fans, today is also the 31st birthday of Ken Chu, also known as Xi Men (yep, that was his name) in the hit Taiwanese soap, Meteor Garden.

Ah, Wikipedia.  Awesomeness in a bookmark.

Hi!

I’ll be taking a blog break really soon, because there are a lot of things for me to do (good heavens, I’m sounding like an awfully nice guy).  Yet I don’t want to leave you just yet without spreading a bit of Christmas cheer to whoever reads my blog.

As some of you know, I love writing stuff.  As a simple way of thanking my loyal readers (if I have them), I’m giving away a notebook.

Yup, a black notebook finished in cool leather and Spanish paper made by Schützen.  I’ll also throw in some stuff at random… hmmm, a Marocharim.com T-shirt?  A fresh banana?  Plushie?  Again, what I’m throwing in is completely random.

I know it’s a simple Christmas gift, but I hope that you, my friends and readers, can find it the wonderful gift of expressing yourself through words this Holiday season.

To win a wonderful gift for writing, you’ll have to do something for me.

Ernesto Kelly Magtoto wrote a letter to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, where he alleges that the “Gestapo-like” Internet(s) has made our relationships with other people unnatural.  Apparently, we young people are becoming “aggressively mechanical and error-prone in their humanity.”  Mr. Magtoto seems to be railing against the Internet and computers in general; the kind of healthy paranoia that comes with them heathen computers and how much of a threat they are to traditional values.

Yep, them computing machines are ready to destroy not only our way of life, but life itself.  Didn’t we all get along before these ridiculous things like “Facebook” and “Twitter?”  Them blogs are destroying the world, and we’re starting to “add” friends instead of “making” them.  “Gestapo-like” Internet?  I don’t think so; if there’s anything to fear, it would be the big horned demons carrying big guns and wiping the heck out of human existence as we know it.  Following Mr. Magtoto’s logic, we are, well, doomed; we all live under a veneer of hypocrisy, we are never “real” as “real” can be, our friendships are distorted, and these “maeler daemons” have now judged “what is proper and improper.”

Hmmm… LOL?