I’m not really a fan of Paramore and basically just tagged along with my boyfriend and his sister, who’s a huge fan. Figured it couldn’t hurt at all to check it out, since it might turn out to be fun. The evening started out with dinner at Sbarro, as well as people-watching in an attempt to figure out who might be watching the concert. You can easily pick them out of a crowd: young people dressed in really funky outfits, for one, and of course, people clad in Paramore t-shirts, or ones proclaiming “I ♥ Paramore.”

The concert was supposed to start at 8:30, but we opted to go in at around 7 p.m. to get good spots. True enough, there were already a lot of people in our section, guaranteed to make any view of the stage impossible for short folk like me and my boyfriend’s sister. For quite some time, we wandered around our section trying to get a good view of the stage. It would always happen that once we’ve planted ourselves in a suitable spot, another group of concertgoers would make their way in front of us and completely obstruct our view. It might have taken us around five tries before settling in one place. It was a pretty interesting waltz, and made me wish for an indoor concert venue that may at least have proper seats.

The front act for the concert was Callalily, a band I think nothing of and which my boyfriend and his sister dislike immensely. I ended up agreeing with them, since none of the songs caught my attention and the lead singer would sing “nananaginip” (dreaming) as “nanyanyaginip.” Distracting.

A huge cheer went through the crowd when Paramore finally took the stage. Happily, I recognized a few songs, although the ones I didn’t even sounded good and catchy. I think the band was quite surprised to find out that people really know their music; the audience wouldn’t stop singing along to every song, and every song met with cheers, dancing, and jumping along. All in all, it was a pretty fun night–it was good to be in a sea of humanity, for one, and even better to see people truly enjoying themselves, plus the music and energy were something else.

Lately, the Catholic Church here in the Philippines has been raising a stink over condom distribution efforts yet again. They seem to have a bee in their bonnet when it comes to sex and condoms, but then again, they have always taken the same position regarding the issue, which is one of extreme disgust and outrage. The Catholic Church has always been known to predict nothing but doom for people who engage in premarital sex or use condoms, trotting out the argument that premarital sex is wrong and that condoms are the work of the devil. There has even been known to be instances wherein the myth that condoms actually spread sexually transmitted diseases is being perpetuated.

That doesn’t happen here in the Philippines, thank gods, but what the Church typically says about condoms is that they promote promiscuity and immorality, and that making them widely available would only encourage young people to start experimenting with sex. Recent findings have uncovered the spike in HIV-AIDS cases here in the Philippines, which prompted Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral to launch a campaign that makes condoms more widely available to everyone. Predictably, the Church recoiled in horror at this, highly displeased that these tools of sin and depravity will be accessible to everyone.

I’ve never taken a kind view towards the Church, because I’ve always thought that they’re hopelessly out of touch with reality and that, if they had their way, they would have us all stoning homosexuals and adulteresses (but not the adulterers). But their stance on divorce and condoms particularly get my goat. Their vehemence when it comes to condoms make me wonder if they actually spend their days wringing their hands and worrying about people’s sexual preferences and activities. “Oh dear, people are having sex. We must put a stop to this. It’s immoral and an abomination unto the Lord.” And so they do everything they can to block any efforts to improve reproductive health and encourage safe, responsible sex.

Sex has truly become a filthy word and concept to the Church, and I can only assume that this is because they’re not permitted to experience it (although there are many notable examples of men of the cloth exercising their, er, rites with men, women, and even children). Not just to the Church, really, but society itself, which is pretty surprising given the number of people who enjoy it (many) and do everything they can to avail themselves of it–but that’s a discussion for another day. The Church is something special, however, in the way that they denounce the act as if simply engaging in it automatically puts you on hell’s guest list. It would be understandable if they were just reminding people not to engage in extramarital sex because they vowed to be faithful to their spouses. But the way they instruct people sounds as though they want people to stop having sex altogether and just do it every time they feel the need to have a baby.

It might be news to the Church to hear that nobody is really paying attention to them when it comes to sex. People have always done it, will always do it, and will keep on doing it even in the face of robed priests threatening to rain heavenly retribution upon us all. Of course, Catholics will always have the vague feeling of dread that God is looking down and watching you immersing yourself in sin of the highest degree, but the prospect of pleasure and enjoyment tends to dull its effects. For the most part, however, people have sex without worrying what the Church is saying about it, worrying only about a surprise pregnancy, possible diseases, pain, discomfort, and whether or not they’re performing admirably.

So instead of worrying about condoms and the supposed grime they slather all over people’s souls, the Church really needs to stop looking at condoms as the instrument of the devil. Condoms don’t encourage people to have mad, crazy sex all over the place; they do it anyway even without condoms. These just make it a lot safer for them to do whatever they want in bed. And as for young people being “impressionable” and getting swayed into sex by the availability of condoms, the Church might find it interesting that young people who have babies out of wedlock–surprise surprise!–evidently didn’t use any form of birth control.

I’m not a vegetarian, but Vegetarian Times is one of my favorite magazines anyway, because the recipes all look so tasty and easy to make. I also love the fresh, clean, and uncluttered look of the magazine.

I have yet to try a lot of the recipes in it, mainly because I don’t know where to get most of the ingredients around here, but I recently got around to whipping up a vegan cheese for the first time in my life. The result:

A tasty, crumbly almond feta cheese. I’d say it was pretty successful, but I’m looking forward to trying it a second time to see if it gets even better. I’ve no complaints about this first batch, however, and have already taken to crumbling it over salads.

I scored a bag containing four huge cream dory fillets a few days ago for PhP195 ($4) and then asked myself, “Now what?” I love fish, but I don’t really know what to do with them, though I’m brave enough to experiment. So I took one fillet, chopped it into four pieces, dunked them in egg, then breaded them with a blend of breadcrumbs, garlic powder, basil, pepper, thyme, rosemary, and crushed sesame seeds. The result:

A tasty dish that’s good for several meals.

The New York Magazine has a pretty interesting article on intelligence tests for very young children and the pressure that is being piled on them at their age. Basically: Pass the tests and get into the best schools or fail and be doomed to live a life of mediocrity or failure, you have no choice in the matter, you fail and you have no chance of ever making it in life, so study hard, child, study hard!

I was actually quite surprised a few years ago when I saw banners around the city promoting review classes for college entrance exams–and pre-school entrance exams. Which is pretty odd. Your child’s a child. He or she is supposed to be going to school to learn and acquire knowledge, and at a young age, he or she isn’t equipped with a whole lot of it yet. If the child doesn’t do well in the entrance exams, then schools are basically blocking him or her from exploring his or her full potential.

I know this kind of post has already been done to death by people who weren’t as lazy as I was in recording their observations of people’s behavior on Facebook. But I’ve recently been getting so sick of Facebook and exceedingly critical of a lot of what people do that I just had to break them down in these categories, mainly because I can’t really go and slap them in person.

The Multitaskers. They boggle the mind. You can find them washing dishes, playing basketball, playing badminton with their families, fighting off rampaging bears, and performing brain surgery WHILE updating their status messages.

The Eternal Cheerleaders. People who constantly post inspiring quotations on their own walls and those of others. They mean well, but because they usually get their inspiring quotes from the latest self-help book they’ve read, they can get pretty annoying.

The Namedroppers. Call this the online equivalent of people who like flaunting the brand of clothes they have or new gadgets they’ve acquired. In Facebook’s case, these people tend to mention that they just got this or that item or drinking this brand of expensive wine and eating a platter of expensive cheeses.

The Regretfuls. The what-iffers online, a.k.a. people who always post, “I should never have eaten that last piece of pizza,” “I never should have said that,” “I really should watch the words that come out of my mouth.”

The Party Animals. At a party or a night out, you’ll always find a few people with a camera permanently glued to their hands and snapping away at the slightest provocation. They’re always pretty quick to put up pictures as well, and these pictures usually feature them dressed to the nines with their friends and holding an alcoholic beverage, a bottle of beer or a martini, for preference.

The Proud Parents. Yes, there’s nothing wrong with being a parent and being proud of your kids. But these people take it to another level, and you can’t find a picture of them without their kids and nine out of ten status updates are about their kids. Their photo albums might consist of them giving birth, at their kids’ birthday party or some other kid’s birthday party, having a “lazy day” with the kids at home, or posing in a studio for a family portrait.

The Eats-and-Shoots. When did going out for a meal automatically make for a photo opportunity? These people have their cameras at the ready every time they go out to eat, turning every meal into a major event and making it look like they have such incredible social lives.

The Jetsetters. Flip through their albums and you’ll find countless pictures of them on their many vacations. These people also tend to update their friends on where they are or where they’re heading next. “Just got back here in Budapest after a business meeting in Vietnam.” Yeah, we get it, you’ve got a busy, exciting life that takes you around the world.

The Beach Bunnies. There are many people who thoroughly enjoy putting up photos of themselves at the beach, most likely just bragging about how good they look in their bikinis; either these people have been stuck in the office for a while and missing the beach or were fat once and now want to show their old high school classmates or friends that they’ve changed a whole lot over the years.

The Town Criers. What’s the latest on Conan O’Brien’s career? Where can you send donations to victims of floods and earthquakes? When’s this or that movie coming out? Any updates on this or that political issue in the country and abroad? The town crier knows.

The Sentimentals. – These can make a lot of people cringe, because they simply love posting old yearbook or childhood photos–and tagging as many people as they can remember.

The Aspiring Models. For some reason, they get studio headshots or full-body photos and proudly put them up online.

The Workaholics. A look at their status messages and you’ll get the impression that they’re swamped with work, because they usually complaining about going to work on a weekend, working at 3 in the morning, or doing overtime again–and then you notice that they’ve got the time to let everyone know about it.

The Hostiles. Either they’re cussing someone out in their status updates, telling them to shut the hell up, or sending forth messages of the passive-aggressive kind.

I’ve been eyeing a spiffy red bicycle lately and have plans to buy it; I just need to get the cash. I’ve been back to see it twice already this week. Today, I stopped for some ice cream in the plaza where the bike shop is, then spent a good three minutes standing in front of the bike shop, just looking at the bike. If that thing were alive, it would have filed a restraining order against me by now.

I haven’t had computer problems for several years now. In the past, my monitors and CPU would break down on a regular basis; as a result, I was a frequent guest at the nearby Villman. Luckily, since 2003 or so, I’ve had the good fortune of not having to deal with computer problems, since the ones I had were usually in fine condition.

Which is why I’m presently distressed about my desktop. I was happily using it yesterday afternoon then decided to shut it down so I can take a nap. I turned it on again and to my surprise, nothing would appear on the monitor but a “No signal” message. I hooked up my laptop to the monitor to check if the latter had a problem; it was working fine, so it’s clearly a desktop issue.

Tonight, my mother expressed interest in her laptop once again, so we turned it on and tried launching Firefox–to no avail. Internet Explorer didn’t work either, and the antivirus software wouldn’t update. This after my camera was accidentally drowned in water, Internet connection that seems perpetually on the blink, and finding out that my Skype phone seems to be unusable here, when it worked perfectly in the U.S.

The electronics gods seem to be having a giggle at my expense. But I hope for their sakes that this laptop doesn’t give out, or we will have words.

So this commercial has been running for almost a year now, and I wish it would just die a gory death because it’s such a ridiculous ad.

In this ad, Kim Chiu, who’s so dangerously skinny that her arms are probably as fat as my thumb, is saying that the female hair is big and frizzy in the morning. To whoever came up with this ad, I say this: The hair of the girls in the ad isn’t frizzy, not by a long shot. It’s just messy. And if girls have messy hair in the morning, all they need to do is run a damn comb through their hair, not employ Rejoice Anti-Frizz right away. Besides, you don’t know from frizzy, not like the big hair that curly-haired people like myself have to deal with on a regular basis. No amount of shampoo can calm it down; it takes time, effort, and a cleverly maneuvered hair dryer or iron, and even then, our hair is defenseless in the face of humidity. Frizzy is either a hair’s default state or a reaction to excessive humidity, not something that takes place upon waking up in the morning.

Here in Quezon City, a sign recently started coming up on roads.

Looks straightforward enough, doesn’t it? It should be a strong enough reminder for people to, uh, not put posters and banners bearing their names and mugs. But oh no, politicians are slimy, creative sorts, which is why they’ve been able to get around this ordinance. Case in point:

First of all, I don’t see why we ever really need to thank public officials for doing their job. It’s their damn job. But knowing the kind of officials we have anyway, I guess we should be grateful that something beneficial is happening at all. But the main thing is, this damn streamer which is slapped on practically every footbridge on Commonwealth Avenue clearly counts as political propaganda. Does anyone really believe that private citizens got together and thought it would be a great idea to have banners printed to thank the president for bestowing these holy footbridges upon us? I think not, especially since I just saw MMDA elements hanging up the streamers a couple of days ago.

Another person who’s found a way to imprint his name, or at least his initials, in people’s minds is a councilor by the name of Winnie Castelo. Seriously. Posters saying “Working Citizen ako, Working Congressman ang kailangan ko” with the W and C highlighted? Clever ploy. Same goes for Aiko Melendez, whose massive poster bearing birthday greetings is found several yards away from a sign informing people of the ordinance. The complete sign reads “Happy Birthday, Aiko Melendez, Public Servant ng Masa,” with the V and M standing for “vice mayor,” which she’s gunning for this coming elections. Do private citizens really take the time and money to have a huge birthday banner printed for a politician? Someone enlighten me.

Whoever was responsible for that sign should probably slap it in the faces of public officials who like having their names in the public eye, as well as people who are planning to run for office, rather than citizens who don’t have anything to do with those banners in the first place. And speaking of the person doing the reminding, that Tady Palma, could that person be running for public office as well since the name is in bold and wants us to remember the name?