announcing...

my multiply page :) http://kennethisonline.multiply.com/

sinulog 2008

it's sort of late... but here are some of my pix during sinulog 2008 :)

sinulog 2008 fluvial parade pix

sinulog 2008 grand parade pix

uc chicks

some pictures of chicks from UC that i took for itzamatch.com's search for the perfect campus couple

apologies are in order

to my 2 loyal readers: i... am... sorry...

i've either been too busy or too depressed to write. there's this particular piece i want to finish, but i sometimes find myself too horrified by my subject. for the meantime, if it's any consolation, here are some pictures of chicks from USJR that i took when itzamatch.com held its perfect campus couple shindig there. thanks to faith for letting me take pictures :)

i'll be posting pics from UC next :)

previously... on prison break

for more photos, please visit my photoblog :)

his wife's a bitch...

...literally

Man weds dog in bid to break curse

NEW DELHI (AP) -- A man in southern India married a female dog in a traditional Hindu ceremony in a bid to atone for stoning two dogs to death, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

The 33-year-old man married the sari-draped dog at a temple in the southern state of Tamil Nadu on Sunday after an astrologer said it was the only way to cure himself of a disability, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported.

P. Selvakumar told the paper that he had been suffering since he stoned two dogs to death and strung them up in a tree 15 years ago.

"After that my legs and hands got paralyzed and I lost hearing in one ear," the paper quoted him as saying.

Family members chose a stray female dog named Selvi who was then bathed and clothed for the ceremony.

The groom and his family then had a feast, while the dog got a bun, the paper said.

*****

i guess we can all go ahead and say that his wife's a bitch without risking a libel suit no?

i wonder how their honeymoon went...

but all's not well for selvi. it seems her husband's family hasn't accepted her yet. they only gave a her a bun at her wedding feast. they didn't even give her a slice of the wedding cake. how cruel is that! will their marriage last if selvi's in-laws can't even get along with her?

and what if selvi is unfaithful? you know how female dogs can be: once their in heat, they're IN HEAT. and they become a magnet for all the male dogs within a 1 kilometer radius. i can only imagine the quarrel that explodes between mr. selvakumar and selvi.

mr. selvakumar: selvi! where have you been? it's already 3 am!

selvi: woof!

mr. selvakumar: the neighborhood kids tell me that they've seen you and bruno together. what were you two doing? have you been smooching with him?

selvi: woof!

the next morning, mr. selvakumar hears a knock on his door. it's his neighbor kerpal, and he brings bad news. kerpal tells him that he saw selvi last night screwing around with his dog bruno. mr. selvakumar is heartbroken.

in that case, can he file for divorce?

not a cheerful giver

a family friend sent me a text message friday evening. his pregnant wife's blood pressure had shot up to 150/110. the doctors thought it more risky if the delivery was natural, so she had to give birth by caesarian section. the procedure was a success, but they were desperately short on cash, and asked for help. i just had a nice dinner, and was about to enter ayala center cinema 2 when i received the message.

i didn't reply immediately. i finished the movie and went home, mulling it over on the way. i got to bed still without reaching a decision. when i woke up, it was already morning. i thought, if i was going to help, i should do it now. and if i was going to give, it had to be substantial enough to be of real help to them.

so i decided to help anyway, but not without agonizing over it. in his present situation, i couldn't really expect him to repay me. and the amount i had decided on wasn't really that big, but it was big enough to hurt.

i am not writing this to praise myself, but to ask. while mulling it over in the morning, i thought of this passage from the Good Book that says we should not give reluctantly or out of compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. had i been reluctant? oh yes, very much. and i was going to give out of pity, and guilt, both of which i think fall under 'compulsion'. and i don't feel particularly cheerful about it either. so will God not love me for doing it?

am i so bad?

we met up a few hours later. the baby is a boy. and i'm going to be the godfather. which makes me sound like a gangster.

all soul's day haiku

two candles melting
in defiance of darkness--
remembrance

ghost story

my late stepfather was quite fond of cigarettes. sadly, this habit of his soon sent him to the grave. my cousin, knowing this, brought 3 sticks of marlboro with him when he visited my stepfather's (his uncle's) tomb at the cemetery last thursday, all saint's day.

my cousin still had work that day, so he came early. he put flowers on the tomb, lit some candles, then placed the 3 cigarettes on top. he held vigil and waited for the candles to burn out.

the candles burn out, and he turns to leave. a disembodied voice then calls out to him: "psst... posporo..."

when my mom and i arrive later at the cemetery, we find the cigarettes gone. tsk tsk tsk...

i guess you need not worry about high blood pressure or lung cancer or stroke in the afterlife, no?

*****

in memory of boboy, may he rest in peace

the fable of the lost shoe

9 pm and a shoe
lays on the street
bathing in that sickly light of the night
forgotten and friendless
it must have fallen
from a passing car
or from someone's bag
but one thing's for sure
none have come back
to find it
the search not deemed worth the time

9 pm and a shoe
rests on the street
and it dreams
that the days before it was lost
still are:
that a foot still filled it with purpose
and another shoe just like it beside
to walk the waking world with

9 pm and a shoe
stirs on the street
as a man with a sack on his back
comes to find the shoe
and says, 'finally!
a pair for my other shoe'
he puts the shoe
into his sack
and takes it home
where the shoe awakes
to find its dream
come true in ways
it did not even dream of

*****

photo taken on my way home, at the cebu business park, cebu city

is my cat bulimic?

help! my cat miming has a problem. she's been vomiting the past 3 days. i caught her almost do it in my room 3 days ago, so i promptly threw her out. she then went ahead and threw up right outside the door. my mother also saw her do it in the kitchen the next day. she did it again yesterday, after we fed her dinner. clean up has been such a pain.

but i look at miming, and her appetite seems quite normal. she actually keeps meowing at me every time she sees me, to probably try and wheedle some food from me. then my internal hypochondriac suddenly gave me his diagnosis: miming is bulimic.

she seems to have lost weight the past few weeks, and looks rather thin. is miming depressed? is she insecure w/ her looks? does she think she has weight problems? does she think her perceived weight problems are driving away perspective boyfriends, i mean, tomcats? are the lady cats in the neighborhood teasing her that she's fat? has she been watching too much TV when the humans of the house are away, which has somehow influenced her definition of what it is to be beautiful? does she need to see a shrink? do i need to see a shrink?

i've been meaning to ask her all that, but all she says is 'meow'.

a quarter of a century, or, my attempts at spaceflight

i am now a quarter of a century old. aside from wondering where all the days have gone, i haven't quite decided yet if i should be happy or sad, or if i should give a fart about it. i'm not even sure if it's something worth remembering.

to mark the event, i bought a tub of ice cream, to add something a little fancy for dinner at home. but just family, no guests. no party, no pizza for the officemates, no night out drinking w/ buddies. a quarter century of existence has turned me into a grinch.

the morning of my birthday, curiosity struck me with a question: had there ever been anything important that occurred on my birthday? so while i struggled against insignificance, i did some research; i logged on to wikipedia.

from what i read, it seems i share the splendid company of movie stars on my birthday: charlton heston in 1924, buster keaton in 1895, susan sarandon in 1946, alicia silverstone in 1976, and rachael leigh cook in 1979. some writers too: anne rice in 1941 and alvin toffler in 1928. even an american president (rutherford hayes, 1822), a cartoon dog (snoopy, 1950), and a comic strip detective (dick tracy, 1931). not bad.

and on the 4th of october, 50 years ago, a 184 pound aluminum sphere called sputnik (russian for traveller) blasted into the skies on a soviet R-7 ballistic missile, becoming the first man-made satellite to orbit the earth. and so the space age began. nice.

then on the 4th of october, 25 years ago, a 6.13 pound baby boy came crashing into earth, me. but unlike sputnik, i've never really gotten off the ground. for all my dreaming and scheming, i, the eternal underachiever, haven't taken off yet. i'm still on earth, stuck in the same old life, the same old job, same old me. it's kinda tough, to be in the shadow of a satellite.

i look at everyone else, and their rocket launches into space all seem to be going quite well. and i'm still grounded, plagued with a lot of technical problems.

october 4, 1918 seems to be a more appropriate metaphor than october 4, 1957. on that day, according to wikipedia, "An explosion occurred killing more than 100 and destroying the T.A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant in Sayreville, New Jersey. Fires and explosions continued for three days forcing massive evacuations and spreading ordnance over a wide area, pieces of which are still being found in 2007." explosions. exactly.

plane crashes prove to be another fitting metaphor. my birthday seems to have an affinity for them. on october 4, 1960, "Eastern Air Lines Flight 375, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, crashes on takeoff from Boston's Logan International Airport, killing 62 of 72 on board after a bird strike." on october 4, 1975, "A Cessna 310Q airplane crashes over Wilmington, North Carolina, killing the pilot and severely injuring several pro wrestlers affiliated with the NWA's Mid-Atlantic promotion." on october 4, 1992, "An El Al Boeing 747-200F crashes into two apartment buildings in Amsterdam, killing 43 including 38 on the ground." on october 4, 2001, "A Sibir Airlines Tupolev TU-154 crashes into the Black Sea after being struck by an errant Ukrainian S-200 missile. 78 people are killed." this is too much.

but come to think of it, why on earth am i moping? when the americans learned that the soviets successfully sent sputnik into space, what did they do? well, yeah, they did get paranoid for a while, imagining that the soviets would soon be dropping bombs on them from space. but they eventually got back their composure and went to work. they kicked off their own space program. they created NASA. they guided the whole country in the moon's direction and said to themselves, that's where we're going. and off they went.

it wasn't without hitches of course. it started pretty badly. when the US tried to launch their first satellite on december 6, 1957, the vanguard rocket carrying it flew for a total of 2 seconds, traveled 4 feet into the air, and then boom. it became one of the most expensive fireworks displays in history. it also took rangers 1 to 6 before ranger 7 became the first unmanned american ship to land on the moon. the soviets must have had a great time laughing at the americans' expense.

and even more tragic, during a training exercise at the kennedy space center on january 27, 1967, a spark somewhere in the apollo 1 space capsule's 50 km of wiring caused a fire to break out inside. killed were the 3 astronauts on board: virgil grissom, ed white and roger chaffee. on the memorial plaque for the three men was written, 'ad astra per aspera'. a rough road leads to the stars.

yet like anyone who has ever fallen down, you have no other choice really, but to get up off your butt, dust your self off, and carry on. and on july 20, 1969, the eagle landed, and the apollo 11 astronauts neil armstrong and buzz aldrin set foot on the moon.

who knows, one day, i might go to the moon. or mars. or even the stars. but first, i have to find a way to get off the ground.

and i hope i don't crash.

another reason why i will never be a doctor or nurse

i eavesdrop on the neighboring tables while having my cappuccino. don't blame me, i can't help it. a sharpened sense of hearing is one of caffeine's side effects, and i can't just turn it off. so while having my caffeine fix last friday, i found myself listening to an interesting conversation.

seated on the table next to me were 3 nursing students. apparently, one of them was a senior, and he was dishing out advice to the other 2, on how to get scholarships, getting through nursing school, surviving their hospital training, and landing a job in the states. the topic of conversation then shifted to their patients.

they had one patient who discovered he had bladder cancer because he was peeing blood. there was another patient, a young girl, who got burned all over due to an unfortunate kitchen accident. they talked about body fluids coming out, IV fluids coming in, pain medication, all the gory details.

'so how's mr. X in room Y?', asked one about another patient. 'oh... he just died', answered the other. they pause for a few seconds, 'so how's the coffee?'

it's curious how numb those 3 nurses have become. i can imagine them looking at their patients like grease monkeys trying to fix a busted car engine. true, desensitizing your own feelings should be a requirement in any medical career, since not doing so would leave you too paralyzed with sadness over the rising body count, too crippled w/ despair over the pain and suffering you witness firsthand. it's tough, but someone's got to do it. which is another reason i can never be a doctor or a nurse: you have to kill off a certain part of your humanity to function properly.

a case in point (though rather extreme): the senior nurse in the conversation talked about a fellow nurse he worked with. they had this patient, an old man, who was too frail to even put on his medical gown. but the nurse, who never paid attention to the old man in his struggle with his gown, just went on with her measurements of the IV drip rate. this came to the attention of their supervising nurse, who chastised the robot nurse. the robot nurse then shrugged and answered, 'sige sir', then went on her way.

why is the cow smiling?

does it know it's about to become 'classic sirloin steak'? or is it happy that it's about to become 'classic sirloin steak'?

the grass withers and the flowers fall...

i was reminded of a passage from isaiah when i took this picture:
"All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass."

taken in fort san pedro, cebu city. for more photos, please visit my photoblog :)

yes, there is life outside your computer

and i thought i didn't have a life (pun sort of intended). in the news:

China web-user dies after three-day online binge

BEIJING -- A man in southern China collapsed and died after a three-day marathon online session at a cybercafe, state media reported on Monday.

The web-user, estimated to be 30 years old, suddenly collapsed in front of his computer terminal in Guangdong province, and emergency personnel were unable to revive him, the Beijing News reported.


i now have a new mantra to recite. ok, everyone, repeat after me:
yes, [your name here], there is life outside your computer.

aids in cebu

graffiti found in one of the restrooms of BTC, banilad, cebu city

a question of belief

sorry for the delay on my latest post, here's a new photo essay out on my photoblog. please check it out :) comments are still highly appreciated.

the balut virgin and the cigarette virgin: a reflection on the roots of addiction

two people lost their virginity last tuesday: me, the balut virgin, and ms. jp, the cigarette virgin... virgins no longer.

we both lost it during the despedida drinking session held in honor of mr. tugak, who resigned to take a better paying job in manila. not wanting to miss a free drink, i dragged myself from the office looking for the watering hole where it was now ongoing. the place was, literally, a hole in the wall. the owners of the place were airsoft devotees, so they called it 'fire in the hole'.

when i got there i found that mr. tugak, ms. jp, ms. k, and ms. s had already started 2 hours earlier. apparently i had some catching up to do.

*******

after a few bottles, the balut man came. believe it or not, in all my 24 years of existence, i have not yet partaken of these eggs, eggs so magical people believe they granted the partaker certain powers, ranging from stronger knees to increased sexual abilities.

the thing is, i am not very adventurous when it comes to food, and my sensibilities found the idea of eating 'duck abortions' a bit too exotic. as a child, i was also afraid eating balut would give me nightmares: imagine my horror when breaking the shell open, the unborn chick inside would suddenly wake up and beg for its life, telling me in a shrill voice: "please boy! don't eat me!"

"want some?", they ask me. with the unborn chick in mind, i kindly declined. but then, it occurred to me that if i did that, i would look like a sissy in front of everybody else. so the nightmares be damned. i took it back and said, what the heck, sure, i'll have one. tugak was paying for it anyway.

to give myself more courage, i recited mr. tugak's mantra: "sa sugod ra nang luod."

they ordered the 13 day old balut. after a brief discussion on the correct procedure for cracking the egg open (you crack the end marked with a pen), i proceed with my initiation into the mysterious world of balut eating.

first the 'sabaw'. i've heard a lot of stories of pregnant women pestering their husbands in the middle of the night to look for balut just so they could taste its 'sabaw'. but fortunately for the husbands of the world, balut sellers tend to work in the night shift.

so how to describe it... it was... ok, i guess. more or less, it was like an oily version of the tinolang manok's broth. so far so good.

and then came the hard part, the rest of the balut. i broke the shell apart slowly, apprehensive of the possibility of seeing the chick's face. but heaven be praised, the egg had not yet developed enough to a discernable form of a chick. no nightmares this time, thank goodness.

in a nutshell, the balut was like a hard boiled chicken egg that got exposed to gamma rays, with an uneven consistency. there was the tough chewy part, another part that tasted like the ordinary yolk of a hard boiled chicken egg, and another part that had the consistency of phlegm. the last one my mouth had difficulty swallowing. i had to wash it down with a glass of beer to prevent from any further embarassment.

now that i've successfully hurdled my first encounter with balut, i have come to the following conclusion: balut is overrated.

*******

the night wore on, and tugak and ms. k eventually ran out of cigarettes, so they buy themselves another pack. suddenly, ms. jp asks if she could try one. she also says that this would be her first time to smoke. ms. k gives her a stick, and guides her in the technicalities of smoking her first cigarette (i.e. how to breathe in the smoke, the correct way of holding the cigarette between your fingers, etc.). it was weird, after 20 something years, there we were laying witness as ms. jp's pink lung's got devirginized by her first (and hopefully, for her health's sake, her last) cigarette.

ms. k also offered me a stick. i considered it for a moment, then thought: balut and cigarettes are 2 very different things, and i no longer care if i look like a sissy. the farthest i could go was 3 puffs, and i didn't even breathe.

after some clumsy puffing, ms. jp soon finished her stick. it is curious, but not until i sat there staring at the dying embers of ms. jp's first stick in the ashtray did the significance of the event hit me: i just witnessed first hand one of the origins of addiction. people take up their first cigarette, their first bottle of beer, or their first joint of marijuana, for the same reason that i ate my first balut: we just don't want to look like sissies in front of everybody else.

which is not to say, of course, that ms. jp is now getting addicted to cigarettes. ms. jp, you're not getting addicted now, are you?

the carrot and stick approach

talk about the carrot and stick approach:

Boom Boom's village loses road project after boxer's loss

CEBU CITY -- The shocking defeat of Rey "Boom-boom" Bautista by Mexico's Daniel Ponce de Leon did not only sadden his fellow Boholanos. It also cost his village a cemented road.

A dismayed Bohol Gov. Erico Aumentado said that the plan to cement the provincial road going to Barangay Can-uling, Bautista's home village in the town of Candijay, would not push through -- for now.

Aumentado admitted that before the fight, he promised the young Boholano boxer that the road would be cemented but only if he won.

#################

if we could only find a truly effective way of motivating our athletes, then maybe our basketball team wouldn't have to apologize to us after failing in the fiba asia olympic qualifier. maybe we'd even get that elusive gold in the olympics! we can rule the world!

i remember something i read in time magazine years ago. as a way of 'encouraging' the iraq national football team, saddam's son uday hussein would beat the soles of their feet with a cane everytime they lost. unlike the good governor of bohol, uday did not believe in the power of the carrot, only the stick. it had to take the fall of saddam for iraq's soccer team to finally win big, a testament to the validity of uday's motivational approach.

i can imagine gma placing a call to manny pacquiao before his rematch with marco antonio barrera:

gma: hello manny?

manny: yis ma'am! gud ibning ma'am!

gma: my husband just bet 100 million on your coming fight with barrera. if you win this fight, i promise you, on the next election, you will have the hordes of garci and lintang bedol in your disposal! you will finally get that seat in congress! or like migz, even become senator, if you like!

manny: and... uh... if i lose?

gma: i'll just issue an executive order sparing the rest of the country from your singing career [mike arroyo sniggers in the background]

manny: oh, is that all madam president?

gma: yes manny, have a good fight then! bye!

gma hangs up. mike arroyo is later taken to the hospital for laughing too hard. and manny pacquiao regains his focus, forgets about ara mina, goes back to LA, spends his remaining time training hard, and clobbers marco antonio barrera on fight night.