I snickered when I saw this in a mall a few weeks ago.

Why are these Christian kids participating in a "feng shui astrology forecast"? Don't they know that feng shui and astrology are non-Christian superstitions and are frowned upon by God? Tsk tsk.

I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family. My grandmother died when I was eight, and at her funeral, my uncle told me about how good the feng shui of the burial site is. I was instantly confused. Unlike him, I had actually been paying attention to Sunday sermons, absorbing fundamentalist Christian doctrines like a sponge. I was taught that only the Bible holds the truth; feng shui, like all other forms of superstition, is a lie!

It took me years to finally understand that the line between religion and culture is often not clearly defined. Feng shui is part of Chinese culture, and people don't automatically stop being Chinese just because they become Christians. Even boundaries between religions get blurred from time to time. For example, two of Christianity's most cherished traditions, Christmas and Easter, both have pagan origins.

Of course, religious nonsense and cultural nonsense do occasionally come into conflict. The dragon is a good luck symbol for the Chinese, but for Christians, it represents the Devil. What is a good Chinese Christian to do? Some fundamentalist groups make their followers burn everything--shirts, mugs, paintings, etc.--that happens to have dragons on it. Other groups don't worry about mythical creatures as much.

As religions and cultures expand and come into contact with each other, war often results. But sometimes, they make love and produce bizarre hybrid babies. Somewhere in Manila's Chinatown, there's a statue of the Virgin Mary in a Buddhist-style shrine. Things like this of course drive fundamentalists to lament the decay of dogma and rigid religious systems. But to hell with them, right? It's a good thing to try to coexist without killing each other.

So kids, go do the feng shui dance for Jesus or whatever. I'm sure Xenu won't mind.

Previously on Survivor.... Jungle love bloomed between Amanda and Ozzy and between Parvati and James. Old grumps Cirie and Jonathan promised to work together and break up the young lovebirds. Joel blindsided Mike by engineering the ouster of Mike's Survivor girlfriend Mary.

This week, Mike confronted Joel about his move.

WARNING: spoilers ahead.  read more »

I have a new second favorite sport.

I tried flag football last Saturday, and I liked it a lot. No no no, it's not a kind of soccer. Are you kidding me? Soccer sucks. Flag football is just like American football but without the painful tackles and the resulting concussions. In short, it's football for wimps.

If you live in Metro Manila, come play with us every Saturday afternoon at the Corinthian Gardens football field. It's free and open to people of all ages and genders. (That's what they say, so I guess theoretically, you can bring your grandma, but... please don't.) We start at 2:30 PM. You don't have to know anything about football. Just come on time and the coach will teach you the basics.

UPDATE: We move to a backup field (a vacant lot near the EDSA gate) whenever the main field is occupied by stupid soccer players. It's probably a good idea to get in touch with me ahead of time so that I can send you last-minute announcements.

Hmm, gunpowder green tea? I think you better not smoke a cigarette while drinking it. Otherwise, you just might suddenly see a flash of white light and find yourself in the Temple of Heaven.

Government warning: gunpowder green tea may cause explosive diarrhea.

This week, the newbies tried to make fire with the shiny new flint that they won at the last challenge.

Fail. Haha.

WARNING: spoilers ahead.  read more »

I rely on three alarm clocks to wake me up on most mornings. Yesterday, all three of them failed me.

And the timing couldn't have been worse. I was supposed to attend PhilNITS's annual general assembly from 10 AM to 5 PM. Normally, I'm not a fan of 7-hour-long meetings, but they were doing this one in a nice 5-star hotel, so I imagined that the food must be pretty good. I was really looking forward to it, and I was devastated when I woke up to a silent room a few minutes before noon. I apparently managed to switch all the alarms off without remembering a thing. Yay.

Here, meet my useless alarm clocks.

Alarm clock #1 isn't really an alarm clock--it's a Nokia 6230i. It's a nice phone, but the alarm clock feature sucks. I put it on the night table beside my bed, and when the time comes for me to wake up, the thing buzzes and chirps gently. I think it has been more effective at giving me brain cancer than waking me up.

Alarm clock #2 is a boring old-fashioned one. I stole it from my mother last year after I "accidentally" pushed my noisy old clock off its perch and killed it. This one works by endlessly repeating a very annoying tune, which is now forever stuck in my head. I sometimes catch myself humming the melody in the shower, and that makes me feel very ashamed.

Alarm clock #3 looks like a toy dragon. I saw it in a night market in Hong Kong a few years ago and decided to buy it for my sister because it's cute and, more importantly, cheap (probably made in China). My sister gave it back to me last Christmas after I asked for a loud alarm clock as a gift... cheapskate karma works in mysterious ways. Anyway, the dragon clock almost scared me to death the first time I used it. First it blares out some obnoxious music, then it shouts something in Cantonese, which happens to be the most annoying language on the planet. Because it's so loud and scary, this alarm clock never failed to send me scrambling out of bed to shut it up... until yesterday.

I put together this short clip of all three alarm clocks for you so that you can understand what I go through everyday. Enjoy.

Survivor is back! The new season, Survivor: Micronesia, sneaked up on me without warning. I hate it when that happens.

Last season (Survivor: China), we had a stereotypical Chinese chicken providing politically incorrect commentary. I wanted to have a stereotypical Micronesian chicken this time, but I couldn't find one. Hell, I don't even know where Micronesia is.

So I've decided to go with a demented old chicken. He's a perfect fit for this season because Survivor: Micronesia is "fans vs. favorites"--10 hardcore Survivor fans competing against 10 contestants from previous seasons. In short, it's newbies vs. oldies. Our old chicken knows a lot about the oldies because he has been following Survivor since it started in the late 1920s.

Off we go to Micronesia. Jeff Probst introduced the returning survivors to the starstruck fans. Look who's back!

What kind of trouble would Jonny Fairplay stir up this season? I'm giddy with anticipation.

WARNING: spoilers ahead.  read more »

Random useless question of the day:

If a friend of yours is worried sick while waiting for the result of an HIV test, should you encourage him to "think positive"? Or would "think negative" be more appropriate?

Yes, I think about stuff like that whenever I get bored. I'm a retard.

I'm feeling too lazy to post a real blog entry, so, as usual, I'll just steal something from YouTube. This is a good one, I promise.

Ahahahaha! Of course, like many other too-perfect viral videos, this one is fake. Here's the story behind it.

Heh, a fake documentary explaining a fake blooper video... nice.

I just tried to unsubscribe from a mailing list. How hard can that be, right? Just enter my email address, click submit, and....

"There was a problem"? What the fuck? That has got to be the most useless error message since "Keyboard missing; press F1 to continue." And it's not as if I asked for something complicated. I didn't ask for world peace or a cure for cancer. All I wanted was to never see your crappy newsletters again. How can you possibly screw that up?

And don't you want to at least tell me what the problem was? No? Not even a little hint? Fuck you.