JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

The Prince of Persia movie opens next Thursday, May 27.

This is what Jake Gyllenhaal’s character is wearing. Do you like it? Can you do better?

Design a costume for Jake and email the drawing to my cat, Urban.Matthias@gmail.com. By entering this contest you swear that the costume is of your own design and not ripped off from your 10-year-old videogame-addicted nephew. Entries will be posted daily.

Deadline: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 12 noon. Two winners will receive this:

A watch that stops time. Riiiiight.

From Lucban we went to Tiaong to visit the showroom and workshop of the renowned ceramics artist Ugu Bigyan.

Ugu’s workshop produces beautiful dinnerware and decorative pieces. You see them in fine hotels and restaurants.

They don’t have a retail outlet in Metro Manila so if you want to see the assortment of dishes, cups, wind chimes, etc available you have to go to Tiaong. Make it a day trip; you can arrange for lunch to be served in the garden.

While my companions went crazy over the houseware I wandered into one of the Balinese-style huts and found. . .accessories! Wire and stone jewelry designed by Ugu’s nephew, Kim Palacol.

They’re weird, they’re me.

We also took a tour of the potter’s house. Look, Noel: terra cotta tiles.

This is the very organized workshop where the ceramics are fired.

And these are the family dogs, Mini Pinschers. I also noticed a lot of motorcycles.

Ugu Bigyan’s pottery shop is in Lusacan, Tiaong, Quezon. Telephone (042)545.9144; email ugubigyan@yahoo.com.

From the growing Noel Orosa collection of “defective” mirrors:

Penguin Decades: 80s features cover artwork by John Squire, formerly of The Stone Roses.

In the Smithsonian: How the Paperback Novel Changed Popular Literature.

Haha! A ring to match my megalomania!