My mom is 59

I have a feeling that's a bit of information that she'd prefer to keep under wraps, but I don't care. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!

Smallville

I love how they've taken a dull character as Superman (I mean, he's invencible, where's the fun in that?) and made him extremely interesting.

But maybe the biggest feat is making 30-year-olds look like teenagers. I mean, not everyone can be Michael J. Fox, you know! But these guys pull it off.

Hands down, my favorite thing about Smallville is looking at Kristin Kreuk. She is just hot. I just found out she's Chinese. Here's a pic.



Isn't she cute as a button?

Feelings suck

I am angered and saddened by my inability to keep my emotions on check. I admire how others manage to live their lives without disclosing emotion. Somehow they seem to I can't seem to.

I wish I could say it's a hormonal thing, but it probably isn't. I believe that this very thing makes me a weak being.

Who are we trying to fool?

Even though Addie and I have made amends, some things that were said during our chat struck me as total bullcrap.

Addie says that she believes that 'relationships on the workplace aren't a good idea'. Dunno. It just feels like another polite way of saying 'I like you as a friend, and only as a friend', which everybody knows is female code for 'You're too [insert negative quality here] for me'.

When I asked her if she had the hots for Louie, another coworker, she totally denied it. But I know better. She just likes it too much when he manhandles her several times a day. 'He's the one that starts it,' she said. Yeah, well, I never saw her trying to stop it.

Closure... kind of

Well, after a couple of months of awkwardness, Addie and me are back on speaking terms.

You might remember that I had grown so infatuated with her that I had decided to ask her to be my girlfriend. Unfortunately, she didn't feel it was such a good idea. That hit me like a ton of bricks right then and there, and it got worse over time.

Even though I understood that Addie had every right to turn my offer down, it still hurt like a bastard, week after week. So I slowly stopped talking to her.

That was two months ago. Over time, things had degraded so much between us, that it was hard to believe that we had ever been such good friends as we once were. We had grown so far apart we were almost strangers.

So finally, I grabbed the bull by the horns and asked her to stay after work to talk. I told her that I knew I had behaved badly, but that I was finding my way, and that I really wanted our friendship back as it once was. She said she was willing to try.

But this isn't a Disney movie, and we probably won't live happily ever after. For starters, I don't think things will ever be back as they once were. I mean, once you overstep your boundaries, it all goes to heck. And the sting of being rejected will probably stay with me for a looong time.

At least I got some badly needed closure on this whole ugly chapter. Time to move on.

Sorry, guys

As of this very minute, anybody who wants to comment in this blog will have to undergo a verification process to determine that it's a real person writing the comment. It's not a biggie: you just have to type a randomly-generated word before sending your comment. It'll take up about three extra seconds of your time.

I know, it's a drag, but I'm tired of all the fake comments I've been getting. A man can only endure so many manhood-enhancing-drug ads before having to take drastic action.

Yet another great thing ruined by spam.

Ooops, she did it again

When I first found about this, I couldn't believe it was true.
Apparently, Britney Spears went into a salon and shaved off her hair.



That wouldn't be so bad if she didn't have such an ugly cranium. I wonder if those bumps mean that she was dropped on her head as a kid. Hey, that would explain so much.

PS: The salon is selling Britney's hair (along with some other items) for a cool million dollars. Just in case you're interested. More here.

Love thy robot

Just when I thought I'd seen it all, comes along technosexuality. No, it's not a disproportionate love of techno music. It's people who are attracted to humanoid robots or to people acting like robots. In laymen's terms: android fetish.

I can only imagine that those guys see Herbie Hancock's 'Rockit' and Kraftwork's 'We Are Robots' as others see Debbie Does Dallas. And instead of buying a Sport's Illustrated Swimsuit Edition Calendar, they grab the latest Sorayama calendar. (He draws some really cool fembots, actually).

Really, really freaky. However, a good thing about this particular fetish comes to mind: if their 'partner' starts nagging too much, they can always unplug him/her.

Try that with a human mate and you go to jail. Not fair.

He was so right

Radio personality Fred Allen once said,

The trouble with television is, it's too graphic. In radio, even a moron could visualise things his way; an intelligent man, his way. It was a custom-made suit. Television is a ready-made suit. Everyone has to wear the same one. Everything is for the eye these days: Life, Look, the picture business. Nothing is for the mind. The next generation will have eyeballs as big as cantaloupes and no brains at all.

Valentine's Day, revindicated

It's St. Valentine's Day once more, and it's time for romance, big spending, seduction dances... and lots of bitching.

You know what I'm talking about. Every February 14th, like clockwork, hundreds of voices rise against the Day of Valentines. "It's an artificial holiday", some say. "We shouldn't have a day to be romantic, we should be romantic all year long!"

I agree, it is an artificial holiday, or at least, that's the tone it's taken over time. And no, we shouldn't have to set apart a day to be romantic, we should be romantic all year long. But, guess what? Most people can't. Life is hectic, and you can't really be gallant every single day. But some overdo it. If we didn't have Valentine's Day, some people would never care to buy flowers, or write silly poems, or get a card for their mates. Nothing.

So that's why I consider it important to have a day each year dedicated to romance. Don't like the date? Celebrate it whenever you want to. This guy recommends celebrating on February 15th, when everything is half off and every restaurant in town is empty. However, if you feel like avoiding consummerism altogether, you can take the road less traveled and take the time to come up with a special and unique gift for your loved one, something you can't get in a store.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!!

Clarification

I would like to clear something up.

It’s not that I believe that no woman will ever love me. What I do believe is that no beautiful woman will ever love me. There’s a difference.

Saying that no woman will ever love me is unrealistic. There’s lots and lots and lots of ugly women who don’t have any good suitors and therefore would have nothing to lose by settling for a guy like me. Beautiful women, on the other hand, can pick and choose their suitors, so they focus on getting a mate that will be a symbol of their high status: wealthy, handsome and cool.

A good reason not to have babies

Watching the Eye 2 was quite an experience. It was supposed to be a horror flick, but actually it was just plain disturbing and kind of stupid.

Joey Cheng tries to kill herself, but instead of dying, she is left with the spooky ability to see ghosts. Not only that, it turns out that the ghosts she sees are after the baby she carries in her womb. So Joey spends the next eight months running from the undead while trying to come to grips with her new role as a mother. There's also lots of gory, unsettling scenes and hysterical screaming in Chinese.

Now, you gotta give credit to the Pang Brothers, the film directors. The scenes where Joey tries to kill herself over and over are just hilarious. Whoever said that seeing a woman fall four stories wasn't funny, hasn't seen this movie.

Why I should not travel anymore

I traveled to Xanadu this weekend, to visit my friend Dano.

In case I hadn't mentioned it before, Dano and I studied Graphic Design together ages ago. After graduating, he returned home to Xanadu to set up his own Graphic Design studio, which has become quite successful over time. Then he got involved with one of the local universities in Xanadu, and he set up the Graphic Design program there. That was five years ago. In a few months he will be the new Dean of the Arquitecture.

His dad is still alive, and his parents are very young. They will be in top shape when the grandkids come. Oh, and did I mention that he is engaged and traveled to Europe with his fianceé a couple of years ago?

So, in short, he has a degree, he is a successful and respected member of the design community, he has his own design studio and he's gonna get married soon.

Believe me, I could actually hear the envy corroding my bones.

On the verge of a nervous breakdown

This waiting thing is driving me mad. Mad, I tell ya.
As I mentioned before, I have yet to receive results on my graduation project evaluation. Supposedly, I'll get them this very Wednesday. Believe me, it's been a looooong 14 days.

I feel sick. The anxiety makes me feel like somebody punched me in the gut and I can barely breathe. Just like a caged animal, I want to escape, but I have nowhere to go.
Whether I want to or not, I’ll have to face the monster.

And quite a monster it is: the results from this evaluation will basically determine if I will be getting my Graphic Designer degree this year or not. I’m already about six or seven years overdue, and I really, really don’t want to wait any longer.

My uncle, the heckler

My uncle makes me so angry sometimes, because he's a heckler. He likes to interrupt people with comments and jokes which often make the other person lose his/her concentration and sometimes, even his/her temper. It’s funny to watch because my uncle has a very sharp wit. Of course, it's not so funny when you're the butt of the joke.

My uncle's behaviour used to make my dad very angry, and still makes my mom very tense. I mean, trying to tell a story is hard enough without people cutting in and poking fun at your delivery.

He just burned me yesterday. I was telling folks about Invader Zim and I stuttered, and that was my downfall. He was onto me like flies on honey. Afterwards, I was red to my face, and it got me really pissed off at him. Then I got mad at my mom, for allowing this sort of thing to happen. Finally, I got mad at myself for saying stuff without thinking first. With a heckler in the house, you really gotta be on your toes, and I wasn't, so I left myself wide open to be tackled.

But, you know what? We need hecklers like him, to remind us that the world outside isn’t cozy and nice. People want to cut you down for reasons unforeseen and unknown. You have to be ready. Look what happened to Michael Richards when he caved under the pressure. It wasn’t pretty.

My little winged visitor

I took this picture today. Even though at first glance it may look like a figurine, it's actually a real bird that snuck into my house. Birds sneaking into houses isn't news, but this bird is special because it managed to get to the second floor, where no windows were open.
The only way it could've gotten there was by entering the ground floor and then going up the stairs somehow.

Just like a cat up on a tree, this little fella got stuck once he got into the master bedroom, and couldn't get out by himself. Grabbing him was out of the question, as he was faster than a devil, plus it could get hurt in the process. So what I did (after snapping the aforemented pic) was to close every single door and leaving just the balcony door open. Then, I entered the room and managed to draw him out. Luckily, the silly fowl managed to see the exit I had prepared for him and escaped to freedom.

All in a day's work.

'Based on a true story'

I hate those five words. I really don't understand why filmmakers, writers, and the like feel the need to tell us something like this happened in real life. Specially when everybody knows it didn't. Why? Because real life isn't like a movie, or a TV show, or any piece of entertainment. Real life is complex, even messy. It has a lot of minor characters, uninteresting plot. A lot of the times, lots of unrelated stuff happens out of nowhere. And the endings are a letdown.

Movies, on the other hand, have to be entertaining. It's not that something has to explode every six seconds, but rather, that it has to have a story, a plot. It has to have a certain pace and rhytm. Edits have to be made, and things have to be rewritten. It's no wonder that the end product has little resemblance with the 'real life happening' it is supposedly based upon.

So, what I don't get is the need to try to convince the public that the stuff that we see on the screen has any sort of basis on reality. Isn't the fact that it's an interesting, compelling story enough?

Babel

Went to see Babel yesterday. Gosh darn it, I should know better than to go see Alejandro Iñarritu movies. They are not bad, you see, but they are uncomfortable from beginning to end. The characters undergo such traumatic and embarassing situations which make me want to stop watching... but I can't. You get sucked into the stories. Babel takes you from the Morocco hillsides, to the urban chaos of Tokio. As the title suggests, lack of communication is one of the main themes. Truly a very interesting pic. Go see it.

Kurt Cobain must be turning in his grave

You want surreal? Listen to Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' as sung by Paul Anka. Other hits in this 2005 opus include R.E.M.'s 'Everybody Hurts' and Soundgarden's 'Black Hole Sun'.

The funny thing is, they're not half bad.
Of course, this is Paul Anka we're talking about.

The waiting game

After working on them for the last year, I finally handed over my graduation projects this week. I have to wait for the results. This will determine if I am fit to take my final examination in order to get my degree as a Graphic Designer.

I hope for the best, but I can't help being very, very nervous. This is my future we're talking about.

My sister is 25 today!

Hurray!! I love ya, little sister. You are the best!!!

So young, so old

Over time, I've noticed something very interesting. American 24-year-olds look so very old when compared to their Kzanderallian counterparts.

I can't explain it, but I'm willing to guess. I believe that it's due to the fact that American parents kick their kids out between 18 and 24 years of age. It's customary for a Kzanderallian kids to reside with their families until they wed.

This would deserve a study.

MySpace has a Kzanderallian in its midst

I've been curious about MySpace for a while, so I decided to try it out, with mixed results. It's pretty much the same as hi5, but with a very important difference: I don't know anybody! Does anybody out there want to be my friend?

Surfing on the job

Usually we don't have Internet access at Lexcorp, but an IT slip-up allowed everybody a free all-access pass to the Net. It was glorious! We surfed, we chatted, we mailed. Of course, no work got done. None.