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On April 21, the Instituto Cervantes in Manila will join the international celebration of World Book Day with a series of cultural events open to the general public. The International Day of the Book is marked every year on April 23. The idea for this celebration originated in Catalonia, Spain where on St George’s Day, males and females traditionally exchange a rose for the gift of a book.
Instituto Cervantes will have an Open House on April 21 from 10am to 11pm featuring Filipino writer’s book-signing (F. Sionil Jose, Gregorio Brillantes, Marjorie Evasco and Jessica Zafra among others), jazz concerts, dance performances, and film showings (At 2pm La Colmena, based on the novel by Camilo Jose Cela; then at 6pm El Metodo, based on the play El Metodo Gronholm), Spanish wine & cheese tasting, free salsa & Latin dance classes, etc. The Day will begin with a Book Market where Instituto Cervantes will offer at token price more than 4,000 brand new books. The market will also include a sale of books (20% off) by publishing firms like Anvil and bookstores La Solidaridad, FullyBooked or A Different Bookstore.  Following the tradition of the Day of the Book in Spain, a rose will be given to every book buyer.
Instituto Cervantes is at 855 T.M. Kalaw, Manila, beside Casino Español. For information: http://manila.cervantes.es

Two weeks ago Menu Foods recalled 91 of its pet food products after these were linked to the deaths of dogs and cats. Included on the recall list are well-known dog and cat food brands such as Eukanuba, Iams, Paws, Nutriplan and Winn Dixie. Some of these poisoned products may already be on local shelves, so be careful what you feed your pets. Yeah, this country has huge, more pressing problems, but we love our animals.

Bigger than you think: The story behind the pet food recall by Christie Keith

It was so hot yesterday that all I could think of was global warming, so I sat down and watched An Inconvenient Truth, the Oscar-winning documentary starring Al Gore. It’s an excellent film about greenhouse gases and the accelerated pace of climate change and all the terrible things that are happening because of governments’ and Big Business’s refusal to accept the awful truth and do something. I was processing this information with half a brain, because the other half was yelling, Al! You’re smart, funny, attractive, and able to explain complex issues in an engaging manner! Why couldn’t you be like this during the campaign for the 2000 US presidential election?! Why did you come on like a robot with no sense of humor? (Or did you acquire the sense of humor after you’d lost?) If you had been like this during the campaign, you would’ve won by such a wide margin that no amount of cheating and chads and whatnot could’ve prevented you from assuming the presidency! I’m not saying that 9-11 wouldn’t have happened or that the world would not be in deep shit if Gore had been president, but at least we’d know that the most powerful country on earth was led by an intelligent man! At the very least, a sentient creature!

Here’s David Remnick’s piece on Al Gore.

Here’s something for the people in the office who should be doing something work-related but are reading this instead.
1. Lateness and your lame excuse
2. Lack of initiative – Asking them about stuff you should work out for yourself
3. Too much initiative – Instead of following instructions, doing something else entirely
4. Bitching and Whining – Someone doesn’t say hello to you, and you complain about it for four hours
5. Disloyalty – Talking over them in meetings and pointing out their errors in public
The complete list here.

At dinner we were recalling classic bits from local TV in the 1980s and 1990s. As far as I know none of them have turned up on YouTube, which worries me because the networks don’t maintain complete libraries, and these bits might be lost forever. So if you happen to have them on video, please post them on YouTube and send me the link. Future generations need to see how mass media has evolved over the decades. More importantly, we need evidence that we really saw what we think we saw, and were not just hallucinating.

1. Charlie Arceo the movie reviewer with a speech impediment (ngongo) saying “Ang pelikulang ito ay bulok.”
2. Babette Villaruel the movie reporter who did neck rolls for added emphasis
3. Divina Valencia hitting talent manager Rey de la Cruz on the head with a microphone
4. Inday Badiday asking a lost child, “Kilala mo ba ako? Ano’ng pangalan ko?” and the lost child saying, “Opo. Bakla.”
5. The classic Eat Bulaga quiz question, “Ano ang common name ng NaCl?”
6. Any of the Alma Moreno-LoveliNess stories that were true (Many of them were recycled Ricky Belmonte jokes).
7. See-True interview with the woman who gave birth to a fish.