TITS in Calauan, Laguna

The Municipal Mayor of Calauan, Laguna was the guest of my favorite late night comedy show, The Sobrang Goodnight Show. Jojo asked the honorable mayor what are the pride of his municipality and he proudly answered that the "pinakamatamis na pinya" (sweetest naturally grown pineapples) in the Philippines can only be found in Calauan and soon they will be celebrating the "Pinya Festival". Everyone is invited for the free pineapple eating. He also mentioned the Hidden Valley Springs Resort. Another tourist attraction that the municipality is promoting is the "TITS". Intiguing right? What usually comes to your mind when you hear the word "tits"? Is that a part of the mammary gland? Well, if thats what you're thinking then you are partially right. Yup, "tits" is actually the local term for milking the cow as the kind mayor explained. They are currently promoting it as a tourist attraction to give idea on how milk is gathered.

So if you have time to spare, visit the town of Calauan, Laguna on their Pineapple Festival and dont forget to do the TITS.

What Tarrot Card Am I?

You are The Sun

Happiness, Content, Joy.

The meanings for the Sun are fairly simple and consistent.

Young, healthy, new, fresh. The brain is working, things that were muddled come clear, everything falls into place, and everything seems to go your way.

The Sun is ruled by the Sun, of course. This is the light that comes after the long dark night, Apollo to the Moon's Diana. A positive card, it promises you your day in the sun. Glory, gain, triumph, pleasure, truth, success. As the moon symbolized inspiration from the unconscious, from dreams, this card symbolizes discoveries made fully consciousness and wide awake. You have an understanding and enjoyment of science and math, beautifully constructed music, carefully reasoned philosophy. It is a card of intellect, clarity of mind, and feelings of youthful energy.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

The Dampa Experience

If there was a Beyonce experience... Then we had a Dampa experience. The tickets for Beyonce's concert cost thousands... Well, We only spent 180 bucks for our birthday dinner for our dear friend Katrina in Dampa Ortigas.

It was my first time to dine in a dampa. For the benefit of those who dont know what a dampa is, I will spill some details. Dampa is a common name for a place with a wet market where you buy your raw foods, mostly seafoods like C-amote, C-acao, C-ucumber, C-hicken, C-hippy, etc. etc. etc and those edible plants and animals you find in the C like lato(green weed that looks like small grapes), shrimps, crabs, squids, and fishes(Ill choke you Inday if you'll correct me) with restaurants nearby that will cook(not free) your freshly bought items to your liking.

Chel, Kat, and I bought:
1kg smaller prawns
1kg bigger prawns
1kg mussels
500g First Filipino Hero Fish (FYI: Lapu-lapu)
1kg "GAY" crabs (And YES, there is a "Bakla" variety of crabs)

Then we brought it to the restaurant and ordered how it would be cooked. While waiting for our food we "half-surprised" Kat with a gift. She said later on that she had a hint that we might give her the Doraemon stuffed toy since its her favorite. And after a more than half an hour of waiting the food came.

Half of the smaller prawns became HALABOS and the other half just steamed. All the bigger prawns turned into TEMPURAS. The mussels as baked tahong. Half of the gay crabs bathed with tausi while the other half went to the steam bath. Lastly, Lapu-lapu became sweet and sour after a losing battle with the chef.

Thank You, Lord for the very sumptious seafood feast.

Friends, I Would Like You To Meet My Special Neighbors

I woke up early today eventhough I slept late. To wake up at seven thirty in the morning is not usual for me. This rare occurrence can be blamed to my very energetic neighbors. Why energetic? Allow me to introduce to you the people in my neighborhood.

Neighbors #1 lives just right next door and I mean just next door coz the only thing that divides our places is a thin plywood wall. As early as 6am you can already hear their very loud karaoke playing "Tinamaan ka na ba ng kidlat na nakakagulat (Have you ever been hit by lightning that stuns)" song or whatever the title of that corny song. Yes my friends, that's their favorite song and everytime they play it I just want to shout to answer "Yes my dear good neighbors I've been struck a lot times so next song please and let me go back to sleep." And today was a special day... They put the volume to the maximum level leaving my ears helpless.

My newly recognized Neighbor #2 is a faceless void since all I know about him is that he has a car. And today he just loves to make his car alarm system make annoying sound repeatedly from 6am to 8:30am

Neighbors #3 are from the other apartment just meters away from ours. They are a family of 5. The eldest giant son is in highschool. The second son is an 8-year old thief. Yup, he's a thief! He stole my flipflops. I looked for it for days only to find my poor slippers already shrunk and dirty on his feet while hes playing basketball. The youngest is a 4 year old spoiled girl who has a sweet and cute voice when she talks but when her tantrums strike her wails will drive you mad. You will know that the man of their house is about to leave coz you will hear his TamarawFX being conditioned and we just love listening to the noise of the car. Tess, the mom, is the most energetic of them all. She goes to the plaza every morning to join an aerobics session together with her girl friends. I guess its already their habit after they exercise to go to Tess' place and have another lung exercise. What do they do? They shout at each other! Yes my friends, they shout and not "talk". I guess that's how they talk way back when they were still in the mountains. Perhaps they were close neighbors then like Tess lived in one hill while her bestfriends lived in another hilltops. And the best thing of all that never fails to wake me is the sweet-to-the-ear cursing that they do. The just love to shout the PI word as if there's no tomorrow for them to say that curse. "Putang Ina(Whore Mother)" here, "Putang Ina" there, and "Putang Ina" everywhere even if there are children in the compound that can hear them.

Nice neighborhood, isn't it?

Being Broke Isn't Bad At All

I just checked my account and as of today I only have PhP6778.16 left. If only I have no debts to pay that amount would be more than enough. But Im still paying for my laptop thru my credit card and I also have a monthly DSL subscription to pay. The math goes like this:

6778.16 (Available Cash)
- 995.00 (DSL)
-5000.00 (Credit Cards)
-------------
783.16 (Budget until the next payday)

So here I am with only 783.16 pesos to get thru November 15. I have to spend not more than 78 pesos per day! This means I have to walk from home to the office and vice versa. Well, walking is a good cardio exercise and will help me to lose weight. Two kilometers is not far anyway. The best part is I have to be strict with my diet. No rice if possible and 2 viands a day would be enough. Lets just see if I cant hit that 135lbs that Myrla, my gym consultant, set as my ideal weight. Dont worry guys im taking my multivitamins.

Therefore, being broke isn't bad at all. Please click the ads, the laptops and digicams below, to donate.

Excerpts From The Coconuter

I found this blog on a very boring All Saints Day. The author is a 20++ Filipino-American David Eric "The Coconuter" Poarch from Texas who now lives in a remote town in the province of Zambales. While more Filipinos want to get out of the Philippines he on the other hand left the comforts and financial ease of living in the US, a full scholarship to an elite "Ivy League" US college, and essentially the whole American Dream in order to become a modern nomad in the Philippines. Perhaps life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and searching and understanding the meaning to it all is a large part of the reason.

Some catchy lines from his blogs:
Is it “Nothing ventured, nothing gained?” or “Nothing ventured, nothing lost?”

It really is amazing how well nature heals and preserves itself from its own catastrophic occurrences. It's disturbing, though, how a massive volcanic eruption spewing tons of ash cannot permanently silence the life of the land, but man can.

Read more from his blog at http://coconuter.blogspot.com/