JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

The Cat’s Eye Nebula, from the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive.

On Thursday we mark the 9th anniversary of Jessica Rules the Universe. We started blogging quite late, after having declared that we would never blog. At the time, we did not anticipate that we would join the ranks of the unemployed, and that if our byline did not appear in a newspaper every week, readers would simply assume that we had moved to another country and forget that we exist.

Our first blog was on blogspot and it was called Twisted by Jessica Zafra. Once, as an experiment, we turned off the comment moderation. The section was quickly overrun by trolls so we abandoned the blog altogether. In 2006 Melo Villareal offered to host our site, which he continues to do to this day. We couldn’t use our own name because someone had bought the domain name back in the mid-90s, so we decided on Jessica Rules the Universe.

On this blog we cover our personal interests: Books, Movies (and lately, TV), Travel, Tennis, Music, and of course, Cats. Occasionally, when riled, we write on Politics and Current Events (mostly Traffic). We also hold Contests, do Group Translations (See Camus in Tagalog, above), and organize Reader Support Groups when we take on books that require extra attention (War and Peace, Blood Meridian).

To mark our 9th anniversary, we’re showcasing 9 representative blog posts over the next three days. If you have any particular favorites, let us know in Comments.

Cats
From 2010: Emotional Blackmail

Mat the Cat: I would like a treat, please. (My cats are haughty but polite.)
Me: This is not a treat day. Your next treat is on Friday.
Mat: I would like one now.
Me: No, we don’t want you to get super-fat.
Mat: I am not fat, I am big-boned.
Me: This is not a negotiation. No treats till Friday.
Mat tries poor, pitiful expression (See photo).

Tennis
From 2012: Roger Federer, we release you

Before Sunday, Roger Federer’s last grand slam victory was at the Australian Open in 2010. Since then it’s been two and a half years of mental torment, recrimination and self-doubt—not for Federer, whose perfect hair remained unruffled by the dominance of Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, but for Federer fans like myself.

I hope you’re a better human than I am, because I was reduced to hoping that Nadal’s knees would fall off (Not impossible, given the way he plays) or that Djokovic would split in half (Not impossible either—his upper torso goes left, his legs go right, boom! Manananggal). Sportswriters wrote Roger off (He’s 30)—I stopped reading them. He got cranky after his losses—I figured he’d been babysitting his twins. I watched the grand slams almost furtively, lest others gloat that he’d become “vincible”.

Movies
From 2010: 86. Try A Little Suicide (Danny Zialcita’s Tinimbang Ang Langit)

Victoria sees Sandra and has a fit of jealousy, or maybe she just had some bad shrimp for lunch, it’s hard to tell. Joel takes off to a beach resort to write songs, and he’s so distraught he walks around in shiny gold hot pants.