I’m doing this on a dare, and besides, it’s fun! I’ve been called gay before, so I might as well embrace it a little. Enough to gush over 10 guys who are just so damn easy on the eye.

1. Wentworth Miller

No way can he use his Get Out of Jail Free card on me — this inmate’s staying put. That Dr. Tancredi that he’s so desperately in love with — phssh! — saw her interview with Mizrahi. Have you even seen a bigger forehead?!?!

2. Christian Bale

He’s been an American Psycho, lost 1/3rd his weight to be The Machinist, and he’s brought Batman back. Why can’t I get my hair to be more like that?

3. Jim Caviezel

When I saw him in Thin Red Line, and then again in Frequency, I thought to myself: man, if I looked like that, girls would like me better. Bale might be the buff, crimiefighting Batman, but Caviezel is Jesus Christ.

4. Jeff Corwin

So, yeah, I’ve got all the love in the world for the Irwins. Poor Bindi, really, Daddy Steve is such a hero. But if you really want a nature trip, take Jeff as your guide. He’ll make even the Alps feel like a steamy hike in the Amazon rainforest. Plus, two words: nice pecs.

5. Anderson Cooper

Makes even bad news better. Just look at those hands!

6. Sanjay Gupta

The real Dr. McSteamy

7. Tyler Florence

Speaking of steaming, women on his show tend to clutch his bicep while he stirs his sauces. Emeril may be the millionaire, but Tyler can baste my turkey anytime. (Okay, that’s a bit too gay.)

8. Barack Obama

He’s a brotha. Nuf sed.

9. Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala

If I looked like that, and had all that brains and money, girls would *really* like me better. Lizzie, you hold on to your man tight, you hear?

10. Thierry Henry

He’s French. He’s a Gunner. And he’s got a really nice pair of stems.

There’s a reason why Richard Gomez, the pretty, athletic, granola James Bond that he is, should run for senator. Of course, he’s exercising his right to do so, being that, despite the awful shame in his bid, this is still a democracy. And, if everyone around him is talking him up to do it, then by all means, let the man run.

But let him lose, too. Because that would make his run worth it. Running, and losing, would validate not only the audacity and absurdity of his enterprise (to some, maybe not, seeing that FPJ, of similar ilk, also ran for office) but of the administration’s — and the entire political circus’ — downright silliness. Gomez losing could mark a turning point in our electorate’s consciousness: that, quite possibly, the elections are not just about popularity. I may be too idealistic here, but if you’re reading this blog, chances are, you’re smart enough not to vote for him.

For one, I’m willing, with all due respect, to wager that Gomez isn’t too bright. He may be charismatic — sometimes that’s all you need — but I think Gomez will get hosed in a debate with Edu Manzano any day. And that’s saying a lot about Edu Manzano.

I digress. With the exception of very few, such as Herbert Bautista and Vilma Santos, actors-turned-politicians hardly accomplish anything — scandalous, or otherwise. For one, they tend not to be opinionated, which requires, at the bare minimum, a desire to read. They tend to indulge in legislating sports, or the entertainment industry (none of them I wish to diminish here), and seem to never have the noggin for things like tax reform and the current account balance. (On the other hand, Gomez would probably do a good job playing a senator.)

On the campaign trail, I would think it’s just as easy to belittle Gomez as it is for Gomez to shine in the spotlight. And he will, and everyone will be watching. I can see it now: Lucy Torres, in her Sunsilkiness, will take the stage, gush about her TVidol-turned-husband, and watch him melt the crowd. Just don’t make him sing. Please lang.

So, when he loses, it might just be the resounding death knell for all those actors thinking about running. Gomez meets the first cut in becoming a viable candidate. When the voters go out there, and punish him for his ambition, they send a message that even lawyers, crooked until proven otherwise, can make better lawmakers. My hope is that the Filipino will. And even make Willie Revillame think twice.

Now, about those news anchors…

I’ve made up my mind about 2007: this is about as good as it gets. That said, I still lurked around to see what other people thought would happen in 2007. Some are plain annoying, merely stating the obvious. Pat Robertson predicts mass killing — now that’s Nostradamic.

In my lurking I found a blogger hamed Jepoy, who in his blog (designed to look like a Star Trek TNG dashboard) has a picture of himself in a strange superhero costume (Enteng Kabisote anyone?).

Needless to say, his predictions are remarkably troublesome. Not because they are morbid or fantastic (nothing impossible about any of them), but because they exhibit the kind of discrimination that scares me the most — a prejudice, proudly worn, stitched together with class-based hate.

Among his predictions, he writes:

2. More Filipino idiots will be online, and would be jumping into international message boards showing how stupid they aer [sic], dragging us with them.

7. And the poorest of the poor will contribute largely to the continued growth of our population due to the fact that they have way tooo much time on their hands for their favorite pastime *bleeep* We should consider to export these whiners as human slaves to other countries. We’ll definitely earn a lot since our country will have less useless whiners around.

9. More Filipino artist will confess that they are ghey.

In these three statements, he’s managed to diss on the illiterate, the poor, and the homosexuals, not to mention showing contempt for his own race. I am troubled not only with the candidness of his bigotry, as he seems unashamed to hide his lack of upbringing, but at the fact that his predictions read more like mono-maniacal chest-thumping than a fearless look into a crystal ball. None of them are staggeringly original. He predicts massive cheating in this years election. Yeah-duh.

This blogger seems to agree with all this:

With twenty million Filipinos going online in 2007, he’s probably right. This is why I’m brutal to n00bs, especially n00bs in Philippine business.

Unpredictably scary people I’d never want to meet. This, or any year.

Dear Readers,

Today, for show and tell, I brought my gout to class. It sucks to have gout, like a big mountain of ass.

I found out, after several heavy interrogations, that I have a rich family history of gout. Both sides have it, and developed it at an early age, and now I am reaping what my forefathers (and mothers) sowed. No more sardines for you!

For those of you who do not know what gout is, look it up. That’s what Google is for.

The picture actually shows it in remission (and some nice, healthy hangnails). Gout is treated three ways. First, there’s the Cruise missile Allopurinol, which lowers the uric acid, which when there’s too much in your system, acid crystals form in your joints, that is, gout. Second, they send in the "bunkerbusters" — the Colchicine, which is dope that’s been around as for long as people can scream "gonorrhea!" It melts the acid crystals, I’ve been told. Finally, there’s the "shock and awe" part of the treatment, which are the painkillers. I was given Cox-2 inhibitors, which I’ve been told will work well on the pain, but can kill me later of a massive heart attack.

All that aside, I couldn’t take the Cox-2 stuff because I’m allergic to it. So I had to deal with the pain. One patient said it was like "walking on your eyeballs." That’s not funny, dick.

So, the part where Gene Hackman appears and says, "Sonny, this will get worse before it gets better," is now upon me. Colchicine gave me severe diarrhea. I know what diarrhea is, now I know what "severe friggin diarrhea" is. The manfuacturers label never paints an accurate picture of the godawful truth.

Now, I don’t want to get into the details, but I found out how clockwork the human body is: I had to take a dump every 26 minutes! Fascinating if this was the Discovery Channel, but the few steps I had to take to the bathroom, hobbling painfully with my gout-ridden toe, was like the best episode of "Chaotic."

On the upside, my three days in bed gave me a chance to catch up with "Battlestar Galactica," Joss Whedon’s "Firefly" and took in a few Miyazawa shorts.

Tags: Philippines, gout, Colchicine

This is my mom’s dog. My brother and I called him, for no honest reason, "Todnih".

Not to be circumspect, but we did think this through. We led with the fact that we’ve had some really crappy names for our dogs — like Whitey, Boomer and a female dog named Duke. (We did have a Cujo, and he really killed.) So we felt it was time for something more creative.

The real reason of course was to get a laugh. Everytime my mom would call out to feed the dog, she would yell "Todnih!!!" and everyone would be rolling on the floor (see picture) near tears. Poor mom. Of course, someone’s going to get us back you know.

Tags: Philippines, dog+name

I have a very tidy and simple (and grossly generalizing) explanation for everything that ails our country — from matters of civility, to government and politics, to business big and small, to driving on EDSA and all that engenders the systemic corruption of our social, moral and political functions.

This idea is not original — I paraphrase freely from a friend of mine, an American political scientist who has lived in Manila and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

Part One

Filipino men are insecure. They womanize incorrigibly to prove their vitality (and their moral weakness). They are contentious, prone to display, pretentious and arrogant only to prove that they are better over another man. In short, they are posers. They will cut, duck and weave through traffic to prove that they are faster and more wily. They will buy the biggest cars, the biggest guns and hire the biggest goons.

Even in the U.S. Filipinos engage in this pomp — I have a bigger car, I have a wider screen. To what end? And, if someone gets ahead of them, they do everything to crush them. In a country so want of genuine nationalism, it’s the brute individual and his divine self-righteous agenda that prevails.

Part Two

Filipino men are lazy. They will, given the chance, shirk off work more often than not. They will also ignore the law if it’s easier, and around here it almost always is. They feel entitled not to wash the dishes, not to cook, not to pretty much do anything at home. Yes, they do often are the breadwinners, but even in the two-income households, the Filipina works more than the Filipino. That said, even if they are the sole breadwinners, that doesn’t entitle you to treat your spouse as a housekeeper.

Part Three

There is no middle class. They’ve all left for the United States. What’s left are the rich people who will do anything to maintain status quo, the idiots in government, and the impoverished who will remain illiterate who are manipulated constantly for their voting power to perpetuate the corruption and lunacy further. If most everyone who can do something right for the Philippines — the software engineers, the doctors, the nurses, the scientists, an entire generation — have left, we’re simply adding to the populations of people who have no interest or no power to change status quo.

Tags: Philippines

Never happened before, but someone pointed out to me that the blog, which I haven’t really paid attention to that much lately, is now numero uno when searching for “bulletproof vest” in Google. The same for Yahoo search. Is it because of my IP address, and that it comes from the Philippines? Anyone out there outside the country who can verify this?

Seems like blogging = SEO.

I tried hard to construct a proportionate response, but I have to admit I’ve never been in this spot before, so, proceeding without precedent, I have this story to tell:

As I loitered around National Bookstore waiting for my ride, I ran into a poster for a book, called “Hello, Garci? Political Humor in The Cellphone Age.” I tracked it down to see it shelved two covers wide on the eye level shelf in the humor category.

I glanced at the cover: author, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Here’s the cover:

As I thumb through the first few pages — I saw something that almost made my heart fall:

Of course, I was shocked. The acknowledgement goes on to say:

The contributions of these Web humorists round out this collection. Our thanks go to all of them and to the anonymous artist who did the komiks in the first chapter of this book. This series of comic strips show Gloria as Darna, but uses real photographs instead of drawings. It was passed on to us by email and although we did use our investigative skills, we failed to trace the author.

If you don’t know it yet, these komiks are from my blog.

Several things bother me about this:

1. Had they done the Google search I had inserted at the end of my komiks, keyword “bulletproof vest,” they would have found me. So much for investigative journalism when the answer’s right at your nose.

2. It would have been all okay, I guess, had the PCIJ asked for permission. But, not knowing the author, and without gaining permission from the author, they publish it anyway. It’s the first chapter of the book and the only part of the book that was printed in color (other than the cover).

3. On top of that, they placed an all rights reserved copyright on the book. Now, that’s just really dumb. I couldn’t even copyright the komiks myself because none of the photographs I used were permitted.

4. They, on the other hand, credit this copycat at Retzwerx who has a few one cell, really corny comics printed sporadically in the book. I don’t even want a link on my blog for this donkey.

My question now is, and I hope Sassy’s reading, what do I do? The PCIJ should know full well about copyright laws, and sadly, they disregard this to make a quick buck. Shouldn’t I get some of that?

By the way, if any of you have this book, I’d gladly sign it for you.

As I slowly settle into a routine, there are many things that I think I’ll never get used to. Chief amongst them is the “kulbit culture” so predominant in Filipino conversations. I probably never noticed it until I had a discussion with my cousin about his diet of psyllium husk while he ate lechon. When making a point, or starting a new subtopic, he would put down his fork (I sat to his left) and, in a manner more similar to flicking a switch, poke me in the shoulder.

I wondered first whether he thought he didn’t have my attention, which, with all the poking, he did. Then I realized that the flicking was pervasive enough to be a mindless habit — which he of course thought was harmless. So I asked him, tapping him back incessantly, “Why are you always poking me?” He grinned back, mouth glistening with pork.

Indeed, it is viewed as harmless. When I did my rounds at my new job, people I’d never met before in my life were tapping my arm across the table (again, as if to catch my attention when it was duly given them), tapping me on my arm, patting me on my shoulder, all sorts. In fact, when I told a friend about my observations, she thought it was very strange; yet as soon as we moved to another conversation, she flicked my arm to make a point. “Aha!” I beamed.

There are deeper nuances: I’ve observed that people hardly ever flick you with one finger. That inadvertently might be viewed as rude. Flicking with three fingers in an upward motion — the index, middle and ring finger — and catching the flickee with the ring and middle finger, is a welcome motion. A sort of physical “hey!”; nothing wrong with it, except that it is annoying.

When engaged in a kulbit conversation, you would invariably encounter a tandem of physical gestures, switching from elbow and arm flicks to pat on the shoulder — the two gestures are interchangeable: It doesn’t matter whether the flicker is about to start a sentence, end one, or is making a point more dramatic.

I am, as my friends know, a “touchy” person. I grew up a hugger, and hug everyone. Yet in this kulbit culture, those two or three fingers seem to penetrate a personal sphere that I’ve yet to make permeable. My elbows seldom get touched, and to poke them is really extraordinary. To get poked after every sentence is just plain annoying.

I had fun making comics from my personal pictures, and my brother said “gawa ka para kay GMA!”

And, so I did. I had fun making it. I could use some comments, like a title, and some ideas for the next one. (Click on the image to launch this edition.)