top 10 things i would do if i were declared the king of the philippines

this is another top 10 list. aside from the schtick people usually answer, like ending poverty, making education the number one priority, running after all crooks in government, working on lasting peace and order, etc. (which i myself would intend to do, of course), these are the top 10 things i would do if i were declared the king of the philippines:

10. bring back bobot candy

remember those? if you grew up in the late 80s and early 90s then you'll probably remember those. it's one the icons of my early childhood, those little peanuts coated in a sweet sugary layer in rainbow colors. it was one of the few items i could buy in the sari sari store with the 25 centavo allowance my mother usually gave me. cheap but satisfying. makes me wish i was a child again.

9. have people who answer their cellphones in movie theaters beaten and humiliated in public

i was watching memoirs of a geisha at sm once. when the movie was just about to start a familiar ringing sound suddenly comes out of nowhere, and then the guy to my left pulls out his cellphone and chats away with someone who seemed to be his girlfriend. AAARRGGH... for the next 10 minutes me and my fellow moviegoers discovered more about his love life than the movie's story. if i could hurl thunderbolts at the guy then i would've, but all that came out of me was a very pathetic "ssssshhhh!".

8. start a campaign geared toward the extinction of cockroaches

cockroaches. the scum of the earth, the scourge of humanity. ewww. i hate them with a vengeance. do you know that in the event of a nuclear fallout the last creatures to ever come out of it alive would be cockroaches? plus, they're disgusting little critters. everytime i see them in my house the hunter instinct in me comes alive and down comes my tsinelas (slipper) on the little beast. i know, a simple spraying of baygon is more effective, but not as satisfying as squashing that cockroach to mulch.

7. buy a new refrigerator

our fridge has been broken for weeks already, and i haven't been able to get a nice cold glass of water when i wake up in the morning for a very very loooong time now. what makes it worse is that it's summer. if that isn't hell on earth, i don't know what is.

6. order those trendy cafes like starbucks to sell coffee according to what its actually worth

selling ordinary brewed coffee at 150 pesos a cup is simply criminal...

5. have all inconsiderate smokers who smoke in public without even thinking about those who don't smoke arrested

this is one of my personal pet peeves. you're sitting in a jeepney on the way to work, breathing in a healthy dose of smoke from the morning traffic rush, then the guy beside you lights a cigarette and smokes. you try covering your nose, make coughing noises, frowning, anything to get the message through to that man's probably non existent brain that you do not want him sitting beside you with that cigarette, and yet still he puffs away.

we're already choking from all the smoke belched by those jurrasic jeepneys and those monster factories, but do you people really have to add to all that smoke? yes, this is a free country, and granted, you have the freedom to kill yourselves. but do you have to bring us non-smokers closer to hell together with you?

4. declare a moratorium on those crappy lovey dovey pinoy movies

no wonder the local movie industry is dying, all they keep churning out is crap. i hate the manufactured feel of their so called "love teams". they all look so forced, so artificially sweet so that the viewing public will take notice of their "romance" and watch their damn movie. but the public seems to lap it all up everytime, so what do i know.

3. stop the airing of all showbiz news programs

the buzz, S files, different rooms on the same hell on earth, as one fellow blogger put it. why people give a f*ck about Kris Aquino's latest love affair when we have much bigger problems to think about is simply beyond me. a friendly word of advice to all of you suckers out there: get a life.

2. PLAGIARISTS WILL BE SHOT!!! DEATH TO ALL PLAGIARISTS!!!

i was blog surfing one night when i came across the blog of a person who i sort of knew because she was one year my senior in college and who also happened to be the classmate of my former officemate and the former officemate of one my college buddies. skimming over her blog, i came across one poem, which after my reading it seemed VERY VERY familiar. then it hit me. THAT WAS MY POEM. she took most of the lines, added some of her own, mixed and matched some other lines, then voila, it was suddenly HER poem...

WHAT THE F*CK!!!

the great irony of it is, she works in the software industry, which itself is a victim of piracy, a close cousin of plagiarism. but at least pirates don't claim that they developed the software, the credit is still where it should be. so that makes her worse than pirates.

but then again, imitation is the highest form of flattery, so maybe she thinks my poem IS good :) so from the bottom of my heart, dear plagiarist, i thank you.

UPDATE: ms. plagiarist seems to have deleted her blog... hmmm... does that mean she doesn't like my poem anymore? :)


and the number 1 thing i would do if i were declared king of the philippines:

1. outlaw playing and listening to ANY song by air supply.

man, do i hate their songs. not do i just hate their songs, i detest their songs with a deep loathing. people seem to be playing them everywhere, all the time. i hear their songs in my neighborhood, in jeepneys, in videoke bars, downtown, everywhere. once, when i went out with my officemates for some videoke (yes, i now enjoy singing at the videoke. i take back everything i said about videoke.), they sang "i'm all out of love" by air supply. oh how i had wanted to eat them alive.

in one of their songs, their vocalist shrieks, "i don't know what to saaaaaay! i don't know what to saaaaaaaaaaaay!" tell you what mr. air supply vocalist sir, if you don't know what to say, then SHUT UP ALREADY!

top 10 signs that you're getting old

i'm still 22, but i'm starting to feel... old... like really old. so, in the tradition of david letterman, here is my own top ten list.

top 10 signs that you're getting old

10. people refer to the 90's as a bygone era the way everybody refers to the 80's and 70's.

soon, everybody will be thinking that the 90's is as far removed as the jurassic period. i'm starting to feel like a dinosaur...

9. you start worrying about what you eat

eating used to be one of the greatest joys in life. but now, after a nice filling meal, i can't help but feel like a bavarian cream donut stuffed in a pair of pants.

8. old classmates getting married

you think, "what?! that pervert's getting married?!" then you imagine that old classmate taking walks in the park with his kids and his pregnant wife. he's so... mature.

7. summer no longer means long vacations

it used to be that 3 months out of every year you'd be faced with having nothing to do. now, all i have are 10 measely vacation leaves... the horror...

6. former teachers become coworkers

this is the cool part about getting old. you can now rub it in their face and say "YOU CAN'T FAIL ME NOW!!! BWAHAHAHA (evil laugh)"

5. you can still remember the time when the minimum jeepney fare was still at 1 peso

the minimum is now 5 pesos (5.50 in manila) and some are even proposing to raise it to 7 pesos! what the hell!

4. insurance credit card agents start chasing you with offers

this one can be very annoying. you're in the middle of solving a particularly nasty problem at work, then your train of thought is broken by the sound of your phone ringing. "sir, we would like to offer you BLABLABLABLABLA..." AAAARRGGH

3. the thought of "settling down" has reached your mind

2. you start to get existential angst

only old people are supposed to get this! AAAAAAAHHHH!!!

...

and the number one sign that you're getting old:

1. the music videos you used to watch get shown on classic mtv!

'nuf sed