Here’s something that made food come out of my nose: Bulletproof Vest’s 10 Guys That Make Me Gay. Yikes I have almost the same taste in men as a male heterosexual web designer. And my gay friends and I crush the same guys. Wait. Am I a man?
“Twenty nine percent of the French and 21 percent of Filipinos have used the internet to find love, but over one third of people who aren’t online daters believe only “desperate people” use the internet to look for love, according to a recent global study by market research firm Synovate. . .The results reveal a fairly even match between those who think online dating is a great way to meet people (49 percent) and those who think it is a waste of time (48 percent) but show large disparities among levels of use and comfort between people of different nationalities. . .”
The survey also says Filipinos choose their correspondents on the basis of looks, but are convinced that people lie in their online profiles. Pinoys: odd mix of hopeful and cynical.
Finally, an artista in my extended family. My friend Kuleba’s hyperactive dog Max, a Parsons terrier, is the new model for a brand of dog food. He’s gotten himself an entourage with an agent, a minder/chauffeur, and a doggy sidekick, a very nice dachsund. Interviewed for this report, Kuleba said, “I feel like Anabelle Rama.” I’ll post Max’s pictures when they’re available.
Some years ago my cats were offered a role on a TV sitcom. “Sige na,” said my former assistant, who was the floor director, “Just one cat, and we’ll take good care of her or him.” “They don’t like strangers,” I said. “I’ll look after the cat,” she said. “They’re snooty and antisocial and I’m sure they won’t like the bida,” I warned her. “The role doesn’t require much, she just has to sit there,” my friend said.
“My cats only speak English.”
“Forget it then.”
“They know a little French, some Italian obscenities. . .”
That was the end of my career as stage mother.
The journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, who died on January 23, elevated reportage into stories worthy of Joseph Conrad (but easier to read). Here is an account of his first trip abroad.
The catastrophe that most everyone fears has just happened to me.
My computer crashed. I was checking my email when black lines of code appeared on the screen, something about kernels, and then I spotted the dreaded word, crash. The beach ball of boredom, the one that appears when your Mac is processing a command (and Kirk’s memory is crammed), stopped swirling. Captain James Tiberius Kirk, my four and a half year old iBook, had gone into a coma.
I was oddly calm. Glad, even. That’s the thing about us apocalypse watchers (though I must stress that my apocalypse is not religion-based): we do not waste time doing the headless chicken dance. We expect the worst, we have doomsday scenarios, and when they come to pass, we feel a kind of relief. We were right all along! And now the terrible thing has happened, and we’re alright. What does not kill us, etc.
Also, I back up all my files.
I shut down Captain Kirk, then forced him to start. He sounded like he was starting up, and then he emitted a squeak and stopped. I kept trying, nada. So I resigned myself to taking a trip to the repair shop tomorrow.
Half an hour later, I hit the power button and Captain Kirk came to full glowing life. It was as if nothing had happened.
Machines. Sometimes they just want a little attention.
A review of Babel in Emotional Weather Report, today in the Star.
Movies I saw recently that I did like: Children of Men (very smart, stripped of all unnecessary exposition, the rare life-affirming bummer, with a terrific performance by Clive Owen), Little Children (ooh the Prom King), Stranger Than Fiction (although it had the look of a Nokia ad), The Illusionist (many of the same premises as The Prestige, but less fussy and ponderous) and Alatriste (Viggo Mortensen in Spanish! Swords! Imperial wars! Warning: Do not watch it with a Monty Python geek because Nnnnno one expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise, fear and surprise. . .Our two chief weapons are fear and surprise and a ruthless efficiency. . .Seriously, I was beginning to annoy myself.)
Alatriste is based on the series by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Here’s an excerpt from the first book, Captain Alatriste.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>More
