Top 40 Magazine Covers

The American Society of Magazine Editors released their Top 40 magazine covers of the last 40 years list.

Time, Life and Esquire led the pack with the most number of covers featured. The Rolling Stone issue with John Lennon and Yoko Ono on the cover, which came out a month or so after Lennon was assasinated, got the top spot. A good 10% of the list was devoted to covers which featured 9/11. It included that Art Spiegelman prototype of the fallen towers which also appeared on the cover of his last book.

Next to the New Yorker Spiegelman cover, I also liked the Wired Magazine cover featured above. Although I think most people would find the Vanity Fair issue with a very pregnant Demi Moore as the most recognizable and often imitated.

Hacking

This detail from the screenshot of my blog's current referrers list. It definitely gives you an idea about my current interests right now.

I have good intentions. In want to put together the upcoming term's reading lists for my classes. I'm not sure if I want to get rid of my Hemingway/Ng twinbill in Eng11.

I wasn't really a local showbiz fan when I was a kid growing up. But in retrospect, I was just trying to suppress an already inherent interest in artistas and pop culture. Hence, the appearance of top '80s loveteam Romnick and Sheryl, whose faces graced the covers of many spiral notebooks with the same message pencilled in: "Study hard! Love, Nicko/She" I wish the notebook makers came up with a teacher version: "Teach hard! From Ma'am, With Love."

My immediate concern right now is putting together a frankenstein script: the head comes from one girl, the arms from a very tall boy with a mohawk, and the rest, I try to wing it. I remember what one of those older writers said: "If you're really a professional writer, you must be able to do it, whatever it is." You are a writer hawking your wares. The "whatever" can mean a profile, a feature article, a PR piece, speech, showbiz tsismis.

The resulting image might be more suggestive of a vendor in Divisoria. But what difference does it make? Hacking is extreme versality under very harsh conditions.

Life in the time of Macarena

Kitty litter shares this nifty site where you can enter the year who graduated from high school and come up with (technically) the soundtrack of your life back in the age of free sizes, Mexican telenovelas are the newest rage on television, and The Future (or life as we know it) was still in a galaxy far far away.

I'm thinking whether I should have factored in the cultural lag and entered the year before actual graduation as a lot of the songs here actually became popular when I was already in college. There are comments when they are due. Please also note that Macarena appears twice on the list, but I don't know why.

Anyway, here is my high school (and very early college) soundtrack:

1. Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix), Los Del Rio
My high school was very jologs, and if you wanted to be in, your barkada should double as a dance group. Hiphop was preferred, unless you were into rock alternative and would rather headbang and lipsynch to "Sweet Child of Mine." Unfortunately for me (or my high school barkada), I had very weak motor skills.

2. One Sweet Day, Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men
The 90s were also all about doowop. Sukiyaki wasn't something you ate for lunch but something you sang in between classes.

3. Because You Loved Me, Celine Dion A blockmate dragged me to watch Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert Redford and I spent most of the movie with my arms cross my chest and very very incredulous while said blockmate dabbed tissue at the corners of her eyes.

4. Nobody Knows, Tony Rich Project
5. Always Be My Baby, Mariah Carey
6. Give Me One Reason, Tracy Chapman

7. Tha Crossroads, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
I think this is the one that goes, "Boom, boom. Whatcha gonna do.."

8. I Love You Always Forever, Donna Lewis
I think I have this in an acoustic chicks compilation somewhere.

9. You're Makin' Me High / Let It Flow, Toni Braxton
10. Twisted, Keith Sweat
11. C'mon N' Ride It (The Train), Quad City Dj's
12. Missing, Everything But The Girl

13. Ironic, Alanis Morissette
I think "Hand in my Pocket" came out in my last year in high school. I knew only one other girl in high school who liked it. Then in freshman year, Alanis had a concert here. If I'm not mistaken, it was called "The Can't Not Manila Tour."

14. Exhale (Shoop Shoop), Whitney Houston

15. Follow You Down / Til I Hear It From You, Gin Blossoms
I personally like another Gin Blossoms song. But somebody I know will react.

16. Sittin' Up In My Room, Brandy
17. How Do U Want It / California Love, 2Pac

18. It's All Coming Back To Me Now, Celine Dion
If you'd seen the video for this one, complete with the motorcycle and thunder and Celine Dion in a sheer white nightgown, then this is the stuff of nighmares. But in my high school, this would have been a top pick for the annual Christmas presentation required of all the sections. Usually, if the class was pa-artsy (and this is very loosely defined), they'd go ethnic with "Ang mga tao ay magkakaugnay" (or something like that, I'm not too sure), or perhaps do an interpretative dance of Gary Valenciano's "Pasko na Sinta Ko", Meatloaf's "I Will Do Anything For Love" (from the To Hell and Back album), or Enya. If your class is jologs, you'd do a production number using the Ang TV Christmas album.

19. Change The World, Eric Clapton
The return of the oversized John Travolta came via feel good vehicles Michael, where he starred as a hefty archangel and Phenomenon, which featured this song.

20. Hey Lover, LL Cool J
21. Loungin, LL Cool J

22. Insensitive, Jann Arden
Probably part of every girl's breaking up soundtrack at one point or another.

23. Be My Lover, La Bouche
24. Name, Goo Goo Dolls

25. Who Will Save Your Soul, Jewel
I once had someone I barely knew who called me up on the phone and proceeded to play guitar and sing this and "You Were Meant for Me." Although the gesture was nice, I was too occupied with many things at the time so I said no.

26. Where Do You Go, No Mercy
27. I Can't Sleep Baby (If I), R. Kelly
28. Counting Blue Cars, Dishwalla

29. You Learn / You Oughta Know, Alanis Morissette
It says something about you if you walk into a record store and see the 10th anniversary acoustic edition of Jagged Little Pill and feel your a scream curdle from the pit of your stomach. We're old, we're old, we're goddamn old.

30. One Of Us, Joan Osborne
I belonged to an all English majors block in my freshman year and we suffered through Comm I under a Jesuit priest whose idea of a joke was to ask, "What did Samson say when he was pushing the pillars?" Every class meeting, we had a quiz where we had to write down entire poems from memory and we got 3 points for each correct line. Or else, he asked us to sing. One girl blockmate picked this song and got nice grades because it was about God.

31. Wonder, Natalie Merchant
32. Not Gon' Cry, Mary J. Blige

33. Gangsta's Paradise, Coolio
As I walked through the valley in the shadow of death... Michelle Pfeiffer kicks ass, yo. Dangerous Minds is part of the New Teacher Starter Kit. (Although puwede din ang Dangerous Liasons.)

34. Only You, 112 Featuring The Notorious B.I.G.

35. Down Low (Nobody Has To Know), R. Kelly
This term is enjoying a new surge of popularity if you know where to look.

36. You're The One, SWV
37. Sweet Dreams, La Bouche
38. Before You Walk Out Of My Life / Like This And Like That, Monica

39. Breakfast At Tiffany's, Deep Blue Something
Their lead vocalist used to be a high school English teacher.

40. 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New), Coolio
41. The World I Know, Collective Soul
42. No Diggity, BLACKstreet (Featuring Dr. Dre)
43. Anything, 3t

44. 1979, The Smashing Pumpkins
Very important song to those who were 21 in the year 2000.

45. Diggin' On You, TLC
46. Why I Love You So Much / Ain't Nobody, Monica
47. Kissin' You, Total

48. Count On Me, Whitney Houston and Cece Winans
A go-girls anthem that I was conned into singing. My Hum I groupmates had to do a report on James Joyce (Promise, I don't know how that happened) and for some reason they wanted to sing this and the Regine Velasquez-Donna Cruz-Mikee Cojuangco friendship song. I got to play Mikee, if only for one brief moment, simply because I also couldn't sing to save my life.

49. Fantasy, Mariah Carey
50. Time, Hootie and The Blowfish
51. You'll See, Madonna
52. Last Night, Az Yet

53. Mouth, Merril Bainbridge
A girl in my high school claimed she had this playing in the background when she gave her boyfriend head. I will never look at her in the same way again.

54. The Earth, The Sun, The Rain, Color Me Badd
55. All The Things (Your Man Won't Do), Joe

56. Wonderwall, Oasis
Back in the day when even Time Magazine closely watched Brit record sales as there was very strong rivalry between Oasis and Blur and they were compared to the Beatles and Rolling Stone.

57. Woo-hah!! Got You All In Check / Everything Remains Raw, Busta Rhymes
58. Tell Me, Groove Theory
59. Elevators (Me and You), Outkast
60. Hook, Blues Traveler
61. Doin It, LL Cool J

62. Fastlove, George Michael
George Michael got caught in a public restroom doing some fastselflove.

63. Touch Me Tease Me, Case Featuring Foxxy Brown
64. Tonite's Tha Night, Kris Kross
65. Children, Robert Miles
66. Theme From Mission: Impossible, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen

67. Closer To Free, Bodeans
68. Just A Girl, No Doubt
Tragic Kingdom was an album to have back then. But most people liked "Don't Speak" more.

69. If Your Girl Only Knew, Aaliyah
70. Lady, D'angelo
71. Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First), John Mellencamp
72. Pony, Ginuwine
73. Nobody, Keith Sweat
74. Old Man and Me (When I Get To Heaven), Hootie and The Blowfish

75. If It Makes You Happy, Sheryl Crow
76. As I Lay Me Down, Sophie B. Hawkins Again, I have this in an acoustic chick compilation somewhere.

77. Keep On, Keepin' On, Mc Lyte
78. Jealousy, Natalie Merchant
79. I Want To Come Over, Melissa Etheridge
80. Who Do U Love, Deborah Cox
81. Un-Break My Heart, Toni Braxton
82. This Is Your Night, Amber
83. You Remind Me Of Something, R. Kelly
84. Runaway, Janet Jackson
85. Set U Free, Planet Soul
86. Hit Me Off, New Edition
87. No One Else, Total
88. My Boo, Ghost Town Dj's
89. Get Money, Junior M.A.F.I.A.
90. That Girl, Maxi Priest Featuring Shaggy
91. Po Pimp, Do Or Die
92. Until It Sleeps, Metallica
93. Hay, Crucial Conflict

94. Beautiful Life, Ace Of Base
"The Sign" was the curse of my high school life.

95. Back For Good, Take That
I liked Boyzone better. I heart you, Ronan Keating. (And Stephen, too.)

96. I Got Id / Long Road, Pearl Jam
97. Soon As I Get Home, Faith Evans
98. Macarena, Los Del Rio
99. Only Wanna Be With You, Hootie and The Blowfish
100. Don't Cry, Seal

How to write chicklit

Radar Online, under the suspicion that chick lit is churned out by "some piece of automated fiction software developed under extreme security by a powerful cartel of publishers," hires a computer hacker slash CL grad student to look into the cogs of the machine that is chick lit. What follows is a very convenient how-to for everyone and her pet chihuahua who wants to write in the genre that the New York Observer has likened to "calling another woman a slut."

Survival tips for students

Here are some survival tips for students, with annotations and comments:

1. If it's a big class (25 or more), recite once a meeting, but make it substantial. If it's a small class (15 or less), recite more than once--but make it substantial.

Sabi ni lola Oscar Wilde, "The first duty in life is to assume a pose." So when the sem opened, I made a resolution that my role as a grad student was to be an airhead. Effective naman. Kaya lang napasobra yata ang internalization ko dahil feeling ko nahipan ako ng hangin at naging permanent pose ko na siya. Afraid.

2. Don't try to get on your teacher's good side by:
a) agreeing with everything she says or constantly nodding your head when she's talking or otherwise doing something that can only be described as ass-kissing; or
b) disagreeing with everything she says; in fact, quibbling to the point of making a pest of yourself; and/or
c) asking silly questions.

If you're a student, being the last to leave the classroom so you can say "Bye, Ma'am" isn't going to add any points to your grade. Definitely not, especially if you're going to pass a concept paper 3 pages long and doesn't have any citations. The only thing it accomplishes is that it makes you look like a stalker.

3. Ask questions during class time so other students benefit.

4. Read the assigned texts, do the homework, be prepared, don't wait to be spoonfed, keep your lates and absences to a minimum.

5. Follow instructions. Not following instructions is a sign to your teacher that you weren't listening (and maybe you weren't, but you wouldn't want her to know that.)

6. Never use the argument, "I'm entitled to my own opinion." Not only did you just resort to the most over-used excuse for not thinking, you're actually refusing to listen.

7. Keep your religion and morality to yourself. (This is also in deference to your classmates who may believe differently.)

8. Don't take your teacher's behavior as signs of friendship or anything else. If a teacher is professional, she'll do everything within reason to assist you. Teachers have different styles. Some are "nice," some are "casual," some are "concerned," some are "terror." Neither her assistance nor her style signify anything other than her desire to do her job well and provide you with the best teaching service she can.

Also, if you are too "nice," crack a lot of corny jokes, and dress like you're one of them, the students think you're a buddy, easy to bully. This is part of the reason why I attempted to wear "teacher clothes." Even if it's such a hassle to wear teacher clothes when you commute, and that by the time you reach the fifth floor your freshness is gone, you try to dress and act the part so that they'd think you mean serious business. And it is effective. But with the kind of weather we have now and you can't do your laundry that regularly, it's still inevitable for me that I'd appear in the now occasional jeans and shirt.

9. Your teacher was once a student, so avoid spouting bullshit.
Unfortunately, if you're the teacher and you spout bull, the students will definitely notice. Also, you can't just say, "My dog ate the lesson plan and today's midterm." One, I don't have a dog. Two, what midterm? (Hehe, kidding.)

10. Don't beg for a higher grade.
I don't care if you're on scholarship. You get the same chance as everyone else, so make the most of it. If you didn't do well enough during the sem, then don't seek extra points by asking to do more papers. It's just not done.

If there are survival tips for students, I also wish that there are survival tips for teachers. The first several months were really very chaotic. But in the two years I've been titsering, I've learned

a. not to give out my mobile phone number to students
b. that it's better to have smaller classes
c. how to schedule writing assignments so you don't drown in papers to check
d. to maintain my distance
e. that titsering makes you highly conscious of how you carry yourself in public
f. you need another job to support your titsering life.

These aren't exactly survival tips, but more like things that you should keep in mind while titsering.

The Chichangs OST

My Grad Skul Prof says that the greatest comedy is one where there are tears just below the surface. I'm not quite sure if this qualifies, because more and more, the movie that is my life is starting to look like something straight out of the Asian Horror Movie film festival.

And it's not even Halloween yet. Afraid.

1. Too Much by The Spice Girls (Spice World, 1997)
2. Shiny Red Balloon by Barbie's Cradle (Music from the Buffet Table, 2001)
3. I Never Loved You Anyway by The Corrs (Talk on Corners, 1997)
4. Borderline by Madonna (Madonna, 1983)
5. Can We Still Be Friends by Mandy Moore (Coverage, 2003)
6. Oops!...I Did It Again by Britney Spears (Oops!...I Did It Again, 2000)
7. Stupid Girl by Garbage (Garbage, 1996)
8. Dry Your Eyes by The Streets (Single/A Grand Don't Come For Free, 2004)

-----
Don't Think Of Me by Dido (No Angel, 1999)

So you're with her
Not with me
I know she spreads sweet honey
In fact your best friend I heard he spent
Last night with her
Now how do you feel, how do you feel?

When you see her sweet smile baby
Don't think of me
And when she lays in your warm arms
Don't think of me

Deleted Tracks:

You Oughta Know by Alanis Morisette (Jagged Little Pill, 1995)
Take It Easy (Love Nothing) by Bright Eyes (Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, 2004)
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For by U2 (The Joshua Tree, 1987)

She's bananas*

The animal kingdom has been totally quiet recently, so I now bring you weird fruit news.

The new food pyramid by the USDA highlights the eating of fruits as central to having a healthy diet. New research also claims that the amino acid citruline found in watermelons increase the bloodflow to the pelvic area. Also, the antioxidant lycopene (which is also found in, among other things, uhm, canned tomato sauce) present in the fruit's pulp improves sperm concentration.

O di ba, ang galing? Mas maraming dahilan para ikaw ay kumain ng pakwan. Usually, maraming tinda nito sa ilalim ng flyover sa Katipunan, malapit sa pila ng UP jeeps. Ano pa ang hinihintay? Mag-pakwan na kayo!

Meanwhile, a June 2005 article for Popular Science reports that the banana might become extinct really really soon.

The banana is "yellow and sweet, uniformly sized, firmly textured, always seedless." While there are other varieties of banana--bananas meant to be eaten raw, or boiled like potatoes or sliced thinly as chips, it is the predictable sameness of the Cavendish that has been THE banana for most of North America, Canada and Europe for 50 years now.

The sameness is also the banana's downfall. According to Dan Koeppel, "after 15,000 years of human cultivation, the banana is too perfect, lacking the genetic diversity that is key to species health. What can ail one banana can ail all. A fungus or bacterial disease that infects one plantation could march around the globe and destroy millions of bunches, leaving supermarket shelves empty."

It's not quite unfounded that someday we will run out of those uniformly sized bananas. Early in the last century, it wasn't like that. The banana was something called Gros Michel--or Big Mike--which almost all accounts said was more tasty and sweet than the Cavendish. But Big Mike was wiped out by a fungus called the Panama disease. All the big banana plantations were wiped out within 5 years of the disease's appearance.

Now it's happening again. In 1992, a new strain of the disease, Panama disease Race 4, appeared in Asia. Experts all over the world are now hard at work to save the banana from extinction. There are two opposing views to this. Some banana growers are experimenting to create a new breed that looks and tastes almost the same as the original Cavendish and hope that it'll be introduced to the market without people really noticing the difference. On the other hand, there are scientists who are working with the plant's DNA and splicing the chromosomes with other species in the hopes of coming up with a tougher Cavendish that is resistant to Panama and other diseases.

This crisis is still not visible enough in the Philippines, as there are still other varieties of banana aside from those in our supermarket aisles. While I still cannot differentiate a lakatan from a latundan to save my life, I know a senorita and a saba whenever I see one. There used to be a banana that has a pale green peel, quite large, and I remember that if you eat it, it's quite cold in the stomach. They're also cheaper than your regular yellow bananas. I don't remember what it's called now, but I haven't seen it in markets in a long long time.

So here's a toast to bananas, which I hope will be around for a long, long time.

*This is for Yummy, who is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Bananas!

Faux Pas

Our word for the day is faux pas.

Faux pas is when an unknown number sends you a message at 230pm, "We have class today." It's when you reply, "Nah. Classes were suspended at 1pm, bading. Pero ngarag ever pa rin ako kc wa pa submit ng paper ang mga lecturer. Afraid."

Faux pas is when a while later, you get the reply: "We can't afford to skip any more classes." And in your muddled little head, you assume this is from someone you just agreed to give cabfare to since there were no jeepneys at the height of a transport strike. So you reply in such uncouth gushing language, "Oo na bakla, bibigyan na nga kita ng cabfare, sige mag-kabey ka na papasok."

Faux pas is when you open your inbox and the message proclaims, "This is Your Grad Skul Professor." Clouds part, jaw falls to the ground, thumbs type in, "Yes, mam, papasok na po."

Faux pas is when you scuttle to your seat in that table at 3pm. The Professor proceeds to give you an update on what has happened in class thus far, and then smoothly narrates a little anecdote about that time when she was young and still quite new at playing her new role as the diplomat's wife, that time when she was still naive about which fork to use at a dinner with the genteel man she had mistaken to be somebody else, and she picked the wrong fork and that picked the same fork she did, and then later discreetly discarded it for the right one, and she followed suit. He never said a word about it, and she never said a word about it.

We never said a word about it. Although now, I don't think I can look her in the eye without thinking that I once offered her cabfare.

Angel Adrift

When Barbie Almalbis announced a couple of months back that she was leaving Barbie's Cradle, the buzz was that she was leaving behind the music business to devote more time to preaching--something that wasn't totally unfounded since the last BC outing, Playing in the Fields, featured songs whose lines proclaimed that "inside of [her] heart was an army of angels" and that "all [she] need[s] is God." It came as a surprise to a lot of people, who assumed that she was "in utter content with [her] two boys." One then thinks that the disbandment and her now solo pursuit was almost like an afterthought, a momentary flight of fancy by someone who "didn't mind if [she'd] still be six."

Later, it was clarified that the move was a career one: that Barbie wanted to pursue a solo career, hence the decision to change managers and that there was no ill will between her and bandmates Rommel de la Cruz and Wendell Garcia.
With that out of the way, one would think that her first move would be to come up with an album to showcase her original work as a solo artist. It'd be necessary to create an identity separate from the band and all other previous associations thereof. Thus, it is puzzling that her first project is a sort of "Best of" album that rehashes all of her previous work. A compilation album is usually done by a performer already past mid-career, a nod to the brilliance of things past but also with an eye out for the future.

Traditionally, a good best of album should have all the important singles, but with the additional attraction of a previously unreleased track. (Similar best of albums had to have a bonus track aside from the old reliables. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking along the lines of the the Eraserheads Anthology which had "Sa Toll Booth" and even Britney had to include (her) "My Prerogative.") But a quick look at the track listing of Barbie: The Singles reveals that the new Close-Up jingle "Just a Smile" is the only new song previously unconnected with previous Barbie Almalbis ventures. Some argued that Barbie: The Singles is a tribute to all her fans, who presumably have all her previous releases, as all decent fans should, and would not mind buying an album where some songs are already thrice recycled. Yes, there is a bonus VCD featuring music videos, but again, there's nothing there that we haven't seen before. Unless, of course, if the goal is to feed the mania for collecting everything Barbie-- Hungry Young Poet Barbie, Bumbera Barbie, Cradle Dweller Barbie, Gypsy Skirt Barbie, Prayer Warrior Barbie, Recently Single, er, Solo Artist Barbie--then you can totally forget about getting this.

If B:TS is meant to herald the arrival of Barbie as a solo artist, I still don't see the necessity to anchor this campaign on nostalgia. "Remember when" was never a good tactic to begin with, unless you're Cyndi Lauper who seems to be eternally stuck in the '80s, with hair and all. A good break and better packaging is more like it.

Which brings me to the now inevitable face off of The Dolls: Barbie Na Doll vs. Kitchie Nadal. (Yes, it has come to this. I know this sucks, but I can't help myself.) Kitchie Nadal took up the cudgels for Ricci Gurango after the HYP split that begat both Mojofly and Barbie's Cradle. Kitchie Nadal and Barbie Almalbis both sing in the great tradition of what I call the Society of Girls Against Tonsils, or SOGAT. Kitchie Nadal fronted Mojofly, quit the band to finish school, and then decided she didn't want early retirement from the music business. If you'd look at the cover art of her debut album, what we get is Kitchie Nadal with eyes wide open. She's beckoning us: Stare into these deep dark pools and drown. She then inflicted her newly repackaged self upon us. Her "Wag na Wag Mong Sasabihin" was the earworm of late 2004 to early 2005, thanks to its association with a popular Koreanovela, and we even see her hawking stuff on television. Kitchie Nadal has reinvented herself as a pop ingenue and it works.

On the other hand, the cover art for Barbie: The Singles has Barbie in a white, faux-fur jacket, a cascading beady necklace effacing the soldier tattoo behind it, and she is cross-sitting on the floor, her eyes gazing up to the sky, a great deluge of white feathers around her. This image--of white feathers drifting--is repeated in the CD art. Meanwhile, the inside photos have Barbie jumping up (or down?) and hair tossed in guitar-fuelled ecstasy, or else she's smiling, still cradling the guitar, but also floating or perhaps in limbo. There aren't really any liner notes to speak of, just a list of acknowlegements, track listings, and the back cover art taken from Playing in the Fields.

So what to make of it then? Is Barbie--note the change in appellation: is this how she differentiates herself now from her past?--an angel drifting in limbo? She keeps her affairs in a book, proclaimed that it's dark and she's lonely, and worries about not having enough money for food. She plays at being the ingenue, but hers is not a sharp sophistication but a wistfulness that treads the dangerously thin line between resonance and navel gazing.

In the BC video for "Limang Dipang Tao," Barbie twirls in a burst of color and a kind of manic energy and playfulness that somehow affects even her bandmates. Where Kitchie Nadal succeeds in entrancing everyone with lusciousness, Barbie garbs herself in pajamas and invites us to play in Barbieland. When she finally dishes the pjs and turns up in an orange short dress in the "Good Day" video, she cannot resist the urge to up and down and prance in that elevator party. But there are moments when the bouncing and throwing up her arms work as enticement, a sensuous invitation. One actually misses of having Barbie as your own personal bumbera, when she wanted "to put out your fire, drown your desire." Those moments are too few, and they're still injected with a kind of innocence that it won't quite work as seduction.

But more than anything, throughout all her incarnations, Barbie was never the
sensuous vixen. The wink may have been an invitation, but an invitation to play
in Barbieland has always been--and perhaps will always be--about mischief and mirth.

One thing is definite though, the ingenue present in B:TS has to grow up and make a stand that won't be her last. It'll interesting to see what Barbie will grow up to be. Unless Barbie: The Singles is but a lament for her former bandmates: "Independence day is not for me. When I'm bound to you, I feel so free."

Many thanks to Gwen for providing my latest ear candy.

Podcast Envy

Purdue University, whose Online Writing Lab we are a big fan of, will start offering podcasts of some classes this fall. Boilercast is intended for students who miss a lecture or who want to review the lecture at a later time, and will also be available to the public for download.

Of course, this piece of news stirs in me a great university envy. I can think of other ways to use this sort of technology in class. Maybe even create some sort of lecture by proxy in case the teacher's throat conks out. But third world institution that we are, we have to make do with what's there.

Kaya thank God for salabat. Weh.

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