I've been tagged by Chin Chin. I'm supposed to come up with five reasons why I blog then tag five other hapless bloggers. Usually, I don't participate in this kind of "chain" thing, but I don't have anything better to blog about anyway, so here we go....

Five reasons why I blog:

1. Procrastination. There are many important things that I'm supposed to be doing with my life. Start a business. Write a book. Bury the rotting dead bodies in the backyard. But I'm too lazy and unmotivated to do any of those things, so I procrastinate. Of course, my favorite mode of procrastination is watching TV. But I can only watch TV for so many hours in a day before I'm left with nothing to watch except Oprah. And God knows I'd rather poke my eyes out than watch Oprah. But wait, I don't want to poke my eyes out--I have pretty eyes. So I blog. Yay!

2. World domination. I think of my blog as something like a contagious disease. Everyone who reads it is infected. How? Simple. I include nearly invisible subliminal messages in my blog entries to hypnotize and brainwash readers. Everyone bow down to joyfulchicken! If this goes on long enough, I said bow down! I can rule the world. Yay!

3. World peace. After I achieve world domination, I can kill everyone who disagrees with me. There, instant world peace. Yay!

4... 4... 4.... Argh! I can't think of any more reasons! I just like to blog. Why do I have to explain myself to you people? Screw this. I'm not going to list five reasons, and I'm not going to tag five people. I'm breaking the chain and accepting whatever punishment I get for doing so. 20 years of bad luck? Bring it on!

OK, I'll go watch TV now.

What do you do when you win so much that you're bored? Paint the floor blue, of course. Don't ask... I don't get it either.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will be right back after these messages....

At the other beach, the losers were trying to make fire without a flint. Yeah, good luck on that. Michelle held her eyeglasses over a coconut and prayed to the sun god. Hahaha, as if that will ever work. Wait... it worked! Fire! Fire! Oh my god, the sun god is the true god!

WARNING: possible spoilers ahead.  read more »

This is cute.

No fighting!

If we want to end the war in Iraq, we should just send 10,000 chickens over there. The chickens will stop Sunni rabbits and Shi'ite rabbits from fighting each other, and presto! No more rabbit civil war!

Chickens make the world a better place. Unlike cats. Cats are selfish. All they care about are their money and credit cards. Cats suck. Chickens rock!

And you rabbits... stop fighting!

Ever heard of a fish called gindara? I've never tried it before, but the opportunity presented itself last week, one day before Valentine's Day. The food bazaar at work was serving it, so with the kind of curiosity we chicken mafiosos are known for, I chose the gindara steak for lunch.

Overall, it was a very satisfying meal. I got a good-sized portion of its belly. Now, I should mention that another nickname of this fish is "butterfish" as it seemingly melts in your mouth with each bite. Little did I know what this fish had in store for me the following day.

I woke up with a severe urge to get to the toilet. My first bowel movement was loose, and I initially thought it was just diarrhea. However, the oil I had to clean off my butt foreshadowed something infinitely more sinister.

It was such a difficult mess I landed myself in. The oil wouldn't wash off with just regular soap, and I had to resort to dishwashing liquid. Throughout the entire workday, I had to go six times, each time incoveniently right in the middle of my patient management. And worse, I had to wash my undies in the middle of the day at work because I kept farting out oily stuff. Needless to say, it was not a happy Valentine.

The popular "local gindara" sold here in the Philippines is actually escolar. The fish is touted as the cheaper alternative to Xenical®, a diet drug that helps you lose weight by preventing absorption of fats in your diet and thus decreasing caloric intake despite consumption of fatty foods. The side effect? You release the fat you've ingested unchanged, in its oil form, which results in oily stool, loose bowel, and frequent, oily flatulence. And since oil is a lubricant, it's hard to resist defecating once the urge comes.

Gindara produces the same side effects as Xenical, but whether it has the same primary effect is debatable. It is said that gindara contains a type of fat that can't be digested by the body and thus remains unchanged upon excretion, producing the same irritating side effects. This would mean however that the effects are limited only to the fat you ingested via this fish.

For me, the effects wore off eventually. I just ate too much--the unwanted side effects could have been avoided if I consumed less than the supposed safe limit of 6 oz. So it seems that I'm still allowed to eat a little gindara occasionally. But for now, I think I'm sticking with the fats of the porky and beefy variety.

The 2007 NBA All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas was... meh. How bad was it exactly? Let's just put it this way: the footrace between Charles Barkley and 67-year-old referee Dick Bavetta was probably the highlight of the weekend.

Heh... that was somewhat entertaining... I guess. One other somewhat entertaining event was the McDonald’s NBA "All-Star" "Celebrity" Game. "Celebrity" is in quotes because I couldn't recognize half the "celebrities" that participated, and "All-Star" is in quotes because most of the players were horrible--I've seen better basketball skills on playgrounds. Still, I consider the event somewhat entertaining because a bear somehow got into the game, which isn't something you get to see often unless you smoke weed often.

Hey, is that Chewbacca?

And you know what? The bear actually played better than some of the humans. That's how bad the "celebrities" were. I suck at basketball, but I'm pretty sure that I can beat Carrot Top in a one-on-one game. Even Dick Bavetta can beat Carrot Top in a one-on-one game.

The other events were mostly lifeless. And no, loud music and dancers in skimpy outfits don't automatically make things more exciting. OK, maybe a little... but not enough.

One more thing: if they invite freaking Nate Robinson to the slam dunk contest again next year, I'm gonna shoot myself. Wait, that's probably too drastic. Maybe I'll just not watch. Whatever.

Today marks the start of the new lunar year. In Chinese Astrology, this new year is the Year of the Fire Pig. China, Taiwan, Hongkong, Singapore, and all Chinatowns worldwide welcome the new year with loud firecrackers and dragon dances.

Our favorite butt of jokes PETA has manage to make use of the pig to further their cause. To open the year, the PETA pig makes frontpages by rallying people from eating pork and encouraging them to go vegan.

I suppose it might work. I don't know about you, but if all pigs look like that, I'd probably shift to beef.

Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday. For Roman Catholics, this marks the beginning of the season of Lent. The PETA Pig is again the star for this season. They used the pig as part of this so-called faith-based billboard.

If you ask me, I think this is just plain ridiculous.

Happy New Year to all of you Chicken Mafiosos!

At the start of this episode, we got to see how much the tribe of losers was suffering without food or water... which is great because I kinda enjoy watching people suffer. Oh look, they're so desperately thirsty that they're licking leaves! And look, that girl just fainted from dehydration!

Looks like someone had too much coconut rum.

Hahaha! Funny! The Survivor I know and love is back! Oh, Survivor, I should have never doubted you.

WARNING: possible spoilers ahead.  read more »

Oh, great. The list of weird food items that I have to try just keeps getting longer. And I haven't even tried cheese ramen and live lobster sashimi yet. Damn it.

So what is this latest item? The good people of Shanghai call it Purple Orchid Three. And what the hell is it exactly? Oh, nothing really. It's just a potato. Except that it's purple. And why the hell is it purple? Because it's grown from seeds mutated by exposure to space radiation while carried on a spacecraft. Um, waiter, why is my potato salad giving off a purple radioactive glow? And why is blood oozing out of my eye sockets?

Of course, the Chinese are no strangers to strange food. On my first and only trip to Beijing a few years ago, I saw sidewalk vendors hawking what looked like fried crickets on sticks. I was about to buy one when the tour guide stopped me. "Street food is not safe," she said. "You can get diarrhea." I had to walk away sadly. You know what's even sadder? I got diarrhea anyway on that very same day. Stupid tour guide. She reminded me of my mother, always telling me not to do this and not to do that. Why can't I draw a mustache on Mao Zedong's portrait? That would have been hilarious....

I think I'm drifting off topic. Where was I? Oh, right, the Chinese and their strange food. I can understand fried bugs, but potatoes mutated by space radiation? Really? Where do they draw the line between what is edible and what is not? What if they take an egg into space and expose it to cosmic rays, then weeks later, the egg hatches and a three-eyed purple chicken pops out? Will they eat it? My guess is no, but I can't be too sure. After all, these people have no qualms about eating purple mutant potatoes.

Mmm, a nice baked purple mutant potato.... It sounds so wrong, but my cursed Chinese genes sure seem to be craving for it.

Last Saturday in Bangkok, 15 dimwits (epicureans if you prefer), who have altogether too much money and too little wit for their own good (and probably not enough connections to get themselves invited) got together with 25 other lucky folks (who managed to get themselves invited) for a meal of a lifetime.

A 10 course meal complete with the best vintage wine was prepared by 6 three-star Michelin chefs from France, Germany and Italy to the tune of $25,000 per head. You got it right folks... not $250, not $2,500, but $25,000. The menu consisted of mouth watering and complicated sounding dishes like "tartar of Kobe beef with Imperial Beluga caviar and Belon oysters" and "mousseline of 'pattes rouges' crayfish with morel mushroom infusion."

It is really amazing how much people are willing to spend for food--amazingly outrageous! I mean how much of a good thing can you take? After the 4th or 5th course, I'd be too full and maybe even too drunk to get on with the rest of the courses. Now, if it were a week, like a food festival of some sort, say 2 courses each night, it'd still be expensive at $5,000 per evening, but much less ridiculous. I hope no one died of gluttony--it is a deadly sin after all.

I suppose it does take a bit of money to be a gourmet. Care to give it a try JC?