My Sign

Virgo
(August 24 to September 22)

Virgos are practical and they are somewhat cautious when it comes to what they are doing. They are great friends once you get to know them although they may not appear too friendly to others. They are prone to worrying and this can make them lose focus on what they are doing. They need to discipline themselves when it comes to fretting because they can’t control delays and problems.

Career/Money
Virgos excel in writing, accountancy, teaching, research, and medicine. In business, they work steadily and will start on a small scale business first.

Love
Virgos have a tendency to be a slave to their lovers. Though they can also be calculating, they must not too idealistic. They need to enjoy being in love. They are compatible with Earth signs like Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn and Water signs like Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces.

Health
Like most Air signs, Virgos need to release their stress. Exercising is a must for them and even a regular 30-minute walk every day is helpful.

Reading Update for June

1. Love in the Time of the Camera by Simeon Dumdum Jr.

2. The Builder by Edith L. Tiempo

On The Truman Show and the Pursuit of Privacy

“Survivor” wasn’t the pioneer in reality TV shows, but perhaps it was the one that helped give way to the explosion of similar shows that now hog most of the prime time slots. Whereas “Survivor” was a breath of fresh air to viewers in the early nineties owing to its original content and format, the slew of reality TV shows nowadays make for monotonous, frustrating, and even boring viewing. It is a case of what economists would call the law of diminishing returns.

If networks could produce a TV show similar to the “Truman Show”, then they might hope to revive an interest in the genre.

Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) lives a peaceful and contented life in the fictional town of Seahaven. He works as a successful account executive for an insurance company and is happily married to his doting wife, Meryl (Laura Linney). But when Truman encounters his father (who is believed to have drowned in a boating accident when Truman was a child), he begins to suspect that everything in his life is not what it seems.

Truman is in fact an unwitting (and much later, unwilling) star on his own immensely popular TV show. He was chosen out of five unwanted babies and was raised to adulthood by a “family” of professional actors. The entire town where he lives in is really a gigantic studio and the townsfolk, an entire cast of actors. Truman’s life is captured on camera 24/7, and broadcast to millions of voyeuristic viewers worldwide.

The death of Truman’s father was staged to instill in him a fear of water in order to keep (trap) him in Seahaven. But (as every viewer knows) he yearns to travel as far as Fiji to find his one-time sweetheart, Lauren, whom he became romantically involved with in college. Lauren genuinely cares for Truman and tried to reveal to him the truth about his life, and this resulted in her getting fired from the show.

Slowly, the truth about his life unfolds before Truman’s eyes: His wife spews out advertising one-liners because the show doesn’t have time for commercial breaks; his best friend’s main task on the show is to keep him out of trouble since they were kids; he is living in a controlled environment where even the weather and sunrise/sunset can be manipulated.

In the events leading to the film’s climax, Truman finally overcomes his hydrophobia and embarks on a sea trip to escape Seahaven. The show’s creator, Christof (Ed Harris), tries to stop Truman from leaving by unleashing a storm, and almost kills him. Truman survives the storm and reaches the end of the studio: his boat crashes into the “horizon” — a wall painted blue to resemble the sky. He finds a flight of stairs leading to an emergency exit.

As Truman opens the door and is about to leave, Christof (who, along with the show’s production team, is stationed in the “moon”) speaks to him in a booming voice not unlike God’s. Christof tries to convince Truman to stay, and tries to justify why he has imprisoned Truman in an environment of constructed reality. Truman, however, ignores Christof’s reasoning and – after delivering one of his famous lines, “In case I don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight.” – takes a bow and steps out.

The film raises a few questions on the right of people to privacy, especially celebrities who are under the public eye. For me at least, it is a chilling reminder of how harmful invasion of privacy is. It made me remember the death of Princess Diana several years ago, when she and her lover, Dodi Al-Fayed, died in a fatal car crash in an attempt to elude pursuing paparazzi.

It is also somehow ironic that a lot of people would want to join reality TV shows, especially in the case of Big Brother, even if they have to showcase themselves and their lives to other people in exchange for fame and fortune. This is a stark contrast to that of Truman’s experience and beliefs. Has personal privacy become so indispensable and irrelevant in this day and age?

The Truth

(A drunk sits next to you in a bar, thinks you are his or her close friend and starts confessing “the truth.”  Write about what “the truth” is in at least 200 words.)  

 

The bartender scoops up some ice into a tall highball glass. He pours some Bacardi into the glass and fills it to the rim with Coke. A garnish of sliced lemon follows. After a few stirs, he hands the cocktail to me. He wipes his hands on his apron and walks over a few stools away to the next customer, a fortyish man with a graying buzz cut.

 

I take a sip of my drink and mull over why a Cuba Libre tastes better when mixed with Bacardi. An expert bartender with a few thousand mixes in his resume might get away with using cheap white Tanduay rum, but an amateur almost always messes things up. Might as well use the real thing than risk earning the ire of a dissatisfied customer.

 

Halfway through my third Rum Coke, buzz cut approaches with a shot of Smirnoff in hand. He sits beside me and sets down his drink.

 

“Haven’t seen you for a while,” His voice sounds like he’s been soused up since noon. “How’s the wife?”

 

Staring into my drink, I don’t bother looking at him. “Excuse me?” I manage to blurt out, still toying with a couple of ice cubes with my stirrer.

 

“I’m asking about your wife, Rick. How is she?”

 

I look to the bartender for help. He gives me a shrug and proceeds to wipe some glasses, as if to say “It’s your problem, dude. You’re on your own.”

 

A sigh of resignation escapes me. Maybe it’s just better to play along. “She’s fine.”

 

Buzz cut clucks his tongue. “Fine,” The word escapes his lips with a tinge of sarcasm. “That’s what they all say. If everything were fine, you wouldn’t be here, would you, Rick?” He punctuates his statement with bitter, cracking laughter.

 

I pretend not to hear him, but I change my mind at the last minute. I turn to stare at him and ask: “How about you? How’s the wife?”

 

He matches my gaze and pierces me with cold, black eyes. “I really don’t know, Rick. Haven’t seen her for a while. Maybe she’s dead, but why do I care? Maybe I even killed her.”

 

Silence, as we both sip our drinks. The bartender sets down a small plateful of peanuts. I scoop up a handful and pop a couple into my mouth. Buzz cut helps himself and chews noisily. He washes down the mouthful of nuts with more vodka.

 

I wonder if he was telling the truth. A morbid truth.

 

“Hey Rick, wanna hear a joke?”

 

“Sure,” I say.

 

“A woman walks into a bar and settles into a stool. The bartender comes up to her. ‘What will it be?’ he asks.

 

‘I’ll have a beer please,” The woman says.

 

‘Anheuser-Busch?” The bartender asks.

 

‘Fine,” The woman says, visibly irritated. ‘And how’s your cock?!’”

 

The bar is suddenly filled with roaring laughter. Buzz cut’s body is convulsing, in synch with his cackling. The bartender’s face is red and he is clutching his sides. After three drinks, it is the first time I hear the bartender’s voice and unluckily for me, it comes out as boisterous laughter. The other customers aside from buzz cut and myself– an elderly couple having dinner at a booth in the far corner, and a heavyset woman several stools away with a mug of beer in hand – are all chuckling.

 

“Get it Rick? And how’s your bush? And how’s your cock? Hahaha!”

 

I finish the rest of my drink, fish out three hundred pesos from my wallet, and place the bills down on the bar. I was heading toward the door when I heard buzz cut call out to me.

 

“Hey Ricky! Where are you going? I haven’t finished the joke. The woman ended up shooting the bartender between the eyes!” More laughter.

 

I exit the bar and walk out into the night. I could still hear faint laughter from within even as the door closes behind me.

 

And I wonder if the bartender is still laughing.

A Carpool Article

Anyone living outside Cebu City can attest to the problems brought about by commuting to work. I live in Talisay City and with the recent opening of a new school term and the onset of the rainy season, I was inspired (based on my personal experience, of course) to come up with a commuter’s guide to surviving a rainy weekday morning:

 

-Grab an umbrella and step out of the house.

-Try your best, although impossible, to fend off the lashing rain. When your foot sinks into ankle-deep mud, swear loudly. You will notice that by now you are dripping wet.

-Claw your way through violent, rabid passengers and scramble aboard a jeepney. Try to enjoy the stifling humidity, the gagging smog, and the heavy traffic. Remember: Commuters cannot be choosers.

-If you arrive at the office late, try to read the morning news to cheer you up.

-If the morning news says the President is encouraging everyone to walk or ride a bicycle because of the rising price of gasoline, stop and think if she is willing to do any of these in the pouring rain to get to Malacañang.

-Buckle down to work. You have better things to do.

 

And don’t get me started on taxis. I remember something Jessica Zafra has written about taxi drivers here in the Philippines: “Cabbies may refuse a passenger on the grounds that her destination is too near, her destination is too far, traffic en route to her destination is too bad. And my personal favorite: He’s not going that way.”

 

So when my father got a new car and handed down his old, gas-guzzling ’95 Corolla, I was ecstatic. I used the car to drive to work for a while– eventually the car was sold and I moved on to a 2000 Corolla — but when a series of unprecedented oil price hikes hit the driving public hard, this brought me back to reality. It made me think of the things I could get for the price of a single liter of petrol:

 

1. A tapsilog with free iced tea at Ron’s Grill
2. Two or three days’ worth of prepaid cell phone credits
3. A cheeseburger meal at McDonald’s
4. Just add 1,500 + pesos for a good rice cooker
5. Just add 750,000 + pesos for a brand new and fuel-efficient Toyota Yaris!

 

Then a simple solution was flaunted by fellow Talisaynon Cathy Ramirez of Systems: Why not start a carpool service? Cathy even offered her car and agreed to be the designated driver. The only catch was that we (including carpool mates Abigail Mancelita and Richard Khe of Software Development) each needed to contribute a certain amount to help pay for the gasoline costs. Who could resist such an offer?

 

Also known as car-sharing, ride-sharing, and lift-sharing, carpooling has been around in a structured form since the mid ‘70s. Needless to say, aside from helping save the world’s rapidly depleting oil reserves, carpooling reduces the number of cars on the road, thereby helping to combat rising traffic congestion. Also, in reducing the number of cars on the road, carpooling decreases pollution and the need for parking space. In a global perspective, this reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

 

Carpooling can also reduce driving stress. And I’d like to drive home this point (pun definitely intended) by saying that nothing can be more relaxing on the way to the office than listening to Mama Cathy’s motherly advice, Richard’s sure-fire tips on how to live a frugal life and save money, and Abigail’s off-hand jokes and cracking laughter. And of course, wishful thinking aside, I’d like to believe that they also enjoy my company no matter how obnoxious I can get.

 

Carpool, anyone?

Reading Update for May

1. Bangkok Eight by John Burdett

2. Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk

Tapplalog

One mostly craves for the ubiquitous tapsilog in the wee hours of the morning while stinking drunk. For indeed, what could be better than to cap off a night’s drinking binge with a hot plateful of dried beef strips (akin to jerky but thicker and a tad more tender), fried egg(s), and fried rice?

 

Locally enjoyed as an all-day breakfast, tapsilog is as Pinoy a dish as they come.

 

Tapsilog – Tapa, sinangag, itlog. But because I am feeling frisky today, I decided not to describe the components of the dish in their proper order, and instead interchange “si” and “log”. What imagination.

 

Tapa: When fresh off the grill (or frying pan), the smoky flavor of the dried beef greets one’s tongue on the first bite. Some prefer to drown the meat in vinegar swimming with crushed local chilies or “labuyo”, but I personally believe that to savor the tapa in all its glory, one must not suffuse it with anything sour or acidic.

 

Itlog: Next is the fried egg, with its gelatinous albumen and soupy yolk. Even the least imaginative of gourmets need not be told that the best way to enjoy the egg is to mash and mix it with the fried rice or sinangag.

 

Sinangag: And now we go to the last (but certainly, certainly not the least—in fact it may be the most important in this rice-starved nation) of the tapsilog’s components, the fried rice or sinangag. Perfect fried rice is not greasy but also not too dry, with just the right amount of oil and garlic.

 

When done right, all three ingredients should be in perfect harmony and complement each other, giving a most distinctive gastronomic experience.

 

However, a mortal sin committed by Tapsilogan proprietors: Instead of sinangag, they serve plain rice.

 

How can they have the cheek to call it tapsilog?

 

A word of advice to these hooligans: call it a tapplalog instead. Change sinangag to plain rice.

 

A tapplalog stand serving toplalog, adplalog, bangplalog, baconplalog, etc.

 

Oh wait, maybe the “si” in tapsilog doesn’t stand for sinangag but for “sinaing”.

 

Damn it, I just gave those idiots an alibi.

 

But at least please don’t mistake sinangag for a typically sour dish in broth that could include stewed fish, shrimps, pork, or beef, with vegetables.

 

That’s sinigang, for God’s sake.

 

Paging Kem Villagas.

The “Read One Book a Week Project” update for April

First week: House of Meetings by Martin Amis
Second week: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Third week: Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Fourth week: Problems and Other Stories by John Updike

Vignette: Sea Snake

It was the very first time I’d seen a sea snake in the flesh, and it gave me the creeps. According to a wildlife show on the National Geographic Channel, sea snakes are not aggressive by nature but will not hesitate to bite in self defense. And the way Frank was trying to bash its head in against the sand with a brown, disheveled coconut fruit, I wouldn’t blame the blue and white striped serpent if it suddenly decided to lash out and punch in a couple of holes in my friend’s calf.

 

The sun had just risen and we decided to trawl the water’s edge and search for a few valuables that could be salvaged– valuables from our capsized boat that might have washed ashore — when my girlfriend Jenny saw the snake. The beached animal was struggling to crawl back to the safety of the sea. The sea snake’s paddle-like tail is designed to propel its body forward efficiently while swimming, but on land this modification leaves the animal lumbering and awkward, sluggish even. Perhaps emboldened by the animal’s clumsiness, Frank picked up a coconut and decided to use it to flatten the snake.

 

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” I told him. “We’re thousands of miles from a hospital. If you get bitten, you’re good as dead.

 

“That’s the point, Fred. I’m trying to kill it so it won’t bite anyone.”

 

“You’re stupid,” said Jenny. “Obviously it’s not looking for something or someone to bite. It’s just trying to go home. Leave it alone.”

 

“Make me.”

 

And as if to punctuate his statement, Frank brought the coconut down hard on the snake’s head. Its body twisted and thrashed violently before laying still.

 

Frank kicked the unmoving serpent to make sure it was dead. He picked up the snake and held it up with a smile. “Snake barbecue, anyone?”

 

“I won’t eat that.” I said.

 

“You’re crazy!” Jenny exclaimed. “Go ahead and cook that. I hope there’s enough venom in that snake to kill you.”

 

Frank clenched the snake in his hand. His nails dug into the soft body.  “Just what the hell is your problem?”

 

“You are the problem,” Jenny said, red-faced. “You’re the reason why we’re stranded in this godforsaken island! You’re the one who said you knew how to handle a motor banca. You’re the one who said we’ll just drive around and be back before lunch. And now you ask me what’s my problem?”

 

“I didn’t hit that rock on purpose. I didn’t know it was too shallow to go that fast. Stop blaming me. You’re the one who tagged along. I was just going to take Fred.”

 

“Guys, please stop this.” I pleaded.

 

“He started it.” Jenny said, and stormed off.

 

Frank shrugged, and turned to me. “Your girlfriend needs to learn how to relax, bai. I’m going to gather some firewood. If you want some snake for breakfast, just let me know.”

 

Frank ended up not eating the snake at all. Courtesy of Jenny, he had some human meat for breakfast. Medium rare.

Mock Editorial: The Grains of Wrath

It was inevitable. The rice problem that once loomed large has now arrived, no thanks to the decision to completely import grain from other countries rather than focus on allocating land for planting. It seems food security is not the top priority for this bogus government. Countries like Thailand and Vietnam– who in an ironic twist once sent their scholars to study in UP Los Baños, and are now two of the countries we import rice from — seem to be handling the global rice crisis very well, and are keeping their people well-fed.

 

So now the question that begs to be asked is this: How to stave off hunger?

 

How indeed? How when even tapsilog stands charge an extra five pesos because of the rising price of rice? How when carenderias and restaurants are forced to serve substandard rice? How when all we read in the newspapers and see on TV are hungry folk in long queues trying to get their hands at cheap NFA rice?

 

Simple: Eat pizza instead!

 

Sadly, this is easier said than done.

 

Like throwing cake to the hungry, as if to mock the riceless populace, the fragrant smell of pepperoni, cheese, and onions wafted through the air. As if to rub salt on wound, the silent scream of “Eat me! For heaven’s sake, eat me now!” cut through the air, from only an office divider away.

 

Alas, like hooligan hoarders who stock sackfuls of grain in hidden warehouses across the country, like a corrupt Pharaoh from ancient Egypt who only opens the granaries to the hungry after he has emptied and ravaged them, the “Queen” has made sure that her precious pizza would only be available to the privileged few.

 

Not even a trickle (or in this case, a single slice) for the masses who toil day in and day out at their workstations.

 

The utter travesty of it all.

 

Now we finally see the shortsightedness of believing that pizza can serve as balm or salve for wound in this rice-starved nation (office).

 

What’s worse is that the people won’t take this sitting down. The people need grain (or pizza). And fast. Or else the government would have to face the people’s wrath.

 

So now we get to the second question that also begs to be asked: Will we see an improvement in the days, weeks, or even months to come?

 

Not really.