Hello, I Love My Mom... and Mr. T

So it was my mom's birthday yesterday right? But I'm here in Taiwan and unemployed... How does one send her love and good birthday wishes across the South China Sea with a limited non-existent budget?

And lo, the answer revealed itself as this:

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Scenes from Jason's Birthday Bowl

Jason makes a new friend...

Call for Interviewees

Hello,

If you happen to be browsing by my blog (hey man, it could happen) and you're:

1) In the Philippines

2) Using a prepaid SIM card

then congratulations! You are eligible to be interviewed by me for my thesis and receive a naked picture of my boyfriend (or whomever you like) as a token of thanks.

If you're interested, e-mail me at tengbateng@yahoo.com

(hey, it could work right??)

your help is greatly appreciated.

thanks,

tetaw

Cindi Lauper, is that you??

This is wierd and wonderful. Its like watching The Breakfast Club and seeing Tara Reid lip-synching to Cindi Lauper....

Holy Embolism Batman!!

Woven bacon cheese roll of death


If I could learn to cook only one thing in my life, it would be this.

Hello, I Love Christmas Songs 3 : Zooey Deschanel & Leon Redbone

12 days before Christmas!!

Hello, I Love Pretending I Care

This holiday season, are you wondering what to give that person from the next cubicle who you don't really care about but you feel somewhat beholden to because she/he always lets you take as much of his/her tissues and use his/her scissors to jimmy your file cabinet open?

Why not send them an e-card from someecards.com? They have some pretty funny holiday cards that say loud and clear "Hey man, I don't know you that well, but merry Christmas... now can I have more tissue?"

this is funny because this is what I will be doing on the 25th...

All I Want for Christmas...

... is a giant, firebreathing robot dog that I can ride around the streets of London.

Watch Robo Dog in Game Videos View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

saw this at notcot.org

Hello, I Love Christmas Songs 2 : Phantom Planet

15 days before Christmas!!!

Hello, It's Almost Jason's Birthday

Hello, I Love Christmas Songs 1 : Raveonettes

16 days before Christmas!

Thesis a Progress Report

You always hear people say that it's hard to make progress if you don't keep track of your progress (okay maybe only I'm the only one who always hears it... from the strange voices in my head...). So to help make headway in the lost cause that is my thesis, I made the following charts to document how far I've gone after three months of thesis sweat, blood and tears:

Figure 1. Overall Progress

Figure 2. Number of Zits

Figure 3. Weight Gained (in lbs)

Figure 4. Stress-to-Output Ratio

I'm thinking of passing this to my thesis advisor in lieu of a real progress report...

Give Your Loved-Ones Herpes this Christmas

coolstuffexpress.com is selling plush herpes microbes. They're cute AND educational! They also make good christmas gifts for your significant other; nothing says "forever" like big box of herpes.

UPDATE: I never noticed how much herpes looks like a fried egg...

Hello, I Love Sleeping Around

Here's an interesting article from jezebel.com on why women sleep around and how it's not as anomalous or unnatural as some people think.

If you have the time, you can read the actual study from New Scientist that the jezebel article cites, it's longer but it's a good read.

Anyway, now I understand why I never seem to get a lot of tail...

Figure 1. My hand...

Happy Andres Bonifacio Day!!

Although he is one of the most important figures (some would argue that he IS the most important figure) in the Philippine revolution for independence from Spain, very few of us really know who Andres, the man, is. As a child, most of the things I was taught, or that I read about, were colored by opinions of teachers and scholars. He was either glorified as a revolutionary hero or condemned for being uneducated and impulsive.

The search for the true and unbiased source of Bonifacio’s identity led me here… to his horoscope. Being born on November 30, he is a Sagittarius.

According to horoscope.com, here some clues for what Sagittarians should expect:

Celebrity Astro Gossip

Sienna Miller recently hit the headlines for the extreme lengths she was prepared to go to in a recent pop video which was definitely not children friendly! However, disturbances in her chart suggest that the next big event in Sienna’s story is going to relate to a personal relationship. Sienna may need to get herself a good publicist as the indications are that there will be some seriously salacious gossip spread around!
[Lesson from Sienna Miller to Andres: get yourself a damn good publicist, team Aguinaldo is spreading some seriously salacious gossip about you at the Tejeros Convention]

For those of us born on November 30

Happy Birthday! The months ahead are likely to provide those exciting challenges that stave off the boredom [like fighting for independence, yea!!]. Your money situation will remain strong until well into the summer, so expect no fluctuations in your finances until then. However after the summer it will be important to keep an eye on your spending patterns. The months of May and June will be a good time to take on new ventures and interests [like running for president, go Boni!], because while your energy will be at a peak you’ll also be in a more practical frame of mind, but make sure that you don’t neglect your friends [or they will promptly throw a hissy fit and then have you executed]. The fall will bring with it yet more developments [like being dead and in a shallow grave]. Affairs and flings will be the order of the day in the pursuit of fun [yes… Pugadlawin WAS super fun…]. Friendships become very solid in October and work or school will also absorb your somewhat flagging energy, which will be revived by a short respite in November!

From astrology.com:

Sagittarius Fashion Profile

The Archer is usually more at home under the stars than indoors, but even the illustrious explorer needs to wear clothing [so true!]. Not big on fashion, and not really caring about making a statement, you dress in comfortable clothes that allow freedom of movement and can handle the rugged nature of your existence [uhh, yeah.. you can’t get more rugged than a Katipunero, hello!]. Clothing made out of hemp or other natural fibers suit you best. If you finally manage to render a garment unwearable for the holes [or bullet holes], you can give it [and yourself] a proper burial to return it to the earth. Hippie days are not past yet, for long skirts, ponchos and loose-fit jeans suit you perfectly. Sportswear of any kind suits your lifestyle. You may look out of place during dressy occasions [no shit!], but you're not so concerned about what others think of your looks, concentrating instead on letting them in on the inner levels of your knowledge.

Hiking boots or sandals adorn your feet on most days [psshhh, shoes are for sissies! Katipunero's only roll barefoot!]. Going barefoot is not too rare, either [see?]. Makeup is a pain and jewelry just gets in the way, broken or lost, so you simply don't wear any [you speak the truth]. Strong colors, particularly navy blue [uh, hello, red?], lifts your spirits, but you rarely bother to match your clothing. Sagittarius men have no problem with scraggly beards, and a woman's hair is something to turn into natural dreadlocks [hahaha!! i won't even say anything], shave off or throw back in a ponytail. Your colorful clothing causes smiles as you go, unassuming, on your way.

Fave Label: Marc Jacobs [huh… I always saw Andy as more of a Michael Kors kind of guy]

Would Look Good On: Katie Holmes

Breaking News: Math Geeks are Smart, Not Smooth

So I'm in my SBM class again right? So naturally I'm idly reading random blogs while my professor is yapping on about probability sampling...

And lo and behold, I find this Math Geek Pickup shirt from Talk Like A Physicist :

Then I thought, "hey I used to know how to do integral calculus! surely this equation holds some clever joke and is therefore worth solving". Unfortunately, three years of corporate life has eroded all knowledge of them fancy maths from my noggin (sorry kids, despite what your math professor says, chances are you will never use all those fancyschmancy calculations past college, unless, you know, you become a professor yourself *shudders*).

Anyway, with a little google dilligence, I managed to solve for the punchline.

Behold, the solution!

har har har... that's 20 minutes of my life I'll never get back...

Item Number One in the List of Things to Buy When I'm Working Again

Saw this on moopshop

It's the Tommy xiao digital polaroid! Prints pictures instantly and even makes sticker prints! *sigh* being poor sucks

Hello I Love Feel Good Videos

I keep seeing (and stealing reposting) wonderful things from swissmiss...

This is another one of those videos that leave you feeling like life is truly wonderful...

Fifty People, One Question: New York from Crush & Lovely on Vimeo.

Geez, now I've got a silly grin on my face that won't go away! Now I have to go out and roll on the grass or hug a bunch of strangers or something...

Hello I Love 30 Rocks

This made me laugh so hard that I think I woke my roommate.

Now I remember why I loved Sesame Street as a child ( aside from that psychidelic pinball cartoon where somebody sings "1, 2, 3, 4, 5... 6, 7, 8, 9, 10...11.. tweeeeeelve", you know what Im talking about right?). But Sesame Street seems to have become more sophisticated since my time. They show parodies now and not just kids playing in drainpipes and talking to all sorts of strangers. And apparently they count up to 30 now; the highest number I ever remember them counting to as a child was 12 (but then again my memory isn't what it used to be).

Going back to the video, this made me laugh:

Jack: Do you know how many rocks ARE here?? There could be 50, or a hundred or.... 3....

Liz Lemon: Well we can find out, Jack.

Jack: HOW?? We can't ask them, they're rocks!!

hahaha... God I have a pathetic sense of humor...

Hello I Love You Lito

My love for Lito Lapid is well known among my friends (partly because of an incident involving Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and angry conjectures on who Legolas stole his moves from).

Alas, the heart’s memory can be short, and the longer our love-affair, the more we forget the little things that made us fall in love in the first place. Thankfully, this is where youtube comes in…

Seeing this was like falling in love all over again! Now that is what Lito Lapid is all about! It’s just… wow…Wow!! I don’t know where to start! I mean the song? The man cleavage (with shirt rivets to match)? The masked salakot? A musical segment that’s over 10 minutes long?? What.is.not.to.love?

I especially love how they got creative with use of clothing lines here…
There’s bolo + 100 meter clothing line = Pinoy Nunchucks (they’re like your usual Nunchucks only deadlier because they have razor sharp blades! … and easy to grip rubber handles) Also, one Bolo-On-A-String (BOAS) wasn’t enough! There had to be two (and they had to be holstered on Lito’s back, and form a kind of ghetto back fringe that fly all over the place when he moves). BOASes are one part nunchuck, one part whip, all angular momentum defying Filipino death machines.

Then there’s the clothing line as a part of a complex horse and tree pulley system. Never mind that it’s easier to just shoot Lito’s enemies from the ground. Never mind that hanging precariously from a tall tree actually makes him an easier target for his gun-toting enemies. Never mind that a clothing line that thin couldn’t possibly support his body weight. And never mind that what he’s doing would leave nasty rope burns. Anyway, his enemies, like his movie audience, are just going to stand still in wonderment while he machine guns the life out of each of them.

Ohh man… that’s too much love for one afternoon.. I have to lie down now… then go make my own Bolo on a string..

How's This For Qualitative Research?

Exactitudes

That's Not My Name! That's Not My Name!

You know how sometimes there's a song that bounces around your head and it just won't stop?

[just nod and pretend you do]

Today that song is That's Not My Name by The Ting Tings (just shut up and let me go, Ting Tings! haha...ha..ha.. ehhhh.. I crack myself up).

Anyway, I have surrendered to the song's irrepressible brain bounciness. My first child or next pet (whichever comes first.. I'm hoping for the latter) will now be named Mary Jho-Leesa (its totally Pinoy!).

[oh, and thanks jess for pointing me theTing Ting way]

Snail Mail Epiphany

This afternoon, I mailed my first real letter in years (real, in the sense that it wasn’t just a note accompanying documents or a package like “Dear [ex-boyfriend’s name], Here’s your stuff back. Shove it up your you-know-what. Haha, but seriously, let’s stay friends.”). It was just a birthday card for my sister, but it made me realize that sending letters to family and friends by post might be better than sending them by e-mail. And I mean better in a more practical than sentimental sense, I’m not really one of those people who scrapbook all my correspondences and notice little details in letters like impeccable handwriting done in swan quill or tear stains on the paper (evidence of the considerable effort exerted by the author to write without a spellchecker).

One of the reasons that practically nobody sends letters by post (to family or friends who live far away, I’m not talking about work related letters, or just-for-giggles forwards to that person in the next cubicle) is that e-mail is so much faster; you send an e-mail and your friends halfway around the world get it in a second. What I’ve noticed though, is that e-mail is too fast for the slow pace of my life. My life is so uneventful that one month’s worth of stories will barely be enough content for one letter (of course this isn’t true for everyone, I know people who average three one-night-stands a day and/or have so much drama in their lives that each of the hourly e-mails they send are as intriguing as the last). But e-mail puts so much pressure on me to write people more times than I have stories to tell, partly because I always think people will consider me unsympathetic if I wait a week or even a day to reply. As a result, my usual letters are something along the lines of:

Hi [friend or family member's name], Thank you for your letter, I’m glad your week is going well, just like last week. This morning, I forgot to clean the washing machine lint filter before washing my colored clothes. As a result all my dark clothes are covered in white fuzz of questionable origin. Hahaha,*sigh*, lesson learned. Luvya, Tetaw

With snail mail, there’s always necessary waiting time for my letter to reach the recipient, for the recipient to write the letter (without a spellchecker), and for the reply to reach me. Meanwhile, I get ample time allowance to wait for something eventful to happen in my life… and/or enough time for me to cook up stories that are both interesting and believable (it’s a lot harder than it seems). And if times are hard and my life is duller than usual, or if a creative drought is inhibiting my ability to invent stories, I can always say that the letters got lost in the mail, thus buying myself more time.

mmmmm...

mmmm... pie.... chart

saw this on swissmiss

Bored in SBM Class

The professor is talking about variances in income demographics in a survey they once had. He says there has to be variance otherwise why bother having a study at all. All intervals can't be the same.

The student in front of me is reading some kind of blog thing with her hoodie on (but why? it isn't that cold)

[ loud computer sound rings out, everyone ignores it]

The guys to my right are whispering about something, about bending your knees or something.

The people to my left are whispering about something unintelligible

[ the professor asks for any questions, nobody has any]

[break time, the person to my immediate right and the person to my immediate left are gone.

I should have eaten something for lunch... 711 is so far... 2 more hours to go!! must summon inner yogi abilities: iron stomach lining, iron stomach lining!!]

teeheehee

Should I be alarmed that I can relate to the little hamster??

View From Beyond Saturn

This is 2006 picture of Saturn is so beautiful it looks unreal. This is Saturn directly in front of the sun. From what I could understand from the photography babble from the Nasa website, it's a color exaggerated composite of 165 pictures of the eclipse.

The thing I like about this picture is I'm actually in it (well, along with the rest of humanity)! I'm not sure if it's visible from the picture upload since blogger seems to make all my pictures smaller no matter what I do, but that little speck on the left is earth. I put the speech bubble there to make it more obvious(subtlety has never been one of my strong points :D).

I like looking at pictures like these when I get all morose and sulky. Its a good reminder of how trivial whatever the drama in my life is when compared with the immensity of even just our solar system. Its like Saturn is saying "look at me. now, look at you. what? you can't? then get over yourself!!".

Ask Me About Astley...

This is probably the best literal video I've ever seen...

Of course that could just be because I'm kind of inlove with Rick Astley. His 80's hipster dance moves are totally mesmerizing! Plus his song saved me from moments of ackward silence with a guy I used to go out with. Every time there was a lull in our conversations, one of us would just start singing "Never gonna give you up...".

As a suppliment to this post, here's a link to a Rick Roll howto. Not that I get Rick Rolling at all. Why would you need to trick anyone into watching any of Rick's awsome videos?? I personally seek them out myself..

Remebering Our First Computer

It’s my second 25th in three days (my sister says the buck stops at 25) but I never really thought of what that meant until I had a conversation with my boyfriend about my family’s first personal computer. The thing is, people born past the 80’s will never know the wonder and amazement that comes with seeing and using your first personal computer when you’ve never even heard of it before.

I was 5 or 6 (or 7 or 8, I don’t quite remember, we’ve already established that I’m getting old right?) when my dad told us we were getting a personal computer and neither I nor my sisters had any notion of what a computer was supposed to be or do (or maybe I should just speak for me. In any case, I think I was half expecting something that resembled R2D2). When the delivery guys brought the computer to our house, it came in three baffling pieces. My sisters and I immediately laid claims to the three separate parts (we didn’t understand that you actually had to hook everything together); my eldest sister got first dibs on the monitor since it was very TV-like, my other sister took the keyboard since it had lots of clicky, pressy things, and, being the youngest, I got stuck with the most uninteresting piece, the CPU, with only two measly buttons to play with.

baby me, other faces have been changed to protect the innocent

We were all a bit sore when the computer guy took our parts away from us and put the computer together. We got over it though, when we realized that the sum was greater than the parts. You could play games (like galaxian, moonbugs and round42. I was too panicky to actually play the games by myself so my dad would take care of the controls while I just pressed the space bar as fast as I possibly could)! You got to feel like a super techie as you inserted the floppy disk after floppy disk to play your games (you had to put in the DOS boot disk at the right moment to boot the computer before you could do anything)! You could type stuff and make text drawings in the text editor! I even remember how excited we got when my dad showed us a personalized DOS boot disk he had made for us that displayed “Hello Tina, Karina and Tetaw! Please take care of this computer” for a few seconds after booting (it was like the computer knew who we were!!).

You crazy kids with your internets and applepods will probably roll your eyes at this. But the thing is, I don’t think you will ever experience the same level of awe and wonder at your digital picture-snappers, wireless telephone machines or any of your new-fangled gadgets as we did when we first laid eyes on our first personal computer.

Know Your Black Holes...

Phil Plaitt has a funny and easy to understand post about black holes on badastronomy.com.

See Stephen Hawking?? It can be done! Now get to work on your next book "A Not Necessarily Very Brief History of Time, But At Least One Where Your Brain Won't Begin To Hurt After The Third Chapter".

Frying An Egg With a CPU

Somebody fried eggs using their CPU...

Particularly interesting because the guy is from the physics department of the school I'm studying in right now.

R2 Fish Training School

Wow... this is... wow....



I've always thought fish were the most boring pets ever. All they ever do is eat, swim, poop and forget their owner after 7 seconds (then remember... then forget after another 7 seconds). But apparently they're trainable.. thinkgeek doesnt really say how the R2 Fish Training School Kit does it, but they do say that it's "used to train the fish trick world record holder - developed by a real Ph.D!".

Sold! If it's developed by a REAL Ph.D then its good enough for me! Now all I need is a fish....

Link

Whatever Happened to Alice Dixon?

Its TV ads like this that make me proud to be a child of the 80's...

Hope for the Halloweenies

This year, most prospects for Halloween are exceedingly bleak because of the US recession. Times are hard and money is scant (I have to survive on one 711 steamed bun a day just to afford my Vicodin and clay animation porn addiction [judge me if you want, but that Gumby is limber!]). People want to celebrate Halloween but are worried about costs. So, to help today’s frugal Hallowieners , I’ve compiled a list of cheap but distinctive Halloween costumes.

Lt. Mitch Buchannan

The thrifty halloweenie can go as Baywatch’s Lt. Mitch Buchannon, probably the hottest (well, arguably) male lifeguard in the show (not to mention the only male lifeguard that lasted throughout the whole series). This costume couldn’t get any cheaper, just throw on some bright orange shorts, leave some curlers on overnight, “borrow” a buoy from the community pool and draw on some chest hair and you’re good to go! Don’t have a pair of orange shorts? Just steal one from your gay neighbor’s clothes line, or spray paint any old shorts that you have lying around.

Johnny Quest

For those that want a costume that says “I crave adventure and excitement but am still really just a boy at heart”, why not go as Johnny Quest? The costume couldn’t be more inexpensive or easier to put together. Just grab your mother/sister/girlfriend’s black three-fourths sweater, put on a pair of jeans and white sneakers then soak your hair in peroxide for a few hours. Although, there is a risk that people might confuse you with Jared Leto’s character in Fight Club, but this will only happen if you’re good looking, so there’s not much risk of confusion is there?

The Blue Lagoon’s Richard and Em

Couples wanting low-cost matching costumes don’t have to look further than the classic 80’s movie, The Blue Lagoon, for inspiration. Now girls can share the experience of dressing like a slut on Halloween with their significant other at the cost of single, torn-up old white sheet. Shock your friends, relive Brooke Shields’ glory days and role play Richard and Em’s discovery of the birds and the bees as well as of the joys of incest without breaking the bank.

Mischa Barton

Female Halloweenies who are similarly cost-conscious could consider dressing up as Mischa Barton. The costume is easy! Just look through your closet and look for tops, bottoms, shoes and accessories that completely clash with each other and in no way form a cohesive ensemble. It’s a plus if you can find clothes that don’t flatter you as well. You already own everything needed to make this costume so it won’t cost you a penny! Make a statement at your Halloween costume party; show them that, like Mischa Barton, you are a free spirit! untethered by the basic rules of fashion and aesthetics. And isn’t that what Halloween is really about?? Just going nuts and throwing all good taste out the door.

Happy Halloween!!!

20081023 Today in my Taiwan Life

In the continuing effort to lose weight in order to fit into a too small jacket that I bought back home, I had naught but a pot of yogurt for lunch today. (I like believing that yogurt can add no fat to your body. Sure it has milk, and that thing that makes it really sweet is probably sugar, but I will continue to believe this till the day I die… or can afford to hire a real nutritionist who will tell me otherwise). Maybe the food deprivation is making me all pissy and ranty, but I was really annoyed to find that there was only one strawberry in my pot of Yoplait yogurt… Look at the packaging…

There is clearly more than one strawberry pictured in the pot and this is clearly false advertising! This is nothing but a pretentious yogurt pot feigning fruitiness. Or maybe all that Chinese writing on the package that I can’t read is saying “I’m a pot of yogurt with just one measly strawberry preserve even though my package has a picture of five fresh strawberries.”

Today in Taiwan: Bad Weather and Bad Chinese

What is love??

It being almost valentine's and all, here are a few love lessons we should all learn, courtesy of haddaway:

What is love?

In this song, Haddaway attempts to answer the age old question, “What is love?”. The lyrics, while seemingly simple and trite to the point of being inane, actually provide deep insight to love and human nature... let’s examine some of the lyrics...



What is love? [ a statement of the question]

Baby don’t hurt me don’t hurt me no more
[the first word of this line is used to remind us that, when faced with love, we are all infants in our helplessness and innocence. This line is purposely made colloquial to underscore one of the contradictions of love: that it is accessible to the masses, that it can be in the everyday, and yet it’s manifestations are still quite extraordinary] .

Baby don’t hurt me don’t hurt me no more
[A repetition of the previous line for emphasis]

What is love Yeah
[this directs us back to the question and invites us to once more ponder upon it]

Oh, I don't know why you're not there
I give you my love, but you don't care
So what is right and what is wrong
Gimme a sign
[This verse is designed to convey the confusion that love brings about. Here we are left to guess who the singer is addressing, is it a lover? God? Himself? Or is he addressing love itself? The interpretation is left up to us.
The third line of the verse illustrates the futility of searching for black and white morality in matters of love. To be in love is to be in the gray area between right and wrong.
In the fourth line, the author uses the word “Gimme” which is a portmanteau of “give” and “me”, this is symbolic of the power of love to unite previously distinct objects and people. ]

...
Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh
[ This verse signifies the singer’s surrender to love. He is left without words and resorts to primal utterances of awe and joy. It should also be noted that “Whoa” is used here as a homophone of “woe” which denotes that love is a double edged sword, it inspires wonder but at the same time brings about unspeakable misery. This verse also conveys the final message of the song which is that love cannot be described in words, it must just be experienced and embraced]