Having woken up really late and needing to be at the office pronto, I found it necessary to take a cab to work yesterday morning. And that experience led to this post, which is also partly inspired by Dianne's (and apparently her clan's) new blog.

Allow me to present exhibits A to D.

Exhibit A is a broken seatbelt, which was among the first broken things that I observed. So inasmuch as I was in a hurry, this was one driver I did not want hurried up. I soon found to both my relief and chagrin (What can I say? It was a mixed emotion.) that he didn't seem to be interested in speed anyway. In fact, he decided to visit a gasoline station with the meter running.

Exhibit B is a rather hazy picture of his instrument panel. You don't need a dSLR photo to figure out that all the gauges are mere decorations. How he could tell that he needed gasoline is totally beyond me. Oh yeah, the photo was hazy because I took it while the car was moving to show you that the speedometer wasn't.

Exhibit C is a photo of his car radio, or where it's supposed to be. I wonder what happened to it seeing as he doesn't mind displaying broken gauges.

Exhibit D is a sticker above the glove compartment right in front of the passenger seat. It reads, "Ambulance hotline: 635-HELP." Yep, not very reassuring, is it?

The driver stuck to a leisurely pace the whole trip. Maybe he was mindful of the high price of gasoline and was trying to save a few pesos. I was really pissed off by the time I got to my destination--so much so that I was happy to leave him stuck in the hospital driveway, which was congested thanks to two armored cars, a few other cabs, and people in wheelchairs.

Smiling smugly, I headed to the elevator. It wasn't until I was halfway there that my satisfaction turned into consternation. My phone wasn't in my pocket! I did a Flash (or as close to it as I possibly could) and managed to get to the cab just before it pulled away. Thank heavens for handicapped people blocking the driveway.

The moral of the story is: don't take a cab if you're late anyway... unless you're going to blog about it.

Okay, not really.

I've been planning to write a serious essay about the rice crisis for the Philippines Issues Writing Project, but I'm procrastinating as usual. So for now, I'll show you this and call it a blog entry.

Save rice. Eat spaghetti.

That's nonsense of course. But I guess it's a fairly clever ad. And because I worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster, The Old Spaghetti House is one of my favorite restaurants--they have all the right stuff to make my tummy happy and turn my poop black.

Oh no, I'm getting hungry now.

I'm one of those Luddites who still don't understand the appeal of Twitter. For those of you who are lucky enough to have never heard of it, here's what it is according to the Twitter FAQ:

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

I usually have a simple answer to that simple question: None of your business. And even my closest friends rarely hear that question from me except in the rhetorical sense, e.g. screaming "What the fuck are you doing?" when they try to jaywalk across a busy road or do something similarly stupid. I love my friends, but I just can't bring myself to care enough about the boring little details of their lives.

A lot of Twitter users (or, as I call them, twittards) sound like Tamagochis to me. I'm hungry! I'm bored! I'm sad! I need to poop! I'm sleepy! Snore. This episode of Lore Sjoberg's Alt Text pretty much sums up how I feel about Twitter.

So why do we suddenly have a new Twitter widget over there on the right sidebar? Well, I signed up for an account a few weeks ago after constant peer pressure from Jeff and Tiff. Those two monsters left me alone after that, and I hadn't actually posted any tweets (or followed anyone else's, heh). But now, I've decided to give it a try. The second part of the answer to "What is Twitter?" in the FAQ gave me some hope that this Twitter thing wouldn't be completely useless:

Bloggers can use it as a mini-blogging tool. Developers can use the API to make Twitter tools of their own. Possibilities are endless!

The "Possibilities are endless!" part is foolishly optimistic (and mathematically impossible) for a system that limits messages to 140 characters, but the concept of microblogging does seem mildly interesting. I guess I can share with you the little things--YouTube videos, CNN news articles, Lolcats--that make me laugh during all the hours I spend mindlessly surfing the Web.

So follow me on Twitter and allow me to help you waste a few minutes of your precious time everyday. Yay!

Warning: possibly offensive blog entry coming up....

Philos sent me this picture of a sign at the TriNoma mall car park.

Also available: reserved parking for midgets (compact cars only)

When I saw that picture, my first thought was: how can you tell if someone is an expectant mother or not? Sure, a woman in the third trimester of a pregnancy would usually be obvious enough, but how about those who just got knocked up a week or two ago? Also, isn't it sometimes hard to distinguish baby bumps from belly fat?

This brings us to a related thought: fat women are finally getting an advantage in something after all the crap they have to endure. So... yay for them.

I also think that it would be hilarious if I go hang out near that sign during the mall's peak hours, knock on windows of passing cars driven by women and say, "Hey gorgeous, why spend the next two hours looking for a parking space when I can make you an expectant mother in two minutes?" Heh.

Okay, maybe not. Slaps and lawsuits are rarely hilarious.

Can't believe I just wasted five minutes re-captioning this. I think I'm addicted to Lolcats. HALP!

Kids, don't do drugs! Or do drugs... I don't care. I'm not your mother.

On my way to Philos's birthday dinner last Friday, I came to a stop at a traffic light along Ortigas Avenue. As luck would have it, I was right beside an open manhole.

I should have just ignored it. Open manholes aren't uncommon around here--thieves regularly steal manhole covers and sell them as scrap metal. But I suddenly remembered a funny true story. A few years ago, someone I know fell into one such hole while wading through a flooded Binondo street on a dark rainy night. (He didn't die, so it's okay to laugh at him.)

I decided to blog about that, so I rolled down the window and took a picture. That turned out to be a bad move. Apparently, this particular manhole is right above the sewers. And I'm sure you know what's in the sewers. I desperately tried to close the window, but it was too late. Within seconds, my car was filled with the stench of rotting poop straight from Satan's concrete anus, and my Friday evening was off to a stinky start.

In full panic mode, I opened the passenger side window in an attempt to let the smell out. That turned out to be yet another bad move. The old SUV beside me quickly pumped its sooty exhaust fumes straight in. Again, the stupid power window wouldn't close fast enough.

By now, I was gagging and gasping while my poor nostrils were being assaulted by both natural and artificial stink gases. Where are those sampaguita-selling street urchins when you need them?

In the end, I buried my face in my left armpit and sniffed the deodorant until the traffic light turned green. I think I got a little high from that, but at least I didn't pass out. Yay.

We've finally reached the end of the season. To celebrate, the remaining survivors decided to free their last chicken.

WARNING: spoilers ahead.  read more »

I'm doing this one earlier than usual because the season finale of Survivor:Micronesia starts in two hours. So let's hurry through this episode.

Erik won the reward challenge, and, in a clumsy attempt to get back on Amanda's good side, he shared his reward with her. That pissed off Natalie, who was pretty much his only ally in the game.

WARNING: spoilers ahead.  read more »

The G.I. Joe Movie is coming out next year, and as a fan of the old TV series, I'm very excited. But I'm not sure I like some of the casting choices. If were in charge, the cast would look something like this:

(in alphabetical order)

Barbecue

Casting Darth Vader would really be a coup de force for the 80s.

Bazooka

It's a toss-up between Burt Reynolds and Tom Selleck.

Destro

A slam dunk. They even have the same build.

Dr. Mindbender

The Monopoly guy just has to practice looking a bit nastier.

Duke

They can use the movie as a springboard for a MacGyver movie.

Monkeywrench

Kenny Rogers just has to grow his beard back more then it's a cinch.

Quick Kick

I don't know the big kung fu guy's name, but the casting staff can ask Van Damme (if they can find him).

Roadblock

I think I’m getting the hang of this.

Serpentor

If you've ever played Rockman 3, you'll agree with this.

Sgt. Slaughter

I'm not sure who copied whom.

Shipwreck

Second guy from the left. In the Navy....

Spirit

I'm not racist. I just go with similar looks. =)

Xamot

Sorry, couldn't Photoshop Sharon from the picture.

I just came back from a reconnaissance mission, and it seems that the Chicken Mafia has serious competition. Now, all I can do is report what I've seen and heard, and I'll try to keep it short and to the point.

It all started a little over a week ago when Joyfulchicken alerted me to this seemingly innocent event, a supposed party for losers. But they weren't fooling me--I knew that only the Chicken Mafia cares about losers. So I did what any good soldier would do under the circumstances. I put on my human suit and went behind enemy lines.

That is a likeness of me taken by one of their skilled agents, but worry not my dear Mafiosos, I managed to steal the original and thus am the only one with the hard copy.

So here's the gist of the meeting as I understand it. David and Goliath, a shadowy organization masquerading as a T-shirt company, put on a party and tried to invite all the top losers they could get their hands on. Masked in a night of mad revelry, they systematically tried to win these losers over with various tactics, including the following:

1. A PowerPoint presentation with pure text and a maniacal voice over. It was obviously a means to implant subliminal messages in our minds. I have yet to undergo debriefing to find out exactly what they managed to implant in my head. (Video removed because of potentially harmful hypnotic effects.)

2. A game that necessitated ass kissing. (Okay, Mr. Fartface kissing... see if you like that one better.)

3. A losers dating game. What? A dating game? And not just any dating game... a dating game that included me! Sure, I'm a loser, but I'm not that much of a loser, am I? I looked over to Joyfulchicken for help to get me out of it, but he had apparently been brainwashed by the PowerPoint presentation. Abandoned by my comrades, all I could do was try to resist the bribes the evil henchmen were offering me.

That photo was taken at home while I was gleefully inspecting my spoils, so clearly I failed. Sorry, you'll have to check out these other blogs for pictures and recaps, because I can't bear to be reminded of my utter humiliation.

David and Goliath sure was crafty. They even employed goons from SPIT to do their dirty job. I was laughing so hard that I almost forgot why I was there in the first place. And their tagline is "we make stupid stuff so you don't have to." Need I say more? They're clearly trying to take over the world... or at least our niche of making stupid stuff!

We must find a way to defeat them... but of course not before I go buy myself something nice with the gift certificate they gave me.