Monthly Archives: October 2009

Posted:
Oct 18, 2009
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0 Comments

Wontons

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I ended the week at Chowking, where I had a bowl of chao fan, a couple of fried dumplings, and some pork tofu.  Day Five of eating anything and everything related to street dimsum, I think a dinner of Chinese fastfood is a good way to cap it all off; dimsum a’la carte, street siomai, and just about everything in between.

Ah, yum cha; in Chinese cooking, there’s something about wrapping stuff and cooking them.  While chicken feet and steamed mushrooms may be served without wrapping, most of us think of dimsum as a savory item covered with a starchy wrap, and cooked in many different ways.  I guess that, in many ways, cooking is made much easier by wrapping things and cooking them.

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Posted:
Oct 16, 2009
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13 Comments

Lyrics Translation: Mandy Moore, "Candy"

I just noticed that some people like to spend their time trying – bitterly and desperately, I may add – to try and discredit me in their own little worlds.  On the one hand, I’d like to launch into a tirade about, say, getting a life outside of blogging.  Or justify my award for Best Commentary and do a Caparas.  Or write an entry justifying my selves online and offline.  Then I figured, I don’t really need to do that, since:

  • I won;
  • I have a life;
  • I prove myself when necessary, not when pushed to do so, and;
  • I don’t make a lifestyle choice out of a neurotic desire for being liked.

So rather than waste my efforts on making potshots, I’d rather make lyrics translations. In the grand scheme of things, lyrics translations rank higher – WAAAAY higher – than sophomoric attempts at Internet drama and having the same sense of magnanimity as intestinal tapeworms.

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Posted:
Oct 15, 2009
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4 Comments

Blog Action Day: The Great Human Injustice

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Human suffering is, in many ways, tied to the suffering of the Earth.

When farms dry out from drought, people move to the cities to look for jobs that, often, cannot sustain their large families (sometimes, none at all).  Dwindling harvests and catches from the sea lead to lower food production levels, which lead to starvation, malnutrition, and poverty.  Waste disposal techniques have not caught up with the conveniences of modern living, so much so that plastic bags and all sorts of rubbish have clogged up storm drains, causing floods and wreaking havoc on cities.  Carbon emissions have contributed greatly to the greenhouse effect.  The list goes on; most of our problems in the environment seem to be caused by our collective arrogance, apathy, and disrespect towards the environment.

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Posted:
Oct 13, 2009
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3 Comments

Development and Destruction

Allow me to wear a hat I don’t usually use, for the sake of making this entry seem like “commentary.”  (LOL)

James Lovelock used to be the butt of jokes for people familiar with the Gaia hypothesis, but I suppose the guy has the last laugh, at least for now.  “Planetary homeostasis” may sound too science-fiction-ey for people like Richard Dawkins, but if the disasters that befell the Philippines are to prove anything at this point, it’s that Nature has a cruel sense of karma.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer reports that in the wake of the disasters at Northern Luzon, the managers of San Roque Dam may face raps for the flooding and landslides, specifically in Pangasinan.  I don’t like dwelling on technical questions – I’m not an engineer – but I think that this is a good question of human ecology and the consequences of development.

There are still people in Northern Luzon that live below the poverty line, but the development projects in the Cordillera, the Ilocos region, and Cagayan Valley keep on coming.  Rapid development – aggressive development, at that – came at a rather tragic cost: lives were lost to landslides, flooding caused massive damage to crops, and desolation is the order of the day in my homeland.  While these “destructive” projects and policies towards development have led to an improvement in the quality of life for many people, it came at a large cost: the desecration of the environment that led to the devastating calamity.

I’m not blaming the Government, as much as that part of the blame – if not most of it – should go to a history of development aggression.

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Posted:
Oct 11, 2009
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11 Comments

Saving… Face

Once upon a time there lived an ugly duckling named Marocharim… no wait, that’s not right…

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I always say that if it’s on the Internet, it must be true.  Save for lapses in grammar (“did” = simple past tense, “showed” = simple past tense, proper usage is “the winner did not even show his face,” I’m just saying).

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Posted:
Oct 11, 2009
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6 Comments

Random Bullet-Points

I hate writing in bullet-points, but sometimes, bullet-points are all you need.

  • Like anyone else, like my friends, for example, I don’t appreciate people taking my picture – specifically my picture – in public, without my knowledge or my permission.  Unless, of course, I find artistic value in a picture like that (like spreading a message, for example).
  • While there are many ways to get attention for your blog, the best way to gain that attention so craved is to write really well; to do no harm to others, to live honorably, and to give everyone their due.  Once you got that covered, only then can you gain some measure of respect and credence wherever you go.  Those are things you can only sustain by doing no harm to others, live with honor, and give everyone their due.

Imma have more but Imma let myself finish now, but sometimes people need to chew on bullet-points every once in a while.

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