Dumaguete Desperado

Diners enjoy inexpensive but tasty food — including native coffee and suman — at the Dumaguete market.

The trip to Dumaguete almost failed to take off.
This was because the cab driver bringing me to the airport decided to engage in some form of highway robbery.
The old geezer tried to sweet-talk me into forking out P400 for the airport run from Quezon City, citing high fuel prices, the time he reportedly spent “waiting” for me, and the huge costs of raising a family, mainly his.

Score one for sex video scandals, zero for the economy

Katrina Halili in an FHM glam shot in better times.

Score one for sex video scandals, zero for the economy
Or make that 0.4 percent for the economy, the rate of its growth for the first three months this year.
Besides being the lowest in ten years, the first quarter turnout is also below government expectations.
This has prompted Manila to warn of a recession, defined as an economic decline for six months or more.
But who’s keeping track? Or more appropriately who cares?
No one, save for businessmen, economists, geeks, and business reporters who are required to ensure the veracity of their facts and figures.

Dear Mr. Alec Baldwin,

Alec Baldwin on a block of Monterrey cheese as conceptualized and created by an artist named Rakka on Flickr.com who has been gracious enough to allow use of his/her work. For more of the artist's work, please click on the photo.

I’m sorry sir, that it had come to this.
If I had any kind of influence, I would gladly use it to have the blacklist against you revoked.
I would have wanted a multi-awarded actor such as yourself to visit our capital and appreciate its charms, which includes the stench of cockroaches.
Or at least that’s according to Claire Danes who made that remarkable, if brave observation fifteen years ago.

Bad news

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines opposes the Right of Reply Bill

Journalism is far too important to be left to journalists.
The practice, the craft, and the art of reporting the truth — whatever that might be — could use a little constructive criticism every now and then from people who read, watch, and perhaps even live by the news.

Thanks, PAL

Taken from Boeing's website

Nothing in Particular would like to express its gratitude to Philippine Airlines, the technical staff who runs its Web site, and the marketing professionals who launched the company’s recent online promotion, “The Real Deal.”
Were it not for these brilliant, hardworking individuals, Nothing in Particular would have remained part of the cyberspace woodwork, a self-serving, self-referential, self-indulgent online journal of a media worker burdened with unjustified angst and unpaid debt.

Tips for Philippine Airlines’ (PAL) online fare promo (aka The Real Deal)

This is useful for those who were able to log onto the PAL website and were able to secure reservations but for some reason or other (website glitch etc.), failed to hold and/or pay for their online itineraries.

Call up Philippine Airlines’ customer service department, +632 777 5939 and explain the circumstances in detail (i.e., date and time of flight and date and time the reservation was secured online). It should appear in their records.

The company will most likely extend the promo privilege and direct you to a ticketing office where you can pay for and claim your e-ticket.

This is what happened to me when I bought roundtrip tickets for my mother in law.

Good luck.

Meanwhile, click on this link for a GMANews.TV report about PAL’s website overload brought about by the online promotion.

Book trip

The cover of the third and latest edition of Author's Choice by Kerima Polotan, one of the best English-language books written by a Filipino. (Pic by kabayancentral.com)

Travel allows for the best education the world can provide.

Or so say those who can afford it.

Fortunately, a cheaper alternative is always available.

And it’s not necessarily made in China.

It’s called reading, an activity, usually solitary, that may not be as exciting as visiting foreign shores, flying business class, or flirting with flight attendants.

Once undertaken, especially with a good writer as a guide, reading allows anyone to take a trip anywhere — including the planet Tralfamadore* — without having to clear immigration and undergo intensive cavity searches.

While travel transmits knowledge firsthand — how to get the best seats in economy class, how to request alcoholic beverages in an Islamic country, and how to avoid looking like a promdi in Manhattan** — reading does the same but through filters, the writer’s inclinations and idiosyncrasies.

Servant nation

Hong Kong-based columnist Chip Tsao said he was being satirical when he wrote that the Philippines was a "nation of servants." Photo courtesy of www.pep.ph

Chip Tsao should take a break from beating deadlines.
Or perhaps even quit the writing business altogether.

Just recently, the Hong Kong-based writer wrote a column that failed to bring his message across to his readers.

Not that that’s such a big deal.

My world and welcome to it (again)

The tools of my blogging trade, an Alphasmart Dana and a PowerBook G4

Welcome to Nothing in Particular version 2.0, the second incarnation of the blog of the same name.

Like all version upgrades, NIP 2.0 offers enhancements, featuring regular updates and allowing more participation between the blogger and the bloggees (also known as people subject to ridicule, most of whom are my friends), and readers who, faithfully, religiously, time and again, against all odds, visit this blog despite its lack of activity for the last year or so.

In your face

This is a photo from fotosearch.com. The male in the picture is obviously not me.

It wasn’t easy.

Not for regular Filipino males such as myself who place very little premium on physical appearance and cleanliness.

But it had to be done. And quickly.

Yes, ladies and lesbians, gays and gentlemen, trannies, tramps, and tarts, butches, bitc*es, and bastards, I had a facial.