Very, very much

I know it's old, just felt like sharing it again.

The episode of abominations

The designers wake up to the twin feelings of fear and foreboding, airing their grievances unto the steadily rising sun.

Santi, he of the Sarimanok faux!hawk, has been dealt an ego-crushin blow by his team's performance during the last challenge.

The Fisherwoman a.k.a. Jas has finally experienced -- perhaps for the first time in her life -- what it feels like to have people expect something good to come from you, and feels the pressure to live up to that expectation.

Ugly Tracy nee Betty feels the way she has always felt in the presence of the cool kids: unwanted and unloved. She knows that it was her ass that was supposed to be sent home last week.

The rest meander aimlessly around the Amorsolo Mansions like so many reanimated corpses, their undead hunger to be sated only by sucking out any smidgen of creativity or innovation from their surroundings.

Once they're ready -- pancake make-up plastered on, formaldehyde injected once again into their veins -- the designers are shepherded into their holding pens at the School of Fashion and the Arts, where they immediately notice the Aranaz bags on the accessory wall. This is of course the producers' completely subtle way of hinting that this week's challenge is going to be bridal wear.

BUT! It's not just going to be any bride that they'll be dressing up! This season's celebrity client is model Isabel Roces, who we all remember for her blanket made of chili peppers. At least almost all of us, because Randy a.k.a. Inday has no idea who Isabel Roces is. Expect his gay license to be revoked once the paperwork gets through.

The designers are given free rein with the fabric, just as long as it isn't the usual white. Russel apparently sees that as a license to resurrect his third grade crafts project, because his gown is NEON GREEN and has LEAVES on it. I hate it with the heat of a thousand fiery suns and wish to burn it and crap on its ashes.

The Fisherwoman, of course, is not resting on her laurels, and once again fishes something out from the murky depths of Manila Bay. Once again she stays true to her roots -- the gown looks like it died and sunk into the bottom of the bay centuries ago.

The producers are also quietly planting the seeds of future bitchiness. Hanz and Patrick apparently have a "friendly competition" going on. Hanz says something but I tune it out because he doesn't make any sense. Sarimanok Santi, on the other hand, doesn't like the way Inday Randy is looking at him. Meanne, who has as much personality as a dirty dishrag, bleats meekly about who she thinks is going to win.

All of these tensions will have to be resolved some other time, because runway day is upon the designers. The models walk, the gowns are paraded, Russel is inexplicably safe. But never mind that, because the judges are at their acerbic best in this episode.

A sampling:

""I want to find something nice to say...but it's tragic. It's a tacky, tragic, Tracy wedding dress." -Rajo

"She took the darkest years of the Madonna era." -Isabel Roces

"That thing was an abomination." -Rajo

Apples was especially bitchy this episode as well, but I couldn't type fast enough while I was watching it. Suffice it to say that she is a deadly, venom-spitting viper and I love her.

The Fisherwoman and Ugly Tracy nee Betty end up in the bottom, this despite The Fisherwoman's immunity from the last episode. All signs point to The Fisherwoman leaving...but she lives to fish another day! DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES!

Because I don't.

Who is Tyler Shields?

Shields' latest video featuring Alex Meraz

I think the first time I ever heard of the name Tyler Shields was when the video of Matt Dallas (Kyle XY) dripping wet, muddy, and moody came out. It was a short clip, and basically just had Matt Dallas wet, shirtless, and staring intensely at the camera.

I didn't give him any further thought until the "Zachary Quinto being showered by faux!cum" video came out. It was Tyler Shields behind it again, with the same short clip of an attractive man staring intensely at the camera. Shields once again vanished from pop culture consciousness after that.

And now the video above comes out, and I am now genuinely curious as to who he is. How does he get these stars to participate in what he does? It would seem like he is a pretty familiar photographer among the Hollywood crowd, as his videos on Youtube include names like Summer Glau, Brittany Snow, and Gary Busey.

I visited his blog to try to learn more about him, but I was put off by his complete inability to bend the English language to his will. Perhaps it isn't his first language? If anybody else musters the energy or inclination to find out who this guys is, send me the appropriate links or something.

Matt Dallas

Zachary Quinto

8-bit Trip

It took them 1500 hours to do this whole thing. That's dedication, folks.

What's it to you

People are apparently protesting against the Stanford Hotel in New York's meatpacking district because you can see naked people through the windows.

To quote: "Note to parents strolling the High Line: Don't let your kids look up.

The Meatpacking District's newly opened, much-touted urban park along an elevated, former railroad trestle has unwittingly turned into a peep show near The Standard hotel, as randy hotel guests perform sex acts in front of floor-to-ceiling hotel windows."

Neighbors are "outraged" to have seen people performing sexual acts through the hotel's windows, some of which include the shooting of porn films, masturbation, and plain old vanilla sex. The concerned citizens want the "obscenity" to stop.

But my thing is, you're not required to look. It's not like not paying attention to these exhibitionists would be detrimental to your life. And besides, it's a hotel room that I'm guessing they paid for, so what do you care what they do inside it?

Today's gratuitous manflesh

You guys all know who Zac Efron is.

"Love is a dangerous angel"

I honestly can't remember when I first heard of the Weetzie Bat books. It just seemed like they had always been there, in the back of my mind, waiting to be uncovered. But it would really take me quite some time before I actually went out there and got myself a copy.

I only got my hands on Dangerous Angels, a compilation of all the Weetzie Bat books, a few months ago, and it would take me a few weeks more before I would start reading it. Now I'm kicking myself for not doing it much earlier.

In case you're not aware of them, the Weetzie Bat books are made up of Weetzie Bat, Witch Baby, Cherokee and the Goat Guys, Missing Angel Juan, and Baby Be-Bop. All the books are told through the eyes if Weetzie and the members of her family, specifically her children Cherokee and Witch Baby, as well as her gay best friend Dirk McDonald.

We are first introduced to them in Weetzie Bat, where we follow Weetzie and Dirk as they look for the love of their lives in the city of Los Angeles. The other books revolve around this central theme of love, with variations that give each novel a flavor of its own.

Witch Baby, for instance, has the main character looking not for romantic love, but for love from her parents. Cherokee and the Goat Guys have the characters grappling with adolescent love and their self-esteem. Missing Angel Juan is about loving someone enough to let them be on their own, while Baby Be-Bop is about a young Dirk struggling to come to terms with his homosexuality.

After reading Weetzie Bat, I had initially thought that this series was merely overhyped and not really as good as everyone made it out to be. Despite being a charming work, I found Weetzie Bat to be a little too thin -- in plot and characterization -- for me to keep on going.

It's a good thing that I still kept on reading, though, because the series keeps on getting better and better with each book. Block has the ability to balance her whimsical prose and the heavy topics she often takes on, and the combination makes the books moving without being too overly heavy for younger readers.

And Block certainly isn't afraid to take on some pretty daunting topics. In Cherokee and the Goat Guys there is a harrowing scene filled with drugs, booze, and underage sex, while the latter chapters of Weetzie Bat talk about the AIDS crisis, if in a roundabout way.

My personal favorites are Missing Angel Juan and Baby Be-Bop. It is in these books that Block is at her very best, telling stories of heartbreak, loneliness, and homophobia in hopeful tones usually reserved for fairy tales.

I also love how Block tackles homosexuality in her novels. When Dirk tells Weetzie that he's gay, Weetzie's reply is a simple: "It doesn't matter one bit, honey-honey." Then the two decide to look for boys together. I can only imagine how empowering that is for a young closeted gay man reading these novels for the first time.

And it's not just gay men. All throughout the series there are lesbians, bisexuals, there's even a transgender couple with a baby. It's a delightful and idealized world that one can't help but wish for.

The fact that Block doesn't hesitate from showing the dark side of life either -- Dirk, for instance, is almost mauled to death by a homophobic gang of neo-Nazis -- just makes her idealized Los Angeles even more precious and beautiful.

Dangerous Angels is certainly something I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone looking for a good read. Multilayered, poetic, and unafraid to tackle some pretty sensitive topics, it is a young adult book that is both challenging and entertaining.

This is sad

ARE YOU ME?

The episode where nothing happens

The crop of designers for this season of Project Runway doesn't look particularly promising. Of all of them -- Hanz, Randy, Russell, Santi, Pau, Jas, Meanne, Tracy, Cherry, Manny, Richie and Patrick -- it is only Hanz, Santi, Patrick, and Manny who show any sign of promise. Good thing that there is enough drama to keep the season mildly interesting.

And now in this second episode, they don't even have that drama -- fabricated or otherwise -- to move the show forward. Nothing of note happens in this episode. Nothing. Things are not looking good.

This week's challenge is to make a collection of three outfits inspired by a movie. The twelve are grouped into groups of three. Hanz, Manny, and Randy, who all look like transplanted promdis with nary a clue in the world, form the "Titanic" group; Cherry, Pau, and Tracy, aka "The Axis of Fugly", pick "Chicago" as their movie; Santi, Meanne, and Richie pick "Dreamgirls"; while Jas, Patrick, and Russel pick LOTR. Anyone who knows me knows where my bias lies.

As dictated by Project Runway tradition, the first quarter of the show is dedicated to the designers meandering around the fabric store of choice looking for the materials needed for their designs. This stuff is usually glossed over, because frankly, picking out a fabric is not that fun.

Rather than doing the same, we are treated to the designers signing the praises of this season's fabric store of choice. "I love so-and-so store because their fabrics are so great!" "The salespeople are really helpful!" and so on and so forth. This goes on for what seems like forever and I end up sleeping through it like hobbits at an ent moot.

When the designers finally make their way back to SoFA...nothing happens. Yeah, yeah, they start working on their outfits, but this is usually the time in the competition when the fabric starts to fly and the queens start snapping their fingers like so.

Instead what we get is Manny the Manly Straight Man crying over the phone to his pregnant wife and Ugly Tracy nee Betty having a breakdown because she's having a hard time finishing her dress. Nobody really cares because they're ugly and they're straight, and since when have ugly straight people been given airtime on Project Runway? Not counting the fatty episodes?

Pau channels the thoughts of the audience as he performs eye roll after eye roll at Tracy. Passive-aggressive verbal barbs are also thrown around, and Pau has apparently gotten it into his head that he is going to be the next Wendy Pepper. Poor gay Pau.

Runway day finally arrives, saving us from slipping into catatonia because of that epic borefest. The judging panel has more intrigue that this year's designers. What happened to Apples' second surname? Why is Teresa Herrera always so beautiful? Why is the mic for the guest judge always turned off?

ANYWAY. The designs go down the runway. The "Titanic" team is safe. The judges say their piece. The "Lord of the Rings" team wins the challenge, and Pau is sent home. That's how exciting it was.

The only notable part was how Teresa bid farewell to Pau: "Pau, you have the lowest score. Get the fuck out and sit the fuck down, bitch." Ok, so she didn't really say that, but she should have. And she should have told that to this episode as well.

Being gay among the locals

As I've never really spent enough time in other countries to find out how it's really like to acclimatize my gayness to a different culture, I have no idea how I would act should I be confronted with the question: "Are you gay?" I think it was thrown my way during my trip to Germany, but the people I were with didn't really wait around for an answer.

This article does seem like a pretty good way to go about it. Don't bring it up when nobody's asking, but don't be afraid to say yes when the question is posed to you. Unless of course you know that answering yes is going to result in a world of pain.

* * * * *
This is Jammy Reyes, and he's about to have to learn how to acclimatize to being gay in our culture here in the Philippine Islands.

He's been in Canada for the past 13 years, and faces deportation because he never applied to become a naturalized Canadian citizen.

There's more to the story, though, than him just beign an illegal immigrant. He's been in jail for theft and prostitution, has been in rehab for six months because of drug addiction, and is just coming out of two years of probation.

If his case against his deportation fails, will he have a supportive family to come home to here? And considering how we aren't exactly the best country when it comes to drug enforcement, how long will his sobriety last in this country where shabu dens are just about everywhere?

Read his full story over here at xtra.ca. You can view his xtube profile here. The second link is obviously NSFW.

Today's gratuitous manflesh

This is Dave Salmoni.

He is a zoologist.

He spends a lot of his time in the African bush living with big cats.



He also takes baths with them.

Of gays and geeks

A programmer is asking the British government to apologize for prosecuting mathematician Alan Turing for homosexuality, and while I feel that that gesture is about as useful as performing CPR after the person has already drowned, I do understand the symbolic power of such a gesture. Better late than never, I suppose.

But what I was more interested in was the point that the writer raised about geeks and gays, seeing as I'm part of both groups. Has society really changed in the way it views both groups? Or are they still pretty much the same outcasts that they were before?

I can't claim to be an expert on the matter, but it is striking how a lot of Filipinos are really only comfortable with gays if they performed their "assigned" tasks: Entertainment reporter, hairdresser, call center agent. Try to meander out of these clearly defined roles and you find yourself having a harder time than the heterosexuals you share your field with.

I've been insulated from any discrimination so far, seeing as I work in a gay-friendly industry and am pretty much in a bubble, but I am extremely curious as to how it is like to work for an industry that isn't "gay". Do any of you guys have any experiences -- good or bad -- that you'd like to share?

The art of the misleading headline

Author William Golding tried to rape teenager, private papers show

That certainly does grab one's attention, doesn't it? In the readers' heads they already have a vision of an aged Golding -- a Nobel Prize winner but also heavily dependent on drink -- forcing himself on a helpless youngster.

Of course, as you read further into the story you find out that he was also a teenager at the time, and that the girl eventually did have consensual sex with him a few years later. While it certainly doesn't excuse the fact that Golding tried to force himself onto the girl, it did make the story sound much more lewd than it actually is.

This isn't my first time at the rodeo

This isn't actually the first blog that I've ever maintained. Years ago, when I was still in high school, I tried starting one out at GreatestJournal, but that one didn't last for very long. I was young and immensely stupid back then, and thought that I was the wittiest thing since Oscar Wilde. I was obviously crushed when no one ended up reading my posts or commenting on them, and that blog was quickly disposed of.

I only started blogging again when I was almost out of college, thanks to some friends of mine who were also getting into it. This next one was on LiveJournal, and that one has been much more successful. I've been maintaining it for almost six years now, and it has quite a lot of my life on it.

I've talked about places I've been to, books I've read, movies I've seen, and some jobs that I wish I really didn't take in the first place. I've moaned and groaned and bitched through almost six years of my life on my LiveJournal blog.

So why am I starting another one here? I honestly have no idea. Maybe me and you, dear reader, will both find out along the way?