More Thrilla in Cebu

Almost a month after their Thriller video captured the web by storm, the inmates in Cebu are said to be practicing their next dance routine, "Together in Electric Dreams," which will be unveiled in two weeks in YouTube.

It's going to be a big production: They hired a choreographer, and prison security director Byron F. Garcia says this new dance video will be his birhtday gift to the current governor of Cebu, Gwendolyn Garcia, who also happens to be his sister.

I was initially excited by the news, until I realized they're doing Phil Oakley, not Debbie Gibson. I'm seeing a pattern here: Garcia clearly likes his 80s music, but only those sung by guys. When will the Correctional women put out their video of "Electric Youth"?

That bag, c'est moi

Look what I found:




It's a Parcel tote bag, which I got with tags and all in the ukay store which sheltered me from the rain earlier tonight. Actually, that's not the exact bag I got. Mine is a deeper purple, with black straps and yellow vines and flowers, and the bottom is a sort of dark burnished gold. I trawled through the Loop website (Nice, but flash heavy) and couldn't find the exact same bag. But you can look here to see the ruching detail not quite obvious in the above photo. Alternative Outfitters, which calls the bag "vegan and cruelty-free," also has a detailed description:

A Parcel classic silhouette made of ultra chic satin nylon in supple iridescent shades has zippers every which way but loose and adorable unique Parcel printed straps. The ruched side detail on the exterior pocket brings to mind French knickers and memories of no knickers!!! Headphone grommets keep your iPod, Nano, MP3 headphones from getting tangled so you can listen to your tunes effortlessly.

Truth be told, I was there because all the other convenience stores couldn't give me change or the stuff I needed to really buy. But it's a blessing in the sky in disguise. It's a happy happy find for Php150. Of course, not necessarily healthy from a personal finance point of view. But I found lotsa bags in that second ukay store than the one I first went to, in which I previously found a Tintin tote. This isn't their lucky day I suppose.

Anyway, it was a fun find, and it's not everyday that I find a bag that's made (seemingly) just for me.

Going Green

Nick Kindelsperger and Blake Royer of The Paupered Chef in an article in The Washington Post point us to a very familiar scene:

Cooking for one can be a frustratingly wasteful adventure, as we've both figured out the hard way. Even settled down with respective girlfriends after cooking-solo singlehood, we still find ourselves with the problem of herbs. One moment we're tossing heaps of beautiful fresh basil on pasta, and the next the refrigerator drawer (that alleged "crisper") has a large bag of unappetizing blackened slosh, which goes into the trash. Not only is it wasteful, but restocking the fridge every time a recipe calls for a teaspoon of parsley is expensive.

Rebecca Blood points us to several solutions. There's the bouquet method, where you plunk the bunch of basil in a glass with water, in room temperature and away from direct sunlight. The stems will later grow roots, and will probably last from a few days to weeks, given the proper conditions.

Another technique is what Mental Masala calls pseudo-hydroponics
which involves your basil, a glass or vase, and a plastic bag with holes in it:

When you bring your basil home, trim the stems with a clipper, remove the rubber band or twist tie, and place the bunch in a glass or vase. Add a few inches of water to cover the base of the stems. Then take a plastic bag and cut a few holes in it (the fresh shiitake mushrooms I buy come in a bag with holes pre-made, so I often re-use them for this purpose). Place a plastic bag over the basil leaves and place the assembly in a well-lit location, but out of the direct sunlight. Check the water level daily and add more as needed. If all goes well roots will start sprouting from the basil.

Here's a photo of how it looks like:



Now all I need is a really healthy bunch of basil. I think I've been watching way too much of Jamie At Home.

Commuter Reading

Every day, I commute an hour to an hour and a half each way. It would have been nice to be able to really read something while in transit, unfortunately, I shift modes of transportation quite often. The longest ride I take is a 14 minute train ride, with perhaps a nine minute wait thrown in. Not exactly the best situation for reading.

MJ Iles, in this essay in The Guardian, agrees that commuter reading only allows you to "snatch at literature": "Though I see other people doing it, I don't think this is the way to read books. Only if I didn't care about a novel - only if I considered it not worth appreciating - would I subject it to such a reading process."

Iles suggests "episodic novels," which are "oddly out of favour nowadays." Short stories would be ideal, if only if they weren't the wrong length--it's either too short that a page is all you have, or too long that you have to stand aside and finish reading it while on the escalator, or hold up the line at the turnstiles. Poetry's also possible, but since I ride early in the morning and my caffeine buzz is still not there, I don't even want to try it.

It's really quite the dilemma, unless you're perfectly happy listening to the radio. Or as Iles suggest, do Sudoku. But since I'm not numbers oriented myself, I might just close my eyes and maybe catch some more shuteye.

Declutter

FlyLady gives us 5 tips on how to declutter:

Your home is filled with clutter of all shapes and sizes. This is why you are unable to keep it clean. You have too much STUFF. All we ask is that you set a timer and spend 15 minutes a day decluttering. That's it. Anyone can do anything for only 15 minutes, even if you have to break it down into 5 minutes segments. What do you have to lose (besides clutter LOL!)?

This is something that I really need to do. My place is a fire trap. Five minutes a day for 27 days doesn't sound too bad--unless I forget all about it by like, day 5?

Nom de porn

Did a classmate make your high school life suck a lot? Had a falling out with a friend? Then be a porn star and use HER name instead of yours.

You might get sued in the process, but at least you're not the one getting weird IMs from lecherous former batch mates.

Thrilled

1,500 inmates at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center do Michael Jackson's "Thriller."

Jail director Byron Garcia believes that music is good for the inmates' well-being, so he had them too YMCA, Radio Gaga and Hail Holy Queen.

Adam Jasper for Viceland magazine has this to say about prisons in the Philippines, at least as run by Byron Garcia: "Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center is different. It is a brand new prison built on the American model, with fingerprint scanners, closed-circuit TV, and orange uniforms. It’s run by Byron F. Garcia, and because he thinks it’s a jewel of a facility, he took me on a tour and let me photograph whatever I wanted."

Seems like this is what you do when bored and have plenty of play/inmates.

Meanwhile, this makes me think really hard about that urban legend which claims that civil servants only have half a brain.

Okay, this is not helping me get any sleep.

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Bedtime Teas

I'm down to the last bag of my caffeine free herbal teas, which help me sleep nights. What I'm sipping right now is the last of my Sleepytime tea, a blend of chamomile, spearmint, lemon grass, tilia flowers, blackberry leaves, orange blossoms, hawthorn berries, and rosebuds.

According to the website, this warm cup "creates a lullaby of tender flavor to soothe your senses. This 100% natural, gentle cup of hot tea lets you curl up under a quilt of flavor and quiet the tensions of your world."



The other day, I also drank the last of my Noche, which promises me "happy nights" through its blend of melissa, orange blossoms, chamomile, linden blossom and fennel seeds. It's a different blend from the one above, but a staple of these calming teas seem to be orange blossoms and chamomile. I bought Noche from one of the Spanish booths in the big international tiangge last Christmas. So unless I find a supplier here, I might have to wait for my "happy nights" in the next bazaar.




Sometimes I eat kiwi fruit, which is also effective, but dependent on (a) whether there's some available in the supermarket, or (b) if I actually have enough money to buy them fruits. There was one time that the only kind available was the "golden" one. The usual kiwi is brown and has furry skin. But golden kiwis are less furry and inside it's yellow. Chinabelles also more expensive. Kiwis of any kind are expensive. Gah.

I'm crossing my fingers that when I go the supermarket tomorrow, I'll find either one of these teas, or maybe some kiwi. If desperate, I might resort to the Sandman teas, but if I remember correctly, I didn't have much success with that particular brand.

Get this party started

Dame Shirley Bassey gets the party started.

At 70 years old and with a new studio album, she definitely rocks it better than Pink. The opening scroll reminds me of Madonna c. Bedtime Stories and Immaculate Collection, but better.

It's such a shame that I only discovered Shirley Bassey last year I think, when some friends and I were hanging out in this cafe along the Riverbanks and they were playing this album. The boldest one asked the waiters what it was, he borrowed the CD and promptly ripped it off and copied it to his hard drive. But it's all for a good cause.

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Cat Roundup

New research indicates that cats probably domesticated themselves. Why? Because they have no opposable thumbs. Domestic cats may be genetically traced from five wild cats. They were either lured into domesticated by the mice in ancient people's grain storage places or they mated with domesticated cats. All this happened downwards of 160,000 years ago, although some people argue it's most likely 12,000 years ago .

You can read The Washington Post's David Brown's interview with Carlos Driscoll from the University of Oxford here.