Posted 7:13 AM by Blah blah

When Sub-Pop Meets Porn (Wired):

Four stylish subculture sites are putting a new face on porn. Raveporn, Supercult, Suicide Girls and FrictionUSA feature artful nude photos of women who are more likely to be purple-haired, pale and pierced. And there isn't a pop-up ad in sight. What's more, a significant number of their members are women.

While Playboy magazine reports that 17 percent of its readers are women, these new sites say that they have at least twice as many paying female users.

Dr. Al Cooper, director of the San Jose Marital and Sexuality Centre and a psychologist at Stanford University, believes the Internet allows women more opportunity for sexual experimentation than they may have in their offline lives....

Launched in September 2001, Suicide Girls is an online community built around pictures of naked gothic and punk models who keep online journals. The two twenty-something founders call themselves Spooky and Missy Suicide.

According to Spooky, more than 50 percent of Suicide Girls' paying members are female, and browsing the user profiles it is apparent that many identify themselves as heterosexual. Missy and Spooky believe women enjoy the site because the pictures aren't especially graphic and the models aren't being degraded. Model Isabelle, 22, wrote that she decided to pose for Suicide Girls because "there are so many beautiful ladies and not a cum shot in sight."...

But why are so many straight women paying to look at naked females?

Suicide Girls seems to appeal to straight women for two main reasons: It's a punk rock Vogue or Victoria's Secret catalog and it's a good place to meet guys."

[Here's a Livejournal community for Suicide Girls.]
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From Halo: mock chain letter. This is TOO FUNNY! Everything I hate about getting chain letters.

Hi Tiara! From "Tiara," a Chinese girl in Indonesia who takes fashionable photos: this entry (July 5, 12:52 am) makes me laugh! Adult Panties, with a Christian Message: modern version of the chastity belt.

Speaking of panties, check these out.

The XXX-Rated Bible. Adult Christianity. Well Song of Solomon was always one of my favorite books of the Bible---second to Ecclesiastes! I think if there were anyone I'd like to meet from the Bible, it would be Solomon. He knew how to live it up, baby.

Hilarious: INNER BEAUTY, HOW CAN I LOOK LIKE I HAVE IT?

This is my superficial side working, but I had to add this link: Supermodels Are Lonelier Than You Think! (SALTY) (and other striking news about beautiful women). Cogito, Ergo Sushi: the wit and wisdom of fashion models.

Posted 11:41 PM by Blah blah

Trixy says I am this: "Maginoo pero medyo bastos." Thank you, I am flattered! I've never been called something that sounds like "bastard" before and had it mean a good thing. Please translate this from Tagalog. I hope you don't mean one of Heartless Bitches International's Nice Guys.

Unica Hija calls me a gamma male. I like that!

My Chinese-Filipina cousin Isabelle replies:

Maginoo means noble or gentlemanly
pero means but
medyo means somewhat
bastos means rude, or naughty something like that.

Maginoo pero medyo bastos is often used to describe
a Filipina's idea of an ideal male. They want someone
who is good and kind (maginoo) but at the same time, a
guy who is well-rounded enough to have a sort of
naughtiness (bastos), or sarcasm to him.

This is a fantastic phrase! We need one like it in English.

Why this girl doesn't date "Nice Guys." Likewise, I have similar problems with girls who are too "nice," or with "church girls." Flip what she says about "guys" to "girls" and it describes me:

I have a caustic, dark sense of humor completely lost on the average nice guy. Some of the things I think could never be uttered in such a guy's presence. Kinda indicates that my mind works in different ways, no?

I've had a lot of different experiences based on what I felt like doing at the time. Not all of those experiences are things that "nice girls" do. I'm not ashamed of them and I wouldn't be the person I am today without them. The "nice guys" I meet just haven't been where I've been. [T]hey haven't lived that much...I'm not interested.

I also prefer girls who "have lived and have some sensuality" about them. Since Asian girls are typically overprotected by their parents, I tended to date older women till a few years ago. Found them more interesting.

Posted 7:25 AM by Blah blah

What is Love?

...asks Halo in Rice Bowl Journals.

From our discussion on RBJ I wrote:

Although I am a romantic, I also have a more practical view of love.

I don't believe in love at first sight but think more of love as hard work. It's a job...a wonderful and incredibly fulfilling job that feels more like play than work, but it is still work. "Self-discipline is love put into action."

I think if you are a person who has never experienced love, you have never really committed to anyone. Love is not waiting for a feeling of kapow and for someone else to wait on you hand and foot. Drop that sense of entitlement. We are not "owed" love. It's that process of giving giving giving your all to somebody or something and in the process, falling for him or it. Like Kennedy said: "Ask not what your country can do for you---ask what you can do for your country."

If you are not sure what you love, I'd say look at how you spend your time. What do you spend hours and painstaking effort doing? What do you hold up to high standards and strive to make better and better? Whom do you encourage, idealize, and forgive for their mistakes? Whose hands do you hold when they are down? All of that sweat translates into the fruits as well as roots of love.

From my entry on soulmates:

I think throwing relationship problems into the category of "well we just aren't meant to be" is a cop-out. For anything to flourish, and not just a relationship, we need to put 90% of our time into unglamorous, routine tasks. Maintenance is not sexy, but that's what lays the foundation to make the remaining 10% of our experience so sweet that we can imagine we have met a "soulmate."

I've often wondered what makes people fall in love. For instance, why do mothers all love their babies? Why do they consider their cheeks and chins the most handsome or beautiful they have ever seen? To us, maybe one baby to another looks the same. But to a mom, she has run the whole show from the beginning. She has been the director, producer, and janitor of her personal stage. She's suffered the agonies of morning sickness and the joys of ultrasound scans. She has put in 9 months of suffering and hard work.

After all of that, how can she help NOT falling in love with her baby? It's like that part of The Little Prince by Saint-Exupéry, where he is talking to a garden of stuck-up roses:

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."

And the roses were very much embarrassed.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you — the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose."

So once we get the superficial stuff out of the way, we settle down to cultivating the garden of our relationship. And with our sweat we infuse each other with our uniqueness and gradually BECOME soulmates.
_____________
I feel the following applies to love too. By David Grayson:

Happiness, I have discovered, is nearly always a rebound from hard work. It is one of the follies of men to imagine that they can enjoy mere thought, or emotion, or sentiment! As well try to eat beauty! For happiness must be tricked! She loves to see men at work. She loves sweat, weariness, self-sacrifice. She will be found not in palaces but lurking in cornfields and factories and hovering over littered desks: she crowns the unconscious head of the busy child. If you look up suddenly from hard work, you will see her,---but if you look too long she fades sorrowfully away.

Posted 10:34 PM by j.

When I was in third grade, I had a friend who was as much a bookworm as I was. We'd go to our library and borrow Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, The Bobbsey Twins, and assorted children's books: The Mixed Up Files of somebody somebody, etc. By the time we were in fourth grade, I think we'd both managed to borrow all the available ND, HB and BT books in our library. We then graduated to young adult books: we read Sweet Valley High and Sweet Valley Twins at the same time as we read Sweet Dreams.

We read Danielle Steel, Sidney Sheldon, Christopher Pike, and practically everything we could get our hands on. I love reading, and I'd love it even more now if the prices of books weren't so prohibitive. And even more if I could find copies of the books that I like in local bookstores. As it is, I have to content myself with either old books, no book at all, or the occasional splurge at the local bookstore.

Order of the Phoenix, where are you?

Posted 10:04 PM by Blah blah

I just swam 50 laps tonight. Whew...I'm getting stronger and feel great!

Cyn started a thread on RBJ about what books you read as a kid. Here's my 2nd answer:

Hi Cyn!
Yeah, I was SUCH a bookworm. Since my sibling is much younger than I, for a long time I was an only child, so books were some of my major companions.

I read The Hobbit when I was about 8 or 9.

I read The Lord of the Rings trilogy when I was 13 (junior high) and in bed for two weeks with chicken pox. I felt too itchy to sleep, so I just read and read. For me, Tolkien and chicken pox are forever linked!

It's funny how my mom, who isn't very good in English, taught my brother and I to read. We first started reading by looking at the Yellow Pages! Yup, the phone book. She taught us to recognize the logos, so my brother and I would both see a sign on the street and yell out things like "TO-YO-TA!" before we were two years old.

I swear, I'm gonna make my kids read the Yellow Pages too. This absolutely works.

Posted 7:37 PM by Blah blah

Mr. Oprah

Trixy calls me the "male version of Oprah" in her blog link list. I guess cuz this blog seems to have a 90% female readership. HAHAHA! Actually, I rarely cry, even at funerals. And I can be pretty businesslike and unsentimental about relationships when it's necessary. Every morning I need to look in the mirror and repeat to myself: "I am NOT a SNAG (Sensitive New Age Guy)! I am NOT a boring nice guy. I can be a cocky bad boy sometimes. I can be a jerk when necessary." There...I'm free...whew!

I remember one time I was flying back from a business trip to New Mexico. When we changed planes in Phoenix, my seatmate was this pretty Asian girl from Intel. (I have tended to meet Intel women when I've flown through Phoenix, for some reason.) We spent the rest of our flight talking and joking. It was totally harmless and friendly. I didn't try to get her number. My coworker on the flight was this sexist jerk who would hit on all the women throughout our whole trip, from flight attendants to waitresses to hotel clerks. He had no finesse or shame and would make me cringe. After we landed, he stared at me bug-eyed. "You just TALKED to her the whole time? Nothing else?" "Sure," I said. "God!" he sighed. "If only I had been in your seat. You are like an herbivore in a field of sheep."

Here's what I wrote last year about The irresistible allure of the slightly gay heterosexual man. JGE (Just Gay Enough). Agree?

By the way, how many who read this blog are guys? Raise your hands!

Posted 12:05 PM by Blah blah

Julia Roberts Marries Cameraman in New Mexico (Reuters): "The 34-year-old Roberts, who has been married once before to offbeat country singer Lyle Lovett, fell for the married Moder after meeting him two years ago on the set of The Mexican, released last year and co-starring Brad Pitt. Last month Moder, 33, left his wife of five years -- make-up artist Vera Steinberg -- to be with Roberts....

Roberts left fellow actor Kiefer Sutherland three days before their planned wedding in 1991 and ran off with Jason Patric. She has also been linked to Dylan McDermott and Liam Neeson, and last year ended a four-year relationship with actor Benjamin Bratt, who married actress Talisa Soto in April."

Damn, this woman has commitment problems. The reason she and Benjamin Bratt broke up was, he says, because she refused to settle down. It's not just the guys, folks!

More about The Bourne Identity:

Listen to this intelligent 35 minute interview with Matt Damon by my favorite TV interviewer, Charlie Rose!! Matt talks of his whole career and the incredible work he puts into preparing for each of his roles. Because I think of life as essentially a series of roles too, I try to learn this tenacity and adapatability from each of my actor role models.

You need RealPlayer to hear it.

Posted 4:26 AM by j.

Say Hi to J A

Like S X said, this is indeed a bit strange. I've been reading this blog for quite some time now, but I never thought I'd be writing here. I'm a girl in my twenties, and perhaps for this blog, that might be all I need to disclose at this time. Other details might leak out in my future posts, so I guess I'll leave it at that for the meantime.

I still have no idea what kind of posts I'll be writing here, but I'm sure it'll be fun to be a part of the Tiger Cafe. Woo, Raymond! :)

Posted 11:26 PM by Anonymous

Say Hi to My New Cowriter: S X

So ... Hi there. Umm ... this is strange. I'm online again and what's more I'm blogging on someone else's page? Stage fright! I don't know what to say.

Maybe I should tell you a little about myself? OK, I'm female. I am in the 20-30 age bracket. I currently reside in an annoyingly bustling yet dullish little city/island in Malaysia. I continously suffer withdrawal pangs after having left Manhattan a year ago, thus am trying to make my way back there. (It doesn't help that the job situation seems to be getting worse, does it?) I work in an American company whose name you'd recognize but whose prestige doesn’t make me feel any better about myself because I have no real passion for what I’m doing.

Eventually, through my writing (if I can keep it up ... oops Raymond, I shouldn’t have said that, should I? Now that I’ve committed, that is.) you’ll discover all my little neuroses, quirks, deep-seated psychosis ... I’m exaggerating ( a little). Maybe you’ll come to learn a little bit about what it’s like to be an NYC girl trapped in the body of a Malaysian-dweller.

Oh god ... enough of the intro stuff. I never liked doing it. Let’s see if I can be less awkward tomorrow.

Posted 10:56 PM by Blah blah

Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex. Science fiction writer Larry Niven writes an alternate reason for Superman's celibate lifestyle. Now that makes me really glad to be a mere mortal!

"Assume a mating between Superman and a human woman designated LL for convenience.

Either Superman has gone completely schizo and believes himself to be Clark Kent; or he knows what he's doing, but no longer gives a damn. Thirty-one years is a long time. For Superman it has been even longer. He has X-ray vision; he knows just what he's missing."

Sex and the Single Superhero (Slate). Spider-Man's vow of celibacy. Didn't realize superheroes were like priests, huh?

Posted 11:13 AM by Blah blah

The Divorce Project, a man's daily account of his divorce. (The Date Project has shut down because the first girl A dated seems to be a keeper. A is either really lucky or really lazy.)

From Unica Hija's post:

10 hopes for the future of the philippines

1. that our people learn to elect the right people in government
2. that the people who choose to work for government do so because they sincerely want to improve uour country (not their wallets)
3. that our highways improve so that travelling need not be such a hassle
4. we learn more about the value of hard work and forego the easy way/shortcuts (it never does pay from my experience)
5. MMDA/Philippine National Police officers who are as fit and sexy as the policemen and forest rangers of Alberta, Canada (sat beside a ranger in a plane once--whoohooo I began to fantasize about being his horse!)
6. government laws strictly prohibiting cutting down big trees in the city (was walking along gamboa in legaspi once and cried once i saw an old tree i loved transformed into a stump--until now, i don't know why the hell it was cut down)
7. a day when our best exports need not be young, beautiful Filipinas who know how to sing, dance, cook and wash dishes
8. no squatters, more jobs
9. more active, socially-conscious Filipinos who can initiate policy changes before they're even made policy (we can be so....tamad when we can do something about these things)
10. a president who can be (how shall i say it) . . . a little bit braver in her decisions : )

10 cynical thoughts about relationships discussed over dinner

1. courtship is overrated--being oneself and starting out as friends usually works better
2. if a guy is in a relationship and is offered sex by another woman and he's sure no one will find out, he is SURE to go for it--we bet our time deposit savings on that
3. our female friends are, we observed, (including us) are surprisingly happier (and more sane) when they are not in a relationship with anyone
4. in a relationship, it's always good to never forget to be about 40% selfish
5. surprisingly, the college geeks turn out to be better husband material later on in life (revenge of the nerds?)
6. a lot of girls are surprisingly attracted (that includes me) to balding, muscular men with deep voices
7. men who have "been around" earlier in life tend not to fool around once they get married
8. men who are "late bloomers" tend to get wild and try to experience what they deprived themselves of in their youth after a few years of marriage
9. it's ok if a man has a few flings while married--it's normal and forgiveable (this is SOO unfair)
10. a woman is judged harshly when people find out she has had an affair (wawa naman babae)

Posted 9:24 AM by Blah blah

Salmon, Swimming, and Nighties

Sunday night, we baked salmon and barbequed chicken for dinner on that electric grill we used for my birthday last year. I'm lucky my housemate cooks well. He made the finger-licking marinating sauce. We baked the salmon in our normal oven, and boy was it unusually juicy and tender! Yummmmy!

You should really try an electric BBQ grill. It's much cleaner than a charcoal one, heats up quickly, is compact and light, and cooks food just as tastily. I love ours! With only a few wipes, I washed most of the black gunk away and cleaned it in ten minutes!

Sunday and Monday were also excruciatingly hot at home: 87 F in the shade. I've begun to swim more regularly to sizzle off my internal combustion engine. 30 laps Sunday night, plus lots of jacuzzi time Monday night, around 10 pm. In this dry heat, it felt sooo good just to get wet, knead out some of my stiff neck muscles, and lie drenched with salty water on the pool chair, staring at the stars and slowly inhaling the breeze. I felt as relaxed as a topless woman on the sundeck of a Carnival cruise ship. (Not that I would know this personally.)

Speaking of topless, my housemate's girlfriend spends most of her days and nights at our house and basically lives with us now. She dresses very well. We are so used to seeing her walking around by day in her red silk nightie, that sometimes that's how I mark the passing of the days. (Another nightie, another day...get it?) Too late, guys, we put blinds up already! (Haha.)

A few days ago, she and I were both working at home, and someone unlocked our door and walked up the stairs. Thinking it was my housemate, I called out: "Why are you back so early from work?" The figure turned into HIS MOM!

His girlfriend came out of the bedroom briefly, glanced at this woman, and closed her door again. His mom didn't say anything about the girl but just talked to me and left quickly. Afterwards my housemate and the girl were freaking, because she has never formally met his mom! Says she doesn't feel comfortable yet. And she had not said hi and just shut the door on his mom! Whooops...

At least the girl was nightie-free at the time!

Posted 8:35 AM by Blah blah

Ellen's recent pix from Hong Kong!

Disney parody

My response to Ellen's Disney sigh:

I want to jump on somebody's jeepney
I want it more than papayas...
And for once it might be grand,
To have spare change right in my hand
I want so much to hear my Philippine aunnnnt...

What would I give to fly to Manila,
What would I pay to have lunch with Ellen?
What would I give to see ube ice cream, smiling at meeeeee?

Where will I walk?
Where do I cross the street?
If I could stay all day in the sunnnn.....
Watch and you'll see
One day I'll be...
Burned to a CRIIIIISP!!!!

Posted 4:19 PM by Blah blah

Under God

I saw this excellent post by Scott on Rice Bowl Journals, and I just had to applaud!

From CNN: "For the first time ever, a federal appeals court declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional Wednesday because of the words 'under God' added by Congress in 1954. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the phrase amounts to a government endorsement of religion in violation of the Constitution's Establishment Clause, which requires a separation of church and state."

Oliver, this super religious guy who tried my patience in my big debate about Creationism vs. Evolution, made a point.

Scott replied to him:
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Religious freedom doesn't mean anything at all if it means, as you imply, one MUST be religious. FREEDOM, is the key word here. Whether it truly exists or not is moot. It is the IDEAL that this country was founded upon. Implying that one must have a religion is not freedom in any way. I find this implication quite scary. But typical of someone who cannot understand any other lifestyle or belief system other than themselves.

To reiterate my previous post, no, I do not think it should be changed. Whether in a song or a dollar bill. Too silly and too costly. I do think it should be recognized that there are more people in this country than simply God-fearing ones.

While I appreciate the love and good-naturedness of some Christians, this complete intolerance of other beliefs whether religious or not is truly a discredit to your entire institution. I am just a layperson when it comes to religion, but is God really about intolerance? I would prefer a god about love without judgment.

As for our nation being under God ... according to the Taliban or a dozen other US-hating countries, God is on their side. Reconcile this, just for fun.

Sure they're wrong because they are the bad guys and they go to extremes and kill innocent people. But from over there, maybe they are saying the same thing about us. Maybe our Babewatch shows and "forceful" military presences and unknown "dark" activities on their Holy Lands are an insult to God in their eyes. Who's side is God really on?

Or should God be on anyone's side at all? Lot's of people say God Bless America, sure. That doesn't make it right. Everyone WANTS God on their side -- he's the MVP of the Universe! If God is on your side, then that's like the ultimate permission slip to do ANYTHING you want as long as you convince yourself God said so. Whether its stamping money or bombing buildings.

My point is, once you close your eyes and your mind to the thought that other worthy people just live and think differently than you (as in religious, non-religious, or lifestyle), then it is a very short road between that kind of intolerance and intolerance that somehow involves striking a blow, whether physical, social or political, because "God is on your side."

I would like to find a religion that preaches love, and only that for a change.

I tell you, one of the biggest deterrants I have about really "believing" is this sort of attitude some of the more zealous Christians have. I think if I continue reading the kind of responses I have been in this forum topic, I will change my mind about taking my son to church.

And I don't want to do that because I really like the people there. So instead, I will take my leave of here.

Debates are like masturbation. Except with masturbation, at least you are feeling the love.
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YEAH baby! One reason I love having a website is that I can put all my religious views there and just say "see page 6, section 666" when people try to proselytize me. All I would add is this quote from my religion page:

It is much easier to say we love an abstract, perfect Being than to demonstrate tolerance, open-mindedness, forgiveness, and caring for the flawed people we must live with every day. People may give lip service to the Good Samaritan but refuse to even say hi to homeless people because they are dirty. They may become insufferable, holier-than-thou. Everyone admires a new mansion, but few want to see the possibilities in an abandoned shack. As Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote:

So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.

I agree with the Bible's guides to our daily conduct because from my experience they are practical. Thus I try them out and modify them as needed; they are difficult enough to live up to. However, I don't know enough to become dogmatic. As someone once prayed, "God, please make all the bad people good and all the good people nice." Until there is more connection between what Christians profess and what they do, I'll focus on the practice of trying to love my neighbor and let "religious" people handle the theory.

Posted 2:10 PM by Blah blah

Seeking new cowriters

Are any of you interested in writing entries here with me?

When I first asked my friend Christina to be my cowriter, she knew nothing about blogging. But now she and her friends in Nanjing and Shanghai are writing prolifically on her own site, Chinese Tea, and I am looking for new cowriters.

When I tried to do this bilingual blog, I had these hopes of bringing people from China into Western hearts and minds and Westerners like us into China. Unfortunately, I have not seen much crossover. The mainlanders stay on their blog, and the Westerners and English-speakers stay here. I guess language is still the main barrier for people. Her English and my Mandarin are both lousy. Mostly, Christina doesn't understand what I say and I don't understand what she and her friends say.

At least we helped introduce the whole idea of blogging to Nanjing and Shanghai! Another blow against the repression of communism. Yeah! Remember in April when I posted all those silly pix of President Jiang Zemin? Boy, did I shock some of her friends. I wondered if some Red Guards would show up outside my window.

So I ask again, would any of you like to be my cowriters here? Let me know and I'll add you in Blogger. Then you'll get an email and have to set up a Blogger account if you don't have one. The catch: I will only take people I consider to be good writers. I am very picky about words and quality when it comes to writing. If you are on my links list on this page, I pretty much think you express yourself well and welcome your input here.

(If you don't want much publicity, don't bother writing here. Tiger Cafe is getting between 50-100 visitors/day, and both my sites are getting 150-210 visitors/day recently. This site is very public and ranked highly in Google/Yahoo. For example, I'm #3 if you search Google/Yahoo for "sina mba forum." I just wrote about it two days before and never even went there! Be careful about putting full names of people and things you wouldn't want the world to eventually find out. Hell, Christina's mom reads this site!)

Let's try it, shall we? We could have a lotta fun! And you're probably bored just hearing about me me me. :D