Filed under: thinking
there is a well-founded study claiming that a year of your “real age” is shaved off if you have a pet dog.
sorry, cat persons. the findings do not apply to the dog’s natural nemesis.
our home in cebu is a multiple-cat home. if the study had also claimed that cats can reduce “real age”, our ages there would be in the single digit. we are stray cat picker-uppers. like mark twain, we “just can’t resist cats. especially a purring one.”
because cats are independent. they don’t beg until they’re blue in the face. if you forget to feed them, they will bring home the carcass of partially devoured prey. if you don’t forget to feed them, they’ll bring home another carcass anyway. or lick your dinner plates clean.
because cats fit anywhere. very comfortably. in condiment pantries, in the in/out office tray, in bread baskets, in news racks, in freezers, in shoe closets, in paper bags, in backpacks, on windowsills, on lampposts, in soup tureens, in fruit bowls, on dinner plates, in shoes, in the nook of your armpit while you sleep.
because cats flop like a rag when you lift them. they lose the tension in their muscles, their head, legs and tail hang limp from your hands, you would think they’d fall in a viscous flow right through your fingers.
cats are not for the insecure. they refuse to adore you. they will ignore you very often.
Filed under: thinking
how does it go again, that metaphor of life and the wheel? life goes around, comes around, sometimes you’re up, next thing you’re down, and back again, all in a perpetual turning of the proverbial wheel… you know…
well, it’s been 17 months (running) since my life took the turn going down the wheel. and there are no signs of it going back up yet. am i doomed? or is this wheel just so enormous, it’s taking 17 months (running) to take me along the downside? which should mean that if life finally moves me along the upside, it would take a commensurate length of time going towards the peak, right? so longer, happier days by then, correct?
it’s getting to be very frustrating already. i need to see better days.
this is how i feel right now:
tim biskup’s “deco plague”
whatever happened to the old songs where the woman readily embraced the pain of heartbreak?! openly hurting was acceptable, and we looked highly upon the noble songstress who belted out in soulful, doleful notes how she would keep lifting the torch for her man; that she would still be there when he decides to tumble back into her arms. you don’t believe this? remember how you sang this in your school’s talent show: it’s not very easy, living all alone / my friends try and tell me find a man of my own / but each time i try, i just break down and cry / ’cause i’d rather be home feeling blue / so i’m saving all my love for you.
what happened to them is they have been replaced by an “enlightened” new breed of women possessed by the 70’s bra-less women’s liberationists, touched by joni mitchell, tempered by billie jean king.
so the last ten years or so brought us a new brand of pop music that dealt with broken hearts. the forlorn woman’s i-can-live-without-you-a__hole, i-am-brave-and-strong-and-i-can-move-on types of songs.
here are some of my most notable choices (sing with me now):
All I Have (Jennifer Lopez feat. LL Cool J)
‘Cause I’m good holdin’ down my spot / And I’m good reppin’ the girls on the block / And I’m good, I got this thing on lock / So without me you’ll be fine, right / All my pride is all I have (Pride is what you had, baby girl, I’m what you have) / You’ll be needin’ me, but too bad (Be easy, don’t make decisions when you mad) / The path you chose to run alone (I know you’re independent, you can make it on your own) / Here with me you had a home, oh, yeah (But time is of the essence, why spend it alone, huh)
ah yes, the broken hearted runs to the psychiatrists du jour: girlfriends on the block. while a pining ex plagues the cell phone with his “come back to me” overtures. but if you listen to ll cool j’s side, he actually makes a lot of sense. this song must be for the flippant girl. she’ll regret this later.
Too Little, Too Late (Jojo)
[Chorus:] It’s just too little too late / a little too wrong / And I can’t wait / But you know all the right things to say (You know it’s just too little too late) / You say you dream of my face / But you don’t like me / You just like the chase / To be real / It doesn’t matter anyway (You know it’s just too little too late) / Yeah yeaaahhh… It’s just too little too late… Mhmmm / [Verse 2:] I was young / And in love / I gave you everything / But it wasn’t enough / And now you wanna communicate (You know it’s just too little too late) / Go find someone else / In letting you go / I’m loving myself / You got a problem / But don’t come asking me for help / Cause you know…
well, well, if it isn’t another girl who fell for the player. haven’t we all been there? and on nights she stares into the abyss and lies in bed with tears streaming down her adolescent face, she also frequently googles the guy’s name, constantly drops by his blog and incessantly looks into his friendster or myspace page…as well as pages of all the other girls he has been dating or has been rumored to be dating. girls just love to torture themselves that way.
Stronger (Britney Spears)
Hush, just stop / There’s nothing you can do or say, baby / I’ve had enough / I’m not your property as from today, baby / You might think that I won’t make it on my own / But now I’m… / [Chorus:] Stronger than yesterday / Now it’s nothing but my way / My lonliness ain’t killing me no more / I’m stronger this would make friedrich nietzsche proud. “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” or gives me amoebiasis.
Irreplaceable (Beyonce Knowles)
Standing in the front yard, telling me / How I’m such a fool, talking ’bout / How I’ll never ever find a man like you / You got me twisted / You must not know ’bout me / You must not know ’bout me / I could have another you in a minute / Matter fact, he’ll be here in a minute (baby) / You must not know ’bout me / You must not know ’bout me / I can have another you by tomorrow / So don’t you ever for a second get to thinkin’ / You’re irreplaceable? this is classic relationship rebound syndrome. yeah, matter of fact, that guy i just met at the bus stop this morning will be here in a minute. (and the song itself is classic last song syndrome. drag queens will sing this in their title acts. to the left, to the left.)
I Belong to Me (Jessica Simpson)
I don’t need somebody to complete me / I complete myself / Nobody’s got to belong to somebody else I belong to me / I don’t belong to you / My heart is my possession / I’ll be my own reflection / I belong to me / I’m one not half of two / And you’re gonna love me / You should know this baby / I belong to me take that, jerry maguire. you and your cheesy staccato one-liner…
Over It (Katherine McPhee)
Don’t call / don’t come by / ain’t no use / don’t ask me why / you’ll never change / there’ll be no more crying in the rain / Wanting you / to be wanting me / No that ain’t no way to be / How I feel, read my lips / because I’m so over.. / Moving on, it’s my time / you never were a friend of mine / Hurt at first, a little bit / but now I’m so over / I’m so over it..
i will not even say anything about this song because i like it. so stop me now.
as in history where men had trends in thought and development (think: classical era, medieval ages, the enlightenment and so on), humor must also have ages. and what was funny then may not even afford a sympathy laugh today. although i find aristophanes very entertaining, i cannot imagine anyone today guffawing at any of his comedies. we might say the same for shakespeare, genius that he is.
there was a long stretch in history when comedy was based largely on wit and wordplay. after all, drama was confined to the stage (or paper, if you care to read the play), a rudimentary stage even, compared to spectacles today like in west end and broadway, and there weren’t enough sophistication yet to facilitate much flights of fancy. besides, individual human experience then wasn’t as diverse as they have been in the last hundred years.
but the 20th century ushered in a new medium to bring funny to the masses: animation. one of the greatest things to spring from the human mind. proof of our superiority over other denizens of the earth. pinnacle of our creative faculty. what would my life be without cartoons?!
so here came an onslaught of slapstick comedies where characters are flattened by steamrollers, shoved into deep ravines, peperred with gunshots and exploded by various devices, only to rise again the very next second, to wreak their own brand of havoc yet again.
while some hugely successful cartoons rely almost solely on bash-on-the-head action and very little on story and character development (tom and jerry, road runner show, woody woodpecker show), many have also heightened their creations to have distinct personalities, battling real-world travails in imaginary settings. these are characters who suffer very human frailties like jealousy, greed, arrogance and conceit, characteristics which used to be exclusive for villains but are now evident in heroes and top-billers; they may not be very smart but they are often devious and insanely clever. and they’re always funny. guffaw, split-your-sides funny.
here are my four favorites of that kind:
4. Bloo from Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.
bossy, overbearing and imperious, i can think of no one else so full of himself than Blooregard Q. Kazoo. the resident troublemaker at foster’s, he would readily put the other friends’ well-being in jeopardy just so he could pull himself through his crooked plots. as the bloo baseball card in an episode once described him: BIG, INSENSITIVE JERKFACE. now, you can’t argue with that.
3. Homer Simpson.
who in the civilized world does not know Homer Simpson, patriarch of the longest-running animation syndicate in television history? How could anyone have missed the many times he has put his family on the edge of their sanity with his harebrained shenanigans? or his mortal annoyance at ned flanders and his family? or the way he strangles bart at the littlest of provocations? or embarrassed lisa, the child prodigy? or took his wife, marge, for granted? in the end though, things always seem to fall in the right places, and our faith in family values is restored. but the next episode will have homer making a fool of himself again. and that’s what keeps us coming back for more.
2. Master Shake of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
he’s the character you just love to hate. there’s no arrogance nor vanity larger than shake’s. even in the midst of a life-threatening crisis, he would still go into a beauty salon to “see if they could squeeze me in for a perm”. always putting meatwad’s walfare in peril and leaving frylock to clean up after his unholy mess, master shake is indeed the master. of disaster.
1. Daffy Duck.
he’s the granddaddy of greed, the source of all manners selfish. this character is simply timeless. for decades, long before the above characters have been conceived, daffy duck has ruled all cartoondom as the expert in twisted plans. the epitome of all things wacky, you’d swear he’s a duck on crack. try looking up the word ”daffy” in the dictionary. you will find no other word more appropriate for this loon. and he is just plain hilarious at whatever generation you belong.
these characters may have their own indiosyncracies, but they all share a common thread: they are all inconsiderate of other people’s feelings. and we viewers continue to shamelessly laugh at their antics, whether they put lives in danger, crack politically incorrect jokes, or poke fun at our ideals. because this is the day and age where inconsideration is a source of unbridled humor.
so just sit back and let’s all have a good laugh while the age lasts.
