The things I learn from a fashion magazine while waiting inside a salon...

There will be a movie version of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" and Reese Witherspoon (the reason why I started to read this particular article) will be playing Cecily Cardew. I really think she'll do a smashing job portraying this role...but I'll reserve final judgement until I hear her English accent. ^_^

It was in this same salon that I read a very interesting "howto" article. It contains suggestions on how a person can achieve" happiness". I thought the suggestions were rather odd or somewhat funny so I still remember some of them until now even after several months...

First off, the article suggested that one should have at least one relationship based on sex. I wonder if it's at least 1 in your lifetime or at least 1 whenever you have a "normal" relationship. MOVING ON...the article also says that you should forgive your parents--very popular among people with hang ups with their moms and/or dads. Nothing funny there, I guess. Unless....

My personal favorite is the suggestion that one should actually DROP A FRIEND to attain happiness. That entry tickled my funny bones and immediatley appealed to my sense of the absurd. Imagine a person suddenly dropping his/her friends left and right just because a darn article in a fashion magazine told him/her that'll it'll make him/her happy (would more likely produce a serial killer than a happy-happy person, I say). x.X

Of course, the article just had to become boring by explaining that the friends you should drop are the really annoying ones--those who are just plain irritating and not so loveable. In short, the ones you'd rather kill but don't out of pity and nostalgia.

I like my idea better, just drop them at random and see where it takes you. If you take their word for it, you'll be one deliriously happy person albeit quite friendless. Anybody out there who wants to test the this theory???

Are you evil? find out at quizlets.tk! by krysten

What Inuyasha Character are you?

I know what I need...more online quizzes!!! be right back...

Something wrong with the tagboard, I distinctly remember posting some stuff on everyone's tagboard (everyone I know with a tagboard, that is) a few days ago and now I see that not a single one of them registered. Hmm, curious...
Can't remember what I tagged about anymore...sigh.

I think I'm going to need some happy pills soon...am starting to feel antsy with all the "rest" I'm getting these days (first indication that my mental health will take a nose dive verrry soon). Currently restraining myself from picking a fight with everyone, am trying to get a firm hold on my terrible temper (not that anyone would know that I actually have a temper, that's why I still have friends...I think.)

I actually scared myself last thursday when I started writing a proposed plan for the UP Grail folio. By friday, it was all typed up and I didn't want to look at it anymore for fear of some madness taking over me again and I'd start rewriting it, over and over. I had it printed, just in case. It'll be presented to the execom by next week, I guess...

Thank god for cute furry things that give little bits of happiness...delivered ely's kitten yesterday. A baby version of my cat ICE Sho cute! The big spoiled cat definitely got jealous of his nephew/niece.

The week that was...

FRIDAY
The parents went off to Baguio for a CFC event. We could've tagged along if DQ gem didn't have a sudden attack of responsibility and decided that she just can't miss her report. So hounding her aunt to let us stay again at the convent/retreat house was out of the question.

We got stuck at home. You'd think we'd be partying our asses off with the oldies gone for the entire weekend but noooooh. DARN! It sucks to be penniless! My brother didn't even schedule is usual drinking bash in the porch (they have an official drinking area in the neighborhood now). Instead, I got saddled with all the household chores as usual. Gosh, I hate being forced to cook! If I didn't love eating so much, I'd starve myself to death. We survive the day with fried foods and noodle soup. ~_~

SATURDAY
The day was spent pretty much the same as the one before. When I was not cooking and cleaning up I was in front of the computer learning how to convert the Grail survey into an actual online survey form. That took almost half of the day to accomplish and the rest was spent trying to simultaneously upload the online and e-mail versions of the survey. Fixing the kinks gave me a headache but, otherwise, it was actually fun to do. I think I can make an online quiz myself now...but I have to think of a topic first. And, oooh, make some cool graphics for the test results and figure out how to link the results and...NEVERMIND. Too much work. Bleeech! XP

SUNDAY
T'was painting day. I helped the delinquent with the backdrop for their Com3 report. Before that, I was making a career out of fixing our leaking kitchen sink. I really think I should get paid for doing these things around the house. DARN IT! I could be disgustingly rich by now. You might wonder what my younger brother was doing all this time...he decided to have one of his lazy, uncooperative episodes and did one of his disappearing acts. I swear he's really really good at this, an expert even.

The vacationers got back around 10pm that night and reported that it was a rainy weekend in Baguio. (awwwww....)

MONDAY
Paint. Paint. Paint. Paint. Paint. Paint. Paint. Paint. Paint. Paint. Sigh. We worked on the delinquent's backdrop until dawn. I surrendered to sleep when the roosters started with their early morning vocalizations with the excuse of not intending to be caught by the sun coming up. I have this thing about ending the day before the start of the next day or my brain will turn into mush (sort of like a cinderella syndrome with a tinge of vampiric tendencies).

Can't remember much of what happened between working on the finishing touches before the actual report at 2pm and dropping off to sleep (from 6pm to 10pm) from sheer exhaustion. Upon waking up, I wheedled my way into a session with the computer...my price for doing backbreaking work.

TUESDAY
My older brother's 7th death anniversary was marked with a 3.0 earthquake at a little past midnight of this day. I was still in front of the computer and the delinquent was watching my game. I thought she was just shaking my chair for some insane reason (e.g. making me fall off the chair for shamelessly hogging the computer) but when I saw that everything else was shaking, I realized that it was an earthquake.

Then I felt nervous. The earthquake lasted for a few seconds but the feeling of unease stayed with me. Perhaps because I always connect earthshakes with wake up calls, a reminder that people are weak and powerless against nature's processes. I remember a geography prof saying that there would be no natural disasters if there weren't any people. Technically, it's true. The Earth is just minding it's own business, repeating natural processes that it has done for thousands of years. Then people happened. Then Earth became cruel and vengeful all of a sudden.

Or maybe I was nervous because I was being supperstitious...
After that I couln't concentrate on my game. I decided to finally sleep. Who knows what else might happen when 3am struck. Besides, I still had to wake up early for the morning trip to the cemetery.

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7 years...Wow. Seven years ago I would have thought that everything would be back to normal by now, I was so sure the hollowness would have eventually disappeared. I guess that was just wishful thinking that things will be alright again. Now I see that there's no turning back.
I'm just not the same person anymore.

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Went to the QC Hall to claim NBI clearances in the afternoon. The one's for me and my mom turned out ok (crappy pictures not withstanding) but my younger brother's had problems. What the hell do you do at a Quality Control Office, anyway? The instruction was to go to the Taft office for interview for Quality Control and to bring a 2x2 pic. What the hell is the problem?! Did he not register on the cheap net cam they use as a digicam substitute??? I swear I wouln't use my certificate if only it wasn't so darn expensive and annoying to get it. They bleed you for a hundred bucks and all you get is a lousy B&W picture that makes you look fat...#$%^&*$%# !!!

WEDNESDAY
Checked on the survey results. The survey is 4 days old and there were already seven respondents. Most of them answered through e-mail and only one submitted through the online test. So far, Grail has 4 comics story ideas and 3 promises of submissions one of which is a finished comics submission.

THURSDAY
Checked another survey form. Add another story idea and story submission to the list. So we have 5 story ideas and 4 definite submissions. Twishieporn texted about answering the online survey but I couldn't get back online anymore so I'll left until the next day...

FRIDAY
Today I'm sick. I have a cold complete with runny nose and a soar throat. I still plan on attending the Grail meeting though. To present my preliminary survey report, what else? No, the promise of eating at Mang Jimmy's didn't sell me on the idea of attending. Puhlease! Give some credit here. ^_~

Still checking the survey right now....

Finally finished the Grail Folio Survey and will be sending it to everyone thru the mailing list. Addicted online quiz takers will be happy to know that the survey has an online version. It actually works! And instead of test results, the freebie will be anime graphics...just a little something that I grabbed from a vcd.
[NOTE: This survey is open only to UP Grail members: ACTIVE and INACTIVE undergrad/grad members and ALUMNI members]

Blog is is surprisingly very cooperative today...dammit I don't have anything to blog! @#$%*&(@!!!
Anyway, will be e-mailing the survey I promised for the folio tomorrow, umm, I mean later today....it just needs to be edited by my in-house editor (mainly to make sure that it's a bit intelligible, at least).

being a good little girl, I'm posting this entry from Neil Gaiman's journal in here...

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Friday, August 02, 2002. Just spent the last five-and-a-bit hours on the phone, listening (and occasionally contributing, I hope) to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Annual Board Meeting. Now feeling absolutely brain dead. Feeling like I ought to be making an impassioned plea to all of you to take out (or renew) memberships in the CBLDF, but I'll save that for a full essay here on another day. Right now I need bed...

O sod it.

Well, I'm not going to write the essay, not at this time of night after five hours of conference call. But I'll quote from the District Attorney in Texas, in his summing up to the jury who recently sentenced a comic store clerk to prison for six months for selling an undercover cop a rude manga title. (The DA's explaining why the jury should ignore the expert witnesses who came in to explain that the comic in question was adult comics, and art, and deserving of first amendment protection):

"And, again, why are we here? This medium, the medium that this obscenity is placed in is done so in an appealing manner to children. Comic books, and I don't care what type of evidence or what type of testimony is out there, use your rationality, use your common sense. Comic books, traditionally what we think of, are for kids. This is in a store directly across from an elementary school and it is put in a medium, in a forum, to directly appeal to kids.”

Remember that one. Comics are only for kids. Doesn't matter if the manga title in question was sealed, marked for over 18s, and in the off-limits to kids section of the store in question. Comics are for kids. The DA says so, and the jury believed him.

And yes, we're appealing it. And we've spent at least $40,000 on the case so far (and managed to win the other case they brought at the same time).

So tell your friends who read comics, and who don't. Tell your friends who only read manga. Repost this where people will see it. Link to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund site at http://www.cbldf.org/index.shtml or straight to their commercial site at http://www.cbldf.com(which is the place you can buy cool stuff).

And if you're at Comic Con in San Diego over the next few days, go and find the CBLDF table. They have all sorts of cool stuff there (including, I believe, a load of Frank Miller signed comics). And you can sign up there, and tell them they're doing a good, hard and necessary job. 'Cos they are. posted by Neil Gaiman 12:41 AM
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