Caustic Thoughts

Random funny thoughts with a taste of Pinoy and a hint of acid.

Death to Internet Explorer 6

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Every new blogger who bothers to research about blogging before opening a blog will invariably come across the unsolicited advice to opt for a custom template or lay-out. That is an especially good advice if you have an account with Blogger.com. Although the default templates provided are fabulous (I’m only saying this because I don’t know squat about coding and the technical blah, blah that makes some blogs glow despite below the poverty line content) using them would be the equivalent of wearing a Catholic school uniform. You’ll look just like every other classmate with a hair clip, leg-long skirt and black shoes. In short, you are likely going to share a blog design with thousands of other Hilton/Yuga/Gorrell hopefuls.

What’s the matter with a generic blog design or a Catholic uniform? Nothing. It’s just that regular netizens who know enough technical blather to design white virtual boxes and brag about them are likely to high tail it out of your blog at the first sight of a generic design. This is especially true if you are as interesting as a telephone pole. In other words, a nice, unique or flashy design may be your only saving grace— the only way you can attract hordes of disciples to your revolutionary ideas, inverted logic and hyperventilating grammar.
A word of caution though to bloggers who dream of freedom from template uniformity: changing designs is not as easy as copying and pasting a set of codes that rival the complexity of the language of a yet to be discovered alien race. Apparently, different browsers have their own queer ways of reading the technical language that tells them how your blog should look like. In other words, your blog could look fabulous in Mozilla but it could look like it just woke up with a hangover and bad hair in Internet Explorer.
I learned this the hard way after I applied this new design. A couple of my (ahem) loyal followers, or people who just lost their way, have been telling me that in their computers my sidebar overlaps with my text posts. After some diligent, eye nerve-popping research, I found out that the problem is that the design I am using is not compatible with some browsers. I also discovered that a lot of other blogs have the same problem and that the browser that bloggers most often have problems with is Internet Explorer 6 (IE6).
I have tried to the point of constipation to fix my problem or beg others to fix it for me but all I could find are equally incensed bloggers calling for the death of IE6. It is unlikely however that you will ever find the IE6 icon on a block with an axe over it or a noose around it unless you own Microsoft. According to one blogger, IE6 still holds sway over 50% of the browser market. So my dear friends, the lesson is: if you want to change your blog template, always check how it looks in Browshershots.org.
Since my technology IQ is nowhere close to 0.01, I cannot fix this appearance problem myself even if my life depended upon it. I would therefore also like to join the call for the death of IE6. If you want to help me get ahead in my vile, murderous quest, or if you just want to read my posts without getting cross-eyed, do upgrade to IE7 or Mozilla Firefox.

I Blog Therefore I Am

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“But blogging, aside from Perez Hilton and other big time bloggers (you know who you are) is for me a slacker job or a medium and pastime for lonely people to connect. Unless you’re in bloody Siberia or in a Gulag prison, try stepping outside your comfort zone and turn off the laptop or pc, you just might find some real live people to talk to instead of typing away in cyber space.” —Malu Fernandez in Manila Standard Today

Why do I blog?

I blog because

despite certain circumstances showing otherwise, the constitution says this is a free country where freedom of expression is allowed. I have a right to discuss, to debate and to have a say about the things that matter to me and that affect me. Blogging is as legitimate as gathering in the streets to bang on the palace gates and clamor for change. It is as legitimate as speaking from a podium to rouse the sleepy masses. It is as legitimate as writing for a national publication to prompt awareness into action and because we can’t all be fortunate enough to become high society columnists who get paid even for spewing nonsense, I chose to blog. I have the right to my opinion whether you will read it or not.

I blog because

I recognize technology and respect its rightful place in an inevitable future that will improve and reinvent the past but will not repeat it. Although some things will never change, those that will change in the realms of business, communication, education, science and art shall embrace the digital and virtual era as a part and a complement of who and what they are. The virtual world is real and alive. Only those who refuse to broaden their horizons, explore possibilities and leave the comforts of an old age will be left where they are.

I blog because

it is a powerful tool with which to discharge my social responsibility. I know that there are social, political and environmental ills plaguing our reality. I know that there is a need for responsible leadership, social revolution, environmental accountability and activism within oneself. What shall I do with this knowledge? Aside from acting on it, I also have the duty to tell others of what I know and push them to act. Even if only one person realizes some form of truth because of me and decides to be moved, then I would have been justly rewarded. I would not exchange this opportunity to influence for more money than I can count.

I blog because

I have substance. I have a richness of experience that I cannot keep to myself and that cannot possibly be borne out of nothing or out of a false and lonely existence. Writers can only write from experience. If I had lived in the loneliness of virtual isolation, I would have nothing to write about, but even some of those who do live apart from vibrant society, have far clearer insights into life truths than those who claim to own the attention and admiration of legions.

I blog because

I can. I have a skill possessed by many but not by everyone. I will not waste it but far from using it to enrich myself, I will use it first for no other reason than because it is what I do best. I would be a fool to attempt to chart other waters that I do not love when I have been given the gift of words which I do love and the skill to weave them. I am only guilty of using a gift in the only way that it can see the light of day, even if it is only a virtual light. It would be a greater sin to let it rot in my breast because I cannot hawk it in the streets. If by chance I do grow rich because of this skill, it is merely a bonus.

I blog because

I am driven by my creative spirit. Although I respect structure and conventions, I do not have to survive yet under their restrictions. My online passion is yet to be studied, understood and categorized for the benefit of those who must define or those who comprehend only through structures. Today I am free.

I blog because

I bloody hell just want to. It is an interest, an inclination, a desire. It is not a defect or a sign of social retardation. I have nothing against those who stitch crosses all day, those who drink coffee while swapping their neighbors’ dirty linen or those who walk their feet sore going from one window display to another. People should have enough respect not to mind me if I choose to bleed my brains dry over my virtual parchment.

*For Blog Awards Challenge 01

Boracay, Andok’s, Gucci and More

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I shouldn’t be writing about this. I shouldn’t even be thinking about it, but I can’t help it. Brain Gorrell’s blog has to be written about.

Apparently, he doesn’t need my help or this post. A guy whose blog gets 40,000 hits a day, who has been featured in national T.V. and in broadsheets and who has bloodshot loyal readers numbering in the hundreds can afford not to mind an insignificant spec of a blogger like me who belongs to the dregs of blogging society. The point though is not to help Brian get a Google page rank that’s infinitely higher than 1. I want to write about Brain because what he has revealed is relevant to who we are as a Filipino people.

I find it nearly impossible for some netizens not to have heard about Brian. If however, you have been living as a hermit for the past few months or working at a 9-6 job with only your boss’ dour expression to rest your eyes on during breaks from pretending to be busy, then there is a chance that Brain has escaped your notice. Brain is an Australian national who was ALLEGEDLY (I took care to add that last word in case Brian isn’t 100% correct or in case the libel secret service come in the dead of the night to dispatch me) tricked by his then Filipino boyfriend into parting with his hard-earned $70,000 life savings.

ACCORDING to Brian, he waited for months for his ex to achieve a 360 degree exorcism of his inner demons, awaken his sleeping dwarf of a conscience and pay-up. When his ex didn’t budge a single muscle in his neck, Brain opened a blog in an attempt to get his money back. How does a blog hope to do that? Brian has IMPLIED that he will attempt to get his savings back by revealing the truth.

What is the truth? ACCORDING to Brian, his ex and his ex’s circle of bosom buddies are ALLEGEDLY morally depraved, sex-crazed cocaine addicts in signature crocodile skins. It gets even better. The ALLEGED individuals belong to the royalty of Manila high society. He calls them the Gucci Gang.

This is where the real issues about Brian’s blog begin. The dissenting voices surrounding it do not just belong to those who believe or do not believe in Brian. Some of the voices belong to those on the ringside. Those who fancy themselves intellectually inclined believe they have fingertips too noble to be soiled by the putrid vapidity of gossip. There are also a couple of cautious individuals who simply warn against taking sides. Actually, among the upper echelons of society, the caution part is born as much from real prudence as from the fear of getting deleted from reality.

The real point though is not whether or not the Gucci Gang really wear Gucci or whether or not they are who Brian says they are. The point is whether or not we can go beyond the gossip aspect to see the deeper issue. Brian has unconsciously exposed our selves to ourselves. Without really meaning to, Brian has given us a mirror and showed us how stoned or wasted we all are. The corruption, ignorance, graft, apathy, pretension and every other bad word that doesn’t start with an “f” or an “s” in our society has been drawing us into real poverty of the body, mind and spirit. After more than a hundred years, the social cancer described by Jose Rizal is still in our system. This time, it has grown malignant and resistant to chemotherapy (or to Cardinal Rosales, Bo Sanchez, Jessica Zafra, Bob Ong, Conrado de Quiros, Stephen Covey or the Purpose Driven Life).

Don’t say you have nothing to do with this. Don’t pin the blame on your mayor, your congressman, the president or your dog. Don’t even say it’s the ALLEGED Gucci Gang’s fault or their clones’ fault. The degeneration or mutation of Philippine society really is our fault— each and every one of us. After all, society is not some invisible entity. It is all of us and each of us. You can’t seriously do nothing more than just sit back and read Brian’s blog for mere entertainment.

Wanted: Modern Impalers

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I was taken aback by one of Pol Medina’s old, frighteningly accurate comic strips. Two of his generously endowed kids were remarking on the progress of neighboring Asian nations. They suggested that the Philippines could also do with a little less democracy if we truly wanted to progress. One of Medina’s alter ego’s, the principled Mang Dagul, tells them to shut up because they obviously are too young to remember how the lack of democracy felt during the martial law era.

I suppose dictatorship will only truly work if our leaders are as saintly, principled and, uh, celibate (?) as Pope John Paul II. Any less than the former pope would make misused democracy better any time. In any case, I don’t think overflowing democracy is our problem. It’s the lack of every citizen’s exercise of the law. Yes, we have laws covering nearly everything from pissing on public walls (where politicians’ campaign posters just happen to grin out from in happy reception of the common man’s processed liquids) to swatting the activist flies that buzz incessantly over the morally challenged congressmen and cabinet secretaries. Despite our flawed but existing laws, people continue to urinate in the open, steal from taxes and kill the opinionated with impunity.

I say we don’t need to kill democracy. We just need a modern Vlad the Impaler. Vlad was a Romanian ruler who was popular for — well, impaling. Enemies and transgressors of the law were stuck on poles and left for death to claim in slow motion. Vlad also excelled in skinning, burning, scalping and disembowelment. Many non-Romanians interpret this as a sign of extreme cruelty which has led many to inaccurately pin on him the origins of the fictional Dracula. Many Romanians however see him as a nationalist who only wanted to impose the just rule of law. One story recounts that Vlad’s people were so obedient to the law that when Vlad left a golden cup in the middle of the street overnight, no one dared pick it up.

Our country has had some strong leaders. There’s Duterte of Davao and Fernando of the MMDA. Break the law and you’ll either be spray painted or dead, figuratively or literally. As expected, the criticisms leveled against the two have been plentiful and harsh. I guess some people simply think of them as modern impalers. For certain they may have merited some of the rotten tomatoes thrown at them. But that is the beauty of democracy. We can complain all we want about the limited few strict officials and not expect to get a lashing or a slow death while impaled on the pink fences of the MMDA. That is, as long as we follow the law.

English Campaign

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It is shameful. I cannot bear to imagine that many schools, organizations and institutions still require their people to speak only in English.
I suppose it is admirable that many Filipinos have a good grasp of English. It just absolutely perplexes me though that in some quarters, those who slip are fined, rebuked or ridiculed. If memory serves me right, it was only a couple of weeks ago that a beauty contestant became the recipient of all words unholy for her poor grammar and her inability to express herself in English. A politician went so far as to say that her performance was proof of our country’s declining quality of education.
I daresay shame on him and on anyone who puts a premium on another country’s mother tongue over our own. I do understand that mastering English is a must for most of us. It is after all most people’s major key to either get call center jobs that are perfect manufacturers of the living dead or get overseas employment from where a few Filipinos have come home in white boxes.
It is the poverty issue yet again. I don’t think we lack racial pride. We just can’t afford to speak in our own language. Learn to speak in English or else you will never survive or escape the sinking Pearl of the Orient that has sprung as many leaks as there are islands. I think the reason why the Japanese, Koreans and Chinese still speak their mother tongues better than they do English is because they feel no need to abandon ship.
Note: Yes, I write in English so naturally I have to be defensive. I have to write in English because I too can’t afford to write in Filipino but I actually write better in Filipino.

Holy Week in Bantayan

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Today is Good Friday. I am not deeply religious but I do respect and practice what is expected of us Roman Catholics during the Holy Week. I suppose it’s not just because I grew both my first permanent tooth and my first white hair with nuns (i.e. I spent an insanely large amount of time with nuns). My natural inclination to observe the Holy Week may be due to the fact that my mother is from Bantayan island.

The island is popular not just for its unexploited white sand beaches. Nearly everyone has also heard of the way the island is transformed during Good Friday. On this day the island comes alive with preparations for the evening procession. At the appointed time, residents and visitors take to the streets bearing candles and reciting prayers. The sheer number of people and candles dotting the streets seem to set the island on fire. The main attractions though are really the celebrated floats that depict various personages and scenes from Christ’s passion and death. The rich, elaborate and superfluous details on each float can make anyone forget to maintain the appropriate gravity prescribed by tradition, the occasion and the elderly. Some figures of saints are rumored to be made of ivory and cost anywhere from 2 to 3 million pesos each. 
The grandeur on Good Friday is only half of the story. The other half is within the realm of gastronomy. I am ashamed to say that part of the reason why I cannot forget Holy Week in Bantayan is because I am often ruled by my stomach. Like other Catholics, my relatives and I have always fasted and abstained as a sign of sacrifice, eating only three meals without pork and beef. It is generally assumed that pork is a major tasteful pleasure so abstaining from it is a great sacrifice for many Filipinos.
Personally though, Bantayan Holy Week table fares hardly fit my notion of sacrifice. How could it be a sacrifice to sink my teeth in seafood that is so fresh that they move and struggle to escape only moments before being decapitated? It was a guilty pleasure to forsake pork and settle for white fish steamed in plain water or shells grilled in their own juice. Bantayan, in any week of the year can make you forget that pigs, chickens and cows are edible.
Incidentally, it is due to the abundance of seafood and the obviously diminished island pig population that the people of the island are said to be exempted from abstaining from pork meat on Fridays during the Lenten season. For me though, eating pork in the face of the sea’s abundance is more of a penance. 
It is perhaps because of the general atmosphere in the island during the Holy Week that outsiders call the week the island’s fiesta. For some islanders, this is an obvious insult. While people all over the country bear somber, penitent faces on Good Friday the Bantayan islanders are sometimes thought to be in a state of enjoyment.
Nothing can be farther from the truth. I have never met more pious and faithful people in my life. What is sometimes seen as inappropriate celebration is really a rich commemoration of Christ’s life and sacrifice.
Photo credit: Powerbacks

Korean Wave

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What does an average Juan do when he is distressed by politics, demeaned by unemployment, depressed with poverty or drained by the routines of life? Does he:

(a) smoke weed
(b) drink like he has ten livers
(c) eat pork like he has no heart
(d) laugh
The answer may be all of the above depending on where you’re from. Among people I am acquainted with these days, it’s almost all of the above AND watching telenovelas. For the oppressed, depressed and suppressed Filipino, these shows offer a respite from normal life. They’re like modern weed. They can make you imagine things that don’t really happen in real life and mess with your brain. Of course, their main value is in their ability to help you forget your problems by making you commiserate with or rejoice at the troubles of lead characters.
In the Philippines the telenovela craze has come and gone in waves. The Filipino wave began decades ago when viewers were introduced to the formula: good vs. evil + lots of slapping, hair pulling, Vicks induced tears, nasal mucous + regional bias (probinsyanas in long skirts and city people in Levi’s) = good triumphing over evil without the prospect of a rematch.
This first wave was followed by the Mexicans. They had the same formula but executed it with more pomp, hair spray, fashion you wouldn’t wear if you were in your right mind and lots of gorgeous women that only our transvestite community can equal.
When we had our fill of unbelievable female beauty, the winds shifted and brought us the Taiwanese wave. Who could forget those strange men who had perfectly ironed hair that stayed in place despite adversity; smooth, white underarms despite their gender; and pore-free skins despite the nature of skin? The only great fault of Taiwanovelas was that they had men who were prettier than their ladies.
My preferred wave is the recent Korean invasion. Although I wouldn’t be caught dead following a Koreanovela (I have a reputation to uphold) I have caught snippets of their shows. I must admit. They are different and border on going against the norm in our country. 
I believe Koreanovelas are among the first to go beyond the typical external drama conflict where man vs. man equals hand to cheek contact and clumps of uprooted hair. They actually have complex characters that are not monochromatically plain good or plain evil. They actually have characters with personalities, evolving principles, changing motivations and inner conflicts that go beyond bowel constipation. In other words, they have created imaginary people that could very well be you or me with life stories that don’t always end happy like yours and mine.
Don’t get me wrong. I love to love my own. I’m just waiting for the right Filipino series. I have my hopes that we will have a better Filipino wave that I would actually want to be a follower of.
Spoiler Alert: I have an excuse to watch some parts of Tae Wang Sa Shin Gi/Legend. It is partly based on history and I am a lover of history. If you plan to watch it, prepare for an ending that will leave you either sad or clueless, as in, “What? Huh? Waaaaaa…?” The triangle they started doesn’t even have a resolution.

Changing Times

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I was getting rid of some memories the other day when I came across the cheer dance picture of one of the high school batches I was a publication moderator to. It reminded me of a few lines from Dodgeball, one of my toddler’s favorite movies (yes, she takes after her mother and is a fan of the game of “…degradation, violence and exclusion”).
In one of the scenes, Vince Vaughn’s character, Peter, helps Justin Long’s character, Justin get detached from a weight lift machine.
Peter: What are you doing with all that weight anyway? It’s dangerous.
Justin: …It’ll be worth it when I make it to the cheerleading squad…
Peter: …You wanna make it to the chearleading squad to prove to a girl that you are not a loser?
Justin: Yeah. Why?
Peter: Nothing. High school’s changed since I was a kid.
Yes, I do remember those days when the cheering squad was only just a quarter step above the losers’ circle. No, I am not so old as to remember pom pom girls in long white pleated skirts and long-sleeved sweaters that made them look like medieval virgin maidens. I do however remember those days in my school when students were segregated into two mutually exclusive groups— the athletes and the cheerers. 
In my time, if a girl couldn’t suck it up and play hard ball, she’d have to cheer instead or fail physical education. It didn’t help that the administration banned all forms of props and costumes. There was nothing between our naked faces and the hissing crowd. Some of us geeky, introverted ones who couldn’t hit balls smaller than an elephant felt like we were culled from the elite (i.e. we felt like rejects). It also made us feel like illegal immigrants. The more enterprising among us, annually migrated to mouse holes to escape from mandatory cheering. I pretended every year to be sick with some unknown disease that was similar to the bubonic fever.
Since then, high school has indeed changed. Now, kids actually audition for the chance to dance, scream and roll over the gym floor. Some of them really do cry if they don’t make the cut. That’s just… (groping for words)…amazing!
I wonder what else will change in the high school of the future. I heard water girls and pick-that-ball boys are becoming all the rage.

Hair Relax

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I studied for 16 years in an institution run by nuns. I worked for nuns for another 3 years. In all my 19 years with nuns, it was only last year that I learned of the truth behind the veil. I was told by a lay insider that underneath the veil lay short, short hairs. Not poodle trimmed hairs but unevenly cut strands of untreated hair. Nuns apparently keep their hair short and unremarkable because hair is a symbol of vanity.

There seems to be some truth about the link between hair and vanity, or as some people put it, the existential right to look good. These days, the most popular Filipino salon services are hair relax and hair rebond in which vertically challenged hair strands are whipped down to limp obedience. These services cost anywhere between a days wages to a month’s salary but women, members of the third sex and those of undetermined genders still line up for them.
I’m not sure but I have a feeling all my years with nuns have influenced my hairstyle preferences, or my lack thereof. My hair is either pulled back in the same style as those worn by Filipino women past their prime and sanity or cut androgynously short. I only had my hair treated twice in my entire life. On the first occasion, I had it stretched because the service came free with my hair trim. The second time was two days ago when I had it relaxed. Like a fool, I had fallen for the hairdresser’s sales talk and tried to convince myself that I had willfully consented because I had pitied him for his obvious desperation to bag a customer. Maybe I was partly convinced when he told me that my hair wasn’t any nicer than a string of frozen beans.
It was then that I realized that there are far more painful things than being treated by a gynecologist. There is nothing relaxing about a hair relax! Halfway through the procedure my scalp felt like it was being peeled away by a Sioux Indian who was practicing his first scalping. I was convinced that the chemicals had seeped into my skull and blood-brain barrier and caused even more damage to my already scattered gray matter.
The worst part was that I couldn’t tell right after whether my hair looked more like Snoopy’s ears or an ancient Egyptian wig. As one of my students put it, I could pretend to be Cleopatra. My husband just has to comb his hair to the front to look like Marc Antony. Our kid is already too much of a tyrant not to resemble Cleopatra’s son, Caesarion. If we lived 2000 years ago, we would have looked like royalty. Right now, I just look like a cross between a beagle and a dead queen.
I need to find out which is more fashionable, a shaved head or a veil.

Home Sweet Home

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I’ve said it before. There is a practical function behind the Filipino’s tendency to keep close family ties. By nature, we really do value family but I think there is also a social reason behind this. Because we live in a poor country, we each need other people to survive. Families help individuals survive economically. Living with my in-laws despite my being vertically and horizontally grown has allowed me to survive.

I am more fortunate than others because I do not have blood-sucking in-laws who do not mind my obvious lack of marbles. To foreign eyes, this Filipino way of life may seem like mutual parasitism especially for some unfortunate foreigners who marry into families that make them feel like dispensers of state benefits. In my case, my in-laws have only really provided me with the rare opportunity to learn how to care and share. 
I am still my parent’s daughter though and their value of independence, at the expense of mutual survival and family affection, is stronger in me. Although I appreciate the family aspect of Filipino culture, I still feel the desire to call my own shots. Hence, my current search for my own house. As things are going, I might as well have dug a burrow and called it home.
The most affordable option in one subdivision close to the city is a structure that is only 20 square meters large in a 40 square meter lot. I’ve been to farms with pig pens bigger than this. You can forget about interior divisions too. The kitchen, living room and dining area all share the same space. The worst part is that one wall is also the wall of your neighbor. That means your neighbors can practically smell how much your laundry stinks and hear every syllable above a whisper. It’s like having your very own wire tap. 
Surprisingly, this wholly unattractive package will cost me P11,500 (+/-$287) a month for fifteen years! That’s more or less an entire month’s salary for an average earner. Sure, I can afford that if I don’t eat, drink, bathe and sleep for 15 years!
There are more affordable options in subdivisions in forsaken nooks that are miles away from work, school and civilization. Affordable houses in these areas are made by filling pre-fabricated slabs with cement like filling a waffle machine with waffle mix. A few years ago, several of these houses in one village took it upon themselves to take a ski ride down the slope over which they were built and land on the houses below in a heap of rubble and an assortment of rejected appliances from Japan and Korea.
It’s depressing that many Filipino families simply can’t afford decent homes. I think I’ll go dig my burrow now.