IMODO.COM -   the soaring chorus

Eat eat eat eat eat

When I get very angry, I eat.

Tonight, I ate a lot. Finally had it out with my mother over something that was admittedly a long time coming. She asked me if I was still attending mass, and I said no, not for a while. She let out a "Hay nako..." complete with an eye roll that I know she must have done, and I couldn't hold it in.

I let out in one burst everything that I felt was wrong with the church. That according to them I was unfit, no, damaging to a child if they were unfortunate enough to come under my care. (This from an institution that has had a long history of it's own people abusing children and women, and then covering it up).

That unlike other people that could be unnamed, I could not be in an institution and follow its laws all the while not agreeing or believing in them. That would make me either a hypocrite or a liar. That I was doing this because I am a spiritual person, and that I do have faith that I cannot abide this, and don't you dare judge me with a "hay nako"

I said all of that in practically one nonstop burst of vitriol and anger that was long in coming. After which she stood up and left the table. At which point I took the TV remote and switched it from the awful telenovela that we were being forced to watch to AXN and began shoveling food into my mouth.

It was actually a good meal, greasy adobo with plenty of garlic and mushrooms (my own addition which turned out rather well). But I didn;t taste any of it. I just needed something to gnash my jaws against and to feel something else besides angry. After eating I marched upstairs to the PC, grabbed a pear and finished that off in 30 seconds and began typing, and here I am.

I had stopped feeling...whatever it is one is supposed to be feeling when one is in mass, and I had only been going because is was a family thing and for my mother's sake. When I met Nelz, and the only times we got together were on the weekends, I would pull myself from our bed and drive myself halfway across town to the church where my family attended mass, just so I could attend and be a good Catholic.

This is not me patting myself on the back. I put that down just so everyone reading can understand that I did not stop going because it was inconvenient. If I didn't feel in my heart that what the Vatican was doing was wrong, I would go to mass even if I were exhausted and Nelz was beckoning me to a marathon nookie session. The fact of the matter is that I cannot abide by what the Church has put down as LAW, something factual that cannot be undone, something that will be invoked by every self-righteous homophobe now and forevermore when they are asked to justify their beating up a gay teenager or refusing a loving Lesbian couple to raise a child. The Church said so, and there is nothing we can say to counter that.

Which is why I have decided to remove myself from the church. I still pray, quite often, and every night. I believe in god, and I honestly try to do good in my actions. I'm not always successful, but that's more than what a LOT of Sunday-going, prayer-spewing, so-called "pious" Catholics can say. (And isn't it interesting that often the most intolerant of peoples are also religious? Just an observation. )

I have decided to not go to church anymore because I cannot give them my silent support of beliefs that are demean everything that I AM. That it ignores the rest of who I am, and distills it down on who I choose to love as a basis of whether or not I am fit to raise children, fit to love, and ultimately, fit to live. I cannot lie to myself, or say to myself "I may disagree with you, but I'll sing your hymns and keep it to myself".

NOTHING will come from that outlook. Nothing positive anyway. If you want some kind of progress to gaining self-respect from people like the Pope, acquiescing and saying nothing is not the way to do it. I'm not claiming that my choice is guaranteed to bring about any change, but I know that doing nothing guarantees that change WON'T come. And so I left.

This has not been an easy decision for me to make. Every day,it doesn't get any easier.

And tonight, I eat.

Weak
(Skunk Anansie)

Lost in time I can't count the words
I said when I thought they went unheard
All of those harsh thoughts so unkind
'cos I wanted you

And now I sit here I'm all alone
So here sits a bloody mess , tears fly home
A circle of angels , deep in war
'cos I wanted you

Weak as I am, no tears for you
Weak as I am, no tears for you
Deep as I am, I'm no ones fool
Weak as I am

So what am I now I'm love last home
I'm all of the soft words I once owned
If I opened my he heart , there'd be no space for air
'cos I wanted you

Weak as I am, no tears for you
Weak as I am, no tears for you
Deep as I am, I'm no ones fool
Weak as I am

In this tainted soul
In this weak young heart
Am I too much for you

In this tainted soul
In this weak young heart
Am I too much for you

In this tainted soul
In this weak young heart
Am I too much for you

Weak as I am
Weak as I am
Weak as I am
Weak as I am, am, am

Weak as I am
Am I to much for you
Weak as I am
Am I to much for you
Weak as I am
Am I to much for you
Weak as I am
Am I to much for you
Weak as I am

Withdrawal

As I type this, am sitting in a net cafe along Quezon Avenue instead of the house. The problem with not putting entries into your blog on a regular basis is when something fucks up -- namely, the your internet access at home inexplicably getting cut -- no one really notices.

Yesterday I get home to my computer to get my fix of surfing, but instead I am greeted by a double dose of computer problems. First of all, the printer, although connected and running, refuses to print anything, even a nozzle check. RC asking to have something printed out for his class and I felt awful that I wasn't able to do it. The main problem seems to be that the computer cannot detect the printer. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers, nothing improves.

The bigger problem though is that the lower right hand corner has an icon saying NETWORK CABLE UNPLUGGED, and I have no access whatsoever. No email. No surfing. No downloads. No chatting. After checking and double-checking all of the connections and waiting a bit for the connection to come back on its own, it's been nearly a full day and nothing has changed.

I finally call the cable company this morning and they say a techie will be sent Thursday afternoon. Hopefully the problem will be fixed, and then after that I'll have to deal with the printer.

This is why I hate hate HATE computers. Unlike Nelz, who disassembles and reassembles PC setups seemingly just for kicks, I am deathly afraid of the things, because the few times I did tinker with the system and all of the myriad files, I caused irreparable damage to it that necessitated a reformatting and having to reinstall all of my programs.

Same thing goes with cars and the like, I am NOT a gadget person. My expertise with these things goes only so far as to using them. These machines are so alien to me, and I'm really intimidated by them. So if something goes wrong like now, I feel overwhelmingly frustrated by it all because there's nothing I can do but wait for the technician to arrive.

It's kind of good in a way; I think I've been spending way too much time on the internet. I knew I was pushing the line when I found myself aimlessly clicking my picks over and over again just looking for something new to read, like a snacker returning to the fridge several times in the hopes of finding something new to eat. Getting away from the net for a few days would probable do me some good, clear my system, give me an enema, so to speak.

But of course, I'm on the net right now, aren't I?

I know I'M going

The Ayala Cinemas are going to be screening the infamous movie bomb Gigli. In a lemons-into-lemonade move that a marketing student such as myself can really appreciate, the ad copy simply states:


GIGLI.

Know why it's being talked about.

No hype, no deception, just the facts with a unique spin. Now THAT's good marketing. The retard that came up with the name "The Event" for the F2 "concert" can kiss my butt.

Screening starts on September 22, in Geenbelt 3 and Glorietta 4 cinemas only.

"This next song is for those in the audience who like pancakes..."

FINALLY finished a song; the first one in ages. At any given time, I have several songs in my head in various stages of completion. Some of them are just a single line of lyric, some are practically done and need only a bridge, but I haven't fully completed a song since... gosh, I think Peace in Me which was what, 2 years ago?.

Maple
(Ian Carandang)

Maple
As we dance upon the table
And I am unable
To resist the kiss of maple

Honey
Don't you think it's rather funny
How I go from blue to sunny?
With just a little bit of your honey

prechorus
I see the look of hunger and it's in your eyes
Now it's on my mind
Never felt so famished ever in my life
And it's coming
And it's coming

Butter
Melting down as it gets hotter
Piled high one on top of the other
I think I need a glass of water

Syrup
Sweet and sticky on the mirror
Lick it off to make it clearer
Anticipation builds as it gets nearer

prechorus
I see the look of hunger and it's in your eyes
Now it's on my mind
Never felt this famished ever in my life
And it's coming
And I'm coming

chorus
Feels so good going in
Can't tell where I end and you begin
Feels so good coming up
No one else can measure up
Feels so good going down
Careful love don't make a sound
Feels so good when I'm with you
Hope that no one stops us 'til we're through

Bacon
A hot & greasy undertaking
I can tell that you're not faking
This is serious love we're making

prechorus
I see the look of hunger and it's in your eyes
How it's on my mind
Never felt this famished ever in my life
And it's coming
I am coming

chorus
Feels so good going in
Can't tell where I end and you begin
Feels so good coming up
No one else can measure up
Feels so good going down
Careful love don't make a sound
Feels so good inside of you
Hope that no one stops us 'til we're through

Only feel this good when I'm with you.

Yes, it's about food again. :) It's slowly becoming clear to me that food, along with sex, are my two Big Weaknesses (Nelz has told me that I need to wear blinders when we walk in a mall so that I don't get distracted by every other food stand we pass.). So I guess it was inevitable that I would I put the two of them together.

I think I was channeling the same Muse of Kalibugan that inspired both Your Body is a Wonderland and Crash into Me. Looking at it now, it's the kinkiest song I've ever written to date.

Hmmmm, now I wonder why that is?.......

I neither condone nor condemn, just cutting & pasting here

Got this off Faustus's blog.

For September 11, I was going to write a post about how gross I find it when people get all emotional about today, and about the 3,000 people who died here, but didn't bat an eyelash at the savage genocide in 1994 of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda or the million Somalis who have died from the war and famine that wrack their country or the labor camps and torture and forced abortion and sterilization with which China is destroying Tibet but then I passed an ice cream truck and all rational thought was driven out of my head by a desperate longing for a chocolate sundae with strawberry sauce.

It kinda sums up the ambivalence I feel about this whole thing. Yes, 9/11 was a terrible event. But if you're going by sheer numbers, there are other catastrophies that were just as, or (if you go by numbers) even more horrible in terms of human life lost that get a mere fraction of the attention, let alone remembrance. Unless the underlying assumption here is that American lives are more valuable than other nation's; and of course we all know that isn't the case, right?

....Right?.........

Obituary

John Ritter is dead.

I remember him from my childhood watching Three's Company which in retrospect, I had no business seeing when I was that age. John never really attained success in film, somehow looking more at home in the small screen. He escaped 'Where-are-they-now' purgatory through quirky and memorable appearances in shows ranging from Buffy to Ally McBeal.

After getting enough karma points, he finally scored successful show with 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter whose future is looking obviously very murky right now. He never appeared in any blockbusters, nor was he particularly synonymous with quality entertainment, but he will be remembered. And missed.

Rest in peace, John.

From the web

Boston church settles abuse cases with $85 million. Isn't this the same church headed by that old guy who said that gay people weren't fit to raise children because we would "damage" them? Is he too busy getting his adult diapers changed to make another papal statement about this? Where is the old fart now? How much "damage" did THEIR people cause?

God DAMN you people. Why do you make it so easy for me to leave the church?

Hypocrites. You're all fucking HYPOCRITES.

Oh my goodness

Who said eating sandwiches were healthy for you? Check out the Grilled Chocolate sandwiches from the NY times. I'm already wondering what chocolate to use.....

What is spellcheck fro?

Memo to self: Edit all blog entires before posting, as Spellcheck is NOT enough to proofread your work. Aiieeeeyaaaaaaaa......

Kimchi, Cookies, and Vodka Ice Candy

Haaaay, trying to get back into writing again….

What happened to me last week? Well, on Friday I attended the 2003 Food and Drink Expo at the World Trade Center, hoping to find a lead on the ever-elusive ice cream machines I’m looking for. I kept my expectations low because I attended a similar event in the Megatrade Hall last year with similar ambitions and was disappointed to see simply a bazaar of food products (think wines, cheeses, dried fish, etc). I drove along Roxas not really expecting anything .

Until I actually got there. I had forgotten how HUGE the World Trade Center was, and the place was, even from the outside, simply PACKED with people. It took me 20 minutes just to get in line to register for a nametag to get me in (no entrance fee! Whoo!). As I neared the huge entrance and all the wonders that lay within, I could barely contain my excitement and happily texted both Nelz and my textmate-in-crime Katrice.

“*sniff* It’s so… beautiful here!”

“I feel so excited! This must be how a geek feels at an anime convention!”

Finally, I get my precious nametag and quickly stroll within, and am immediately awestruck at the sights before my eyes. If I were in a TV show or a movie the soundtrack would call for trumpets blaring and a light shining down on me from above. The entire hall was filled. Not just with food booths (of which there were legion) but machines of all sizes; huge conveyor-belt types for bottling and packaging, giant bowls for mixing ingredients, large gas grillers, refrigerated trailers for cold storage… it was beautiful. I just took my time walking carefully down each aisle, making sure not to miss anything. More that one I got sidetracked by a particularly interesting exhibit or food sample, then not remembering where I had been and losing my place.

Speaking of food samples: I purposely didn’t eat lunch so I could have room for all the samples that I hopes would be available (the previously mentioned Megatrade hall didn’t have shit when it came to that, you had to buy anything if you were hungry) Here it was just there reverse, yes some foods were available for sale; a hotdog stand, some highly priced concessionaires (P150 for a plate of chicken!!). But the majority of the booths were offering their samples for free in the hopes of snagging a successful businessman to place a huge order.

Being neither, but doing my best to look the part (hehe) I took full advantage of all that was there to offer: Hotdogs, smoked cheese, salmon sashimi (yay!!) and enough Nestea Iced Tea of various flavors (I liked Four Seasons the best) to make me pee twice, Kimchi, Tuna quesadillas, Imitation Scallops, sweet red wine (not sweet enough for me, I really am a white wine kinda guy), Nestle Cappuccino, salad, pan de sal, pork barbecue and soft serve ice cream were just some of the tings I remember enjoying. To use a porn analogy, it was like a huge gang-bang for food.

What interesting things/trends did I see? Apparently in Korea, the latest fad in food is to turn anything you can eat into a pancake. In the Korean section, along with the resident kimchi (nice and spicy) they also offered kimchi pancakes (mixed with batter and fried) it was pleasant enough, but I still prefer rice with my ulam and my pancakes for dessert only (Japanese okonomiyaki being the lone exception). Walking down to another booth manned an extremely lovely Korean girl, not only was there kimchi but pumpkin pancakes, bean sprout pancakes, and among others. I tried the pumpkin pancake and while it was interesting, again it wasn’t my thing.

Another product that caught my interest were flavored squid balls. Imagine popcorn or french fries drizzled with flavored powder, and that same formula being moved to squid balls. The booth was well-attended by many curious people and I confess to going back 3 times to sample their wares (they had sweet chili and sausage flavors available). It was an interesting idea that no one had thought of before which I always respect, but I wonder how far they can go with this. I mean, popcorn and fries on their own don’t really have a flavor, but don’t squid balls have their own taste already? I wonder how far this “make one thing taste like another” trend can actually go. If people aren't careful, it could lead to a moebius strip of something like Beef-flavored squid balls into Squid-flavored chicken into chicken flavored beef.

The one last thing that got my attention and for me held the most promise were a product called Alcopops, which were basically ice candy made with frozen vodka, in various flavors. While I don't drink myself, I thought this would be the perfect thing to serve at a rave or dance party where you could jump around and get sloshed without having to worry about spilling your drink. I think they and I (with my liquor-infused ice cream) have cottoned on to the same Next Big Idea: take the treats that people loved in childhood and spice them up with booze.

On the opposite side of the spectrum the thing that annoyed me the MOST when I was there was this new franchise wannabe called THUMBS UP! Ice Cream, Which when I saw their booth was filled with giant pictures of Dominic Ochoa (an automatic minus in my book) in various poses fondling their product, which was in a nutshell, miniature ice cream. As in TINY. Imagine an ice cream cone scaled down until it’s the size of your thumb (hence the name). Stick out your own thumb to get a sense of how insultingly small it is. And that’s including the cone. The scoop of ice cream (I think the word "scoop" is mortified to even be referred as such) is barely enough to fill one corner of your mouth even if you were to eat it whole. Hell, even an obscenely priced Cheesecake etc. cheesecake is worth at least two bites before you scarf it all down.

I have to admit that the way it’s meant to be served (several flavors/cones on a wooden palette) is aesthetically pleasing, but the price isn’t: it’s a whopping 25 bucks for a mini cone. If you want to have yourself a decent serving of ice cream you'd have to get like 5 cones of the stuff just to be satisfied, at which point you're better off just getting at Haagen-Dazs anyway. Magnolia can give you a whole scoop in a giant waffle cone for just a little more than that!

And it’s not like the ice cream itself is that exciting. Unlike Haagen-Dazs, where they offer exotic flavors like Macadamia Nut brittle, Tiramisu and Bailey’s Irish Cream, the flavors of thumbs up where just the ordinary Magnolia-type (being a lifelong Magnolia ice cream fan, I refuse to use the term "Nestle ice cream") chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. Their most “exotic”: flavor was chocolate chip cookie dough, which I’m betting isn’t even real ‘raw’ dough but baked cookies crumbled into bits (much like the other inauthentic cookie dough ice cream from Selecta and Magnolia).

I don’t know, I guess the idea they’re going for is giving you Hagen-Dazs quality ice cream (and is it even that?) in more affordable portions and prices. Or at least that’s what they want you to THINK. But it just strikes me as the worst of both worlds; their tiny protions amount to just a little bit more than what Haagen-Dazs gives in their free tastes, in which case you're better off just going there and getting it for free. And if you're willing to spend 25 bucks for ice cream, I'd think you're better off just getting a nice belgian waffle cone for P29 from Magnolia instead.

As someone who’s killed himself to make quality ice cream with innovative flavors and has been selling it at an admittedly undervalued price, a store like this fricking kills me. It offends me that they’d even try to pass something like this onto consumers. I guess I’m investing way too much emotion on something as trivial as ice cream, but as an ice cream…maker, person, whatever (what IS the term for me anyway?) I find a store like this both obnoxious and money-grubbing, and I find myself uncharacteristically hoping for it’s failure. Anyway.

All in all, it was a fun experience, and I’m very happy I went. I even got a REAL lead on an ice cream maker (from an Australian supplier called Frostyboy) that has the perfect size for what I need. Here’s hoping he follows up on me. I’ll be back next year, and I’ll make sure to not eat anything beforehand.

What's real can't die
You're gonna get what you give,
Just don't be afraid to live.

- The New Radicals, "You get what you give"

If I worked in the UN: An open leter to George W. Bush

Dear George,

          At the beginning of this entire fiasco that you now find yourself sinking deeper and deeper into, you ignored all dissenting opinion and insisted that Iraq had WMDs and were willing to use them. The MAIN point of the invasion which has since proven to be false. That you now do spin control and say that Saddam was a dictator who deserved to be ousted is a slippery slope that I think even an imbecile like you would not go down, lest some country decide to oust you for the abuses you put upon segments of your own people (declaring all gay people "sinners" and unworthy of the rights accorded ordinary citizens, just to name one example).

You basically spit in the face of the United Nations, called it "Irrelevant", gloated when the war was over, secure in the belief that the US did not need the UN to have it's way in the globe. You dismissed European countries that expressed doubts as "Old World" and "Chocolate Makers". You did the same in your own country, shutting down and censoring people who dared to question your policies by branding them as unpatriotic and unamerican.

You avoided active duty as a young man, but dressed up in pilot's gear on an aircraft carrier to declare "mission accomplished!". Alas, such was not to be. Now, more American soldiers have died since the war ended than during the actual war itself. Iraq has become pure chaos and a hotbed of terrorists. Your invasion may have inadvertently caused an entire generation of Iraqis that are willing to die just to cause even a single American pain. Ironically, the lie that you purported (that Iraq and Al-Qaeda had ties) may end up being true because of the mess that you have caused.

And now you want US to come in to wipe up your mess, to send our troops to serve as sitting ducks for an entire nation that is furious and screaming for blood and vengeance because of what you -- YOU -- have done? AND you have the gall to demand that any troops we DO send would be under US command? To which I say:

Fuck you, you stupid, spoiled, delusional, lying, zealot, hypocritical, planet-killing scum. Fuck your vice president and co-conspirator. Fuck your lies. Fuck your trying to save face in the midst of this disaster. Go back to your own country and explain to your own people how the war which is set to rocket your deficit into the trillions and result in more soldiers coming home in boxes all for a cause that was in the end untrue. If they have any sense, they will vote you out of office and make sure your name will be associated forevermore with massive presidential incompetence. And if they do not.... it happens (see: Estrada, Erap) and the Americans truly deserve a "leader" such as yourself to ruin your country's future for another 4 years.

So, to summarize: Fuck you George Dubaya Bush. Fuck you and the sham you rode in on. Fuck you, Fuck you, Fuck you, and go to hell.

Sincerely,
The UN

P.S.: Fuck you.

this is why I can never be a diplomat.