The Comedy of Errors

There are some people who are just naturally funny, they don't even have to try. Every single thing that comes out of their mouths is effing hilarious. And even if they're not saying something funny, how they say things is enough to drive you hysterical with laughter.

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Unfortunately, Vic Sotto is not one of them. The saddest part is, in all his years in show business, none of his friends and collegues were able to point this out to him. All throughout his career, he delivered the same shtick that passes for comedy in his vocabulary. He has never even tried to reinvent himself or tried his hand on another genre. Maybe, if he'd tried drama, I'd see some redeeming qualities. Surely, his face is more suited for drama. Maybe that's one of his problems: he doesn't look funny. He always looked as if somebody died on him. He can't sing, he can't dance and he can't make anyone laugh to save his life. And coming from someone who laughs at the corniest jokes, that's saying something. Just to prove to you how easy it is to make me laugh, I even find John Lloyd Cruz's commercials funny. And I am not a John Lloyd fan.

I am pretty sure there are other people out there who had the temerity to call themselves comedians unjustly. I can only name Vic for now because he keeps on popping up on these TV commercials, which by all indication could be done with the same conviction by Vic Sotto circa 1980's. The only difference is that now he is much older, ergo less appealing, less forgivable and even less convincing. I'm sure it is not all Vic Sotto's fault. But his is the only visible face to place the blame on.

So why are companies still paying Vic Sotto big bucks to star in their films and endorse their products? I have no idea. Charisma? But I don't see it. Vic Sotto is probably laughing at us from the comforts of his million-peso mansion. Suckers!

P.S. I swear, this Julienne girl was in every single production number of Party Pilipinas last Sunday. What? They've ran out of reliable talents?

P.S.S. It must be difficult to perform on TV where people with nothing better to do like me can scrutinize the performer. There was this girl who was playing lead vocals for a local band, who's microphone went from one hand to another every after 3 seconds. How annoying.

P.S.S.S. I feel bad for Sam Pinto who's talent is limited to looking pretty. She was in one number where all she had to do was strut around the stage, walk over to the guy who was singing and touch him. Repeat 20 times to cover all the other male singers in that particular number. Apparently being the number 1 sexiest in 2011 will not save you from having to look ridiculous on national TV.

P.S.S.S.S. I have ran out of reading materials and after the mugging incident, I am left broke from now until the foreseeable future. So I'm watching more TV than I should. Please forgive me.

If I Were A TV Character...

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...I'd be Mary Alice Young from Desperate Housewives.

She's dead. She's omniscient. She's all knowing. She can laugh at all her friends' crazy exploits. She can be sad about their stupid, pathetic lives. And she can be happy that she is dead. At least, she's not one of them anymore.

This may sound morbid, but I wanna be dead and be aware of what everyone is doing. To know people's every little secret. To see how they look perched on the john. To see what they do when they thought no one was watching. But then what? The problem is you cannot have everything. You can be dead and know everything, but then you couldn't do anything about what you know. Or you could be alive and can do something about what you know, but you can never know everything. And really, if I'm dead, would I still care? Uhmmm, probably not. I'm self-centered in life and probably in death as well.

Sometimes people are so engrossed about their own lives, so absorbed in their own worries and so busy whining about their problems that they don't see that other people have it worse. For some people there is no bigger picture than the here and the now. For  most people it is every man for himself. If you won't save yourself, no one will.

To be human is to be self-promoting.

Risen From The Fiery Depths

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

Meet Dante. He is my voodoo doll.

I have always wanted one, most especially at times when I wanted to hurt someone without actual confrontation. Call me a coward all you want but that's how it is.

But now that I actually have one, there is not one person that I want to prick needles with. There is always that girl next door. Hmm. But it seems so petty so I won't even waste my energy on that.

Anyway, I got my doll's name from the writer, of course. He is one of my favorites although God knows I'll probably be dead before I get to finish reading any of his works. If I do get around to reading them, I'll probably be the first person in history to die of profuse nosebleeding.

Where was I?

Being a voodoo doll, I had wanted a more menacing name for him. One of the names that came to mind was Charon, the ferryman of the underworld who, coincidentally, also figures in the first book of Dante's Divine Comedy. Unfortunately, although it implies menace, it just doesn't sound right for the very reason that it sounds like a cute girl's name. It sounds like Karen. I knew one Karen from Day Care and another Karen who was my seatmate in elementary. Both girls were cute. On a side note, when I was a kid, my brothers and I used to watch this show entitled The Young Hercules. Apparently, it was very popular because when the show ended it's run, the producers had this dumb idea to do a rerun, this time dubbing the whole show in Tagalog. So there was this scene where Hercules went to the underworld and met Charon for the first time. Their conversation went like this (everything pronounced in Tagalog):

Hercules:  Sino ka namang matanda ka?
Charon: Ako si Charon. Bangkero ng mga kaluluwa sa kabilang mundo.
Hercules: Sharon?
Charon: Hindi!!! Cha-ron! Mukha ba akong artista?!

Admit it, that was hilarious. The ferryman of the underworld, a movie star. Not Sharon Stone, the silently sinister bitch (also a writer) in the movie Basic Instinct, but Sharon Cuneta who, despite her apparent lack of cuteness, sings cutely the song Mr Dreamboy (or was that Mr DJ?) to the detriment of the word cute. So I settled for Dante whose main protagonist he named after himself and in the first book, Inferno, literally went to hell. Morever, Dante is also the name of another movie star. I am referring to Dante Rivero who almost always gets the role of the villain or the grumpy old man who makes everyone around him miserable. And he does look scary.

I actually have another voodoo doll, of a different color from Dante. His name is Montressor, from the vengeful guy who buried his friend alive in his wine cellar in the short story The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Alan Poe, who is also a personal favorite. However, I have assigned Montressor as a permanent decoration to one of my bags so it's usually just Dante who keeps me company.

My voodoo dolls have yet to serve their real purpose. But make no mistake about it. They are voodoo dolls and their purpose will be fulfilled. Someday. So if you value your life, try to avoid becoming the object of my wicked voodoo spells. Don't annoy the hell out of me and get out of my way.

"Nemo me impune lacessit." (*evil laugh)

Food for Thought: Burger Paralysis

This was taken from The Big Bang Theory season 1 episode 5.

Sheldon (exasperated over the many kinds of burger in the new restaurant that they were eating in): Can't we just go to Big Boy? They only have one burger, the Big Boy.
Waiter Penny: Our Barbeque burger is like the Big Boy.
Sheldon: Excuse me, in a world that already includes a Big Boy, why would I settle for something LIKE a Big Boy?
Penny (yelling): Because you're not at Big Boy!!!

My dear friends, you cannot always have a Big Boy. There will always come a time when the tried and tested choice will not be available to you. But fret not because the galaxy is overflowing with a million other Big Boy substitutes and, with that kind of odds, one of them is bound to be as good as, if not better than, the Big Boy. So get out of your comfort zones and try all the other Big Boys that are available to you because if you do find something better that the Big Boy, which you thought was the best, it will be priceless. In the event that the Big Boy substitute you tried tasted like card board or worse, then spit it out. If you already swallowed it, then don't worry. You will eventually expel it, right? Then it will be out of your system for good and then you can go ahead and try another Big Boy substitute. That my friends is why life is good. Let's go out and grab some Big Boy sometime.

Goodbye, Gilmore Girls

Nice run, girls. I enjoyed it so much. Thanks for the roller coaster ride.

After all those time that our bond was put on hold because I went away from home and lived in places with no TV. I finally got to watch the whole 7 seasons of Gilmore Girls. All those witty comments, hilarious jokes, food-binging and mother-daughter moments reminded me of the time when I sat in front of the TV watching your pilot episode many years ago wishing that I had the same relationship with my mother. If your final episode came out then, it would have made me realize that there was still hope for my mother and me.

Chris was the very essence of perfection...

...but I still prefer to have a Luke.

I cannot believe I was living vicariously through the Gilmores. Now its over. Oh well. Goodbye, Loreleis.

The Camotes Island Adventure

There was no plan. At all. I was supposed to sleep after my shift. Instead, I got dragged to the mall to buy the outfit I wasn't planning to buy and, 2 hours later, I was in a ferry on my way to a place I wasn't planning to go. At all. But, life is too short so what can I say? Carpe diem.

The place was freakin' amazing!

Can you see the beach behind us? It's awesome! We ate...

...and we drank.

We went to these really amazing caves with really amazing spring water. It's so cool and clean.

We even had a Dawson's Creek moment by the lake.

My partners in crime. Thanks for the amazing weekend, girls. It was just what I needed. It's do it again soon :)

The Unlikely Ineptitude Of The Goddess

If I were Superman, my Kryptonite would be social gatherings. I heard a statement from America's Next Top Model being said of one of the contestants and I am going to use that statement to describe my ineptitude: I have the social grace of an infant. Yes, I watched that show. Call me shallow then sue me.

Being surrounded by a bunch of strangers or casual acquaintances in an environment that requires me to mingle with them incapacitates me. I'm just not good with making friends or starting a conversation. I would rather sit in one corner and pretend to text all the people in my phone book as if my life depended on it. I don't know when this started. I was Most Sociable in Kindergarten. I swear, I'm not making that up. I don't know what happened between then and now that turned me into a hermit. I guess I was surrounded with close friends all the time that I didn't feel the need to make new ones. The thought of being involved in some mundane conversation with people I don't really know is not appealing to me. What's worse is I have to pretend that I give a rat's ass about these people's problems or their current preoccupation in life. Big deal. We all have them, get over it.

Maybe that's why I don't have a lot of friends. I am too... Sheldon Cooper, for lack of a better term. Maybe I should try harder. But on the other hand, I don't really have to.

Leonard: ...We need to widen our circle.
Sheldon: I have a very wide circle. I have 212 friends on MySpace.
Leonard: Yes, and you have never met one of them.
Sheldon: That's the beauty of it.

But here is another trusty quote from my old friend, Jean-Paul Sartre: "Hell is other people." 


How empathic.

Nostalgic For Anime

I came across this on YouTube. It's one of my favorite anime shows and has one of my favorite anime songs as well:



I used to watch it with my younger siblings. Finding it now brought back to mind a bunch of really good times and I realize how I terribly miss those guys.

The truth of the matter is one of the reasons that I moved out of the house was because I felt that it had become way too small for all of us. I have 4 younger siblings and they behaved like how normal kids do when they are around each other. They fought, they bickered, they teased, they ran around the house, they yelled at each other. The chaos was insane. I just had to get away.

Don't get me wrong. I love my siblings. That is something that I have always known. I practically raised our youngest brother. Being the eldest, I was very protective of them. I would fight their battles for them if I had to. When somebody bullied them, I always came to their rescue. I threatened to beat the other kid until he promised not to mess with my siblings anymore. I would rather die than see any harm come to those kids. But at some point, I grew exasperated of the chaos and the proximity to those little monster kids became too much.

There were a lot of things we didn't agree about, especially when it came to watching TV. They liked basketball and gag shows. I liked Charmed and Gilmore Girls. But when it came to anime, we were all in complete agreement. We watched Ghostfighter, Dragonballs, Samurai X, Slam Dunk, etc. on TV together. The homeworks had to wait. We even used to sing along to the opening and closing songs. They were all in Japanese and we didn't know the lyrics but we sung it with feelings. Now I will always look back at those times and feel lucky that I have my siblings who shared those times with me.

I'll be back home for a few days this weekend. When I do, I'll give each of them a bear hug and tell them that I missed them.

Forgive me, but before I sign out for the weekend, here's another one of those anime songs:

The Hazards of Living in the 21st Century

I watched the latest episode of Criminal Minds on TV and the subject was internet, specifically social networking sites and how we are attracting a bunch of psychos out there with what we post online.

Social networking is all the rage right now. If it were the zombie virus, you'd probably have a better chance of not being infected. I, myself, have not been immune to this epidemic. Posts range from the mundane to the monumentally mundane. I mean, posting every morsel of food that you are consuming right this very minute? That may be interesting to the handful of people who actually know you in person but to the rest of your 1000+ Facebook friends, not really. Trust our generation to bring the meaning of the word "social" to a whole new level. In the midst of the ever-growing population, it seems that we are afraid to be alone and to be without a voice. Or maybe, posting blow-by-blow accounts of our lives will make them sound more exciting than they really are.

Ahh, the civilization. This get-on-board-or-get-left-behind progress. It seems to be always quickly moving forward. But how come, sometimes, it doesn't feel that way?

It's The Beginning of The World As We Know It

Apparently, there is a new finding about how we came to be. Read it here.

I am not a science-nerd so I don't know much about the theories of the existence of the universe and life as we know it. But my personal favorite is still the Big Bang Theory if only for it's explosive nature. It's so befitting of us homo sapiens, who I believe are the most unique creatures in this universe. Unless somebody proves the existence of E.T., who, if movie portrayals were to be taken into consideration, seems to be a more sophisticated and powerful being.

Plus, The Big Bang Theory is also the title of one of my favorite shows on TV today. Dr. Sheldon Cooper is absolutely hilarious. He is so funny I would so totally sleep with him.

Bazinga!

Watch it.

The Sitcom of My Life in Reruns

And so it goes that I find myself in another recurring episode. I am bored. I need a change. I don't care what kind. I just know that I am sliding into that pit again. The kind that made me quit my job and change my zip code. This is the reason why my parents are worried about me. They think that I will never be able to settle into a relationship or a job that I would be able to hold on to for a long time, like forever. Maybe I should be worried for myself as well. Nothing is exciting anymore, not even my budding love life and that fact makes me really sad. I need an existential electric shock to jolt me out of this.

I should change my hairstyle. I have been wearing it straight since birth. Maybe it's time to get bouncy curls. That's about all the change I could manage right now. I can't move. I can't quit my job. And I can't dump my boyfriend. At least, not yet.