stuff i enjoy

i like magazines like GOOD and Wallpaper. Good is a new discovery of mine. It has relatively short articles, with the point generally being summarized in an excellent graphic that is easily understandable at a glance.
i consider it so much more efficient, time-wise, than to sift through seas of words.
Wallpaper is a stylish mag that appeals to my sense of design.

Good also has a website, from which i wasted the morning away reading through. here are some articles that i found interesting

http://thevisualdictionary.net/

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/the-bible-according-to-google-earth/

http://lifehacker.com/5096769/five-best-desktop-customization-tools?skyline=true&s=i

http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/11/20/video-grow-a-living-treehouse-with-terreform/

http://www.inhabitat.com/

ramblings

traveling, i see brands i haven't seen in a long time. like mennen. remember that? are they still around in the RP?

going around cebu, i also saw mango brutus and Hahn (they had hunting knives and stuff at the top floor of robinson's galleria)
actually, in cebu there were several stores that had me reminiscing, but i can't enumerate them all now.

i would almost count heno de pravia (i remember all their old tv commercials) but i think you can still buy the soap in the supermarket.

right now, i am going around mexico and i have the opportunity to study the mexicans.
i'm fascinated by just how closely they resemble the malay race. certainly they have features that are different, but given skin color, height and shape of face we are not dissimilar. vicki's (sorry to mention her) facial structure i see here. looking at frances and carlo's dad, i'm wondering if carlo isn't actually part mexican?
mexican contribution isn't really mentioned in our history books but we did have a manila-acapulco galleon trade.
a lot of things are similar.
manner, for one. mexicans are patient and nice even in disagreement. to contrast, caucasians are way more ornery and more prone to violence than mexicans & asians. the religious culture here is not just similar, but exactly the same as in the philippines. (the wood carvings, the devotion, etc)

the pastries and cakes are prepared similar.

the way we celebrate our nov 1-2 i believe is actually mexican and not spanish as i originally thought, for some reason. i don't know what gave me that idea.
well, it is also possibly indigenous to us, i guess. but the practice pre-dates spanish occupation of mexico. ("pre-columbian")

columbus is the only guy other than jesus christ to have a time period centered around him.

i look at the beautiful ruins here and i think it was a great waste to have such a special architectural direction be cast away in favor of colonial architecture. since the spanish got around 500 years ago, you can see this type in too many places. (macau, latin america, etc)

boy i ramble a lot and go off in different tangents.

mexican chicks are hot, they get my blood boiling. especially the mestizas.
art is a big thing here, and i find myself buying a lot of souvenirs. i also find myself buying a lot of clothes because they look very nice. i'd probably never wear them except to a wedding or some other formal event. i'm such a dandy. i buy them but i NEVER wear them. what a waste.
thing is, i'm traveling and the money it would cost to fly over to my family and friends when they have events is considerable, and that's money that i can stretch pretty far here. it would have to be a special event, known weeks in advance and even then it puts me in a difficult position.

i don't know how long i'll stay in a place i'm visiting until i'm actually there. most likely, it is some remote place and not a major city, where the large airports with flights abroad are. i hate bypassing places i want to visit because i'd have to doubleback to see them. again, quite costly. having no set itinerary leaves me with no idea when i'll be where.

i hate what they've done to magnolia premium milk (and chocolait.) it is no longer real milk like they serve in canada/usa/mexico but some chemical preparation. thing is, they still call it "premium" and charge a disproportionate amount for it. it's total b.s.

on the plus side, mexico has yakult, the japanese preparation i am addicted to. so i get my yakult fix regularly.

authentic mexican food's fantastic, i can eat it days on end and not miss other types of cuisine. i usually have food from different countries at different parts of the day. unfortunately, mexican interpretation of japanese food and pizza does not suit my palate. they don't use the right rice in japanese food here (at least in the cheaper japanese restaurants) making eating maki a weird experience.

food from other countries is always different. chinese food in the philippines little resembles food in mainland china and the USA. the menu selection and food preparation is different.

take for example singapore. i would go to indian restaurants and be distressed they offered different foods from what i would normally see in an indian restaurant in the US. yes, they were still good of course. i just got confused.

anyway, i'm glad that usa interpretation (yes, i know it's still mexicans preparing it) of mexican food is horrible in comparison to what you get here.

international vagrant

in the picture is our intrepid hobo, as yet collecting information for my eventual contribution to humankind. despite failing to convince comelec officials (and banks and pagcor and everyone else) to adopt my ideas i have nevertheless not given up in trying to bring everyone into the next century. to do this, i have chosen to concentrate in introducing a product rather a method or attitude or any of the myriad ways of "leveling up" (sorry, long time video gamer) mankind. yes, my hubris is that i believe i am the proverbial evolution button, and if i fail in my task, i am perhaps doomed in the afterlife where i have to answer for my inability to get it done. while what i do now pays the bills, i can't help but feel i am a failure, marketing aesthetic playthings when i should be producing a next generation product. like electricity, if this were the 19th century. or tall ships, if this were the middle ages. i would prefer to present to the world interplanetary craft, but i lack the skills to do this.

macking with the chicks

here i am macking with the chicks, sporting my brad pitt mr & mrs. smith haircut.
sure the one is the lovely mrs. bob and the other is the somewhat controversial miriamite true love of he-who-shall-not-be-named, so my proof that i am some sort of international playboy may still be questionable

his face says it all

jose cuervo tequila production

the blue agave plant has its leaves taken out with a type of spade and the remaining pineapple-like thing is steamed and juiced.
it seemed a very simple and much smaller operation than i thought.

sunset over mazatlan

sunset

racism

in the news today, comments made by prominent politicians show how their perceptions have undertones of bigotry.
underlying racism just make me burn

"America is electing a new president, but for the Germans, for Europeans, it is electing the next world leader," said Alexander Rahr, director of the German Council on Foreign Relations.

"We see new challenges coming up, not only Islamic extremism, but a newly resurgent Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea — everywhere there are fires," he said. "And we, as Europeans, can't solve these problems without America. A world without American leadership is, for most Europeans, a world of chaos