The stages of grief (or owning a Kindle Fire when you’re not an American)

I bought a Kindle Fire a couple of weeks ago. Instead of telling you what it’s made of, how many apps it has, what it does, and then sound like an idiot spouting things I barely understand myself because I just ripped off someone else’s review, I will tell you how it made me feel.

I do get some amount of satisfaction from it, but it also makes me feel inferior, and I can’t shake this nagging thought that, through all the poking and sliding, I am wasting a glorious amount of time I could otherwise have spent on more important things. Like playing WWF on Facebook.

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I was pretty excited when I first ran my hands through it. It had a zen feel to it – not too big, not too small, not too heavy, not too light, an operating system that was minimalist  – but I soon realised I was being denied two-thirds of the wonderful stuff it has to offer just because I live in the wrong place. I do not have a US address, and for that reason Amazon has deemed it necessary to shut me completely out of its playground.

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Oh, how wonderful it is to be a ‘national hero’

You don’t need Hubble to look for black holes in the far reaches of our known universe. There’s one at the corner of Edsa and Ortigas – a deep, dark cesspool of misery where time stops and everything that is kind and decent ceases to exist.  I’m talking about the POEA.

I went there yesterday, and I died there. That edifice of pointless bureaucracy literally stole six hours of my life.

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Study confirms many of us go online for no reason

In all, 58 percent of all adults said that they use the Internet to pass time or have fun at least occasionally. Of adults who use the Internet, nearly three-quarters surf the Web for no reason.

New York: A new study confirms that many of us – and the majority of young adults – go online for no good reason at all. The report from the Pew Research Centre’s Internet & American Life Project found that on any given day, 53 per cent of 18 to 29 year-olds go online just to have fun or pass time.

Ang hubad na katotohanan

Matapos ang isang malalim na pagsusuri, napatunayan namin na isang elaborate hoax and lumalabas na photo diumano nina Piolo Pascual at Erik Santos.  Opo, isa po itong hoax, gaya ng sinasabing kasarian ni Piolo.  Sa interes ng katotohanan, heto po ang tunay na imahe na kinunan sa San Francisco. (Totoo po na anim ang daliri sa kaliwang kamay ni Gloria.)

Biyaheng Yishun MRT

Isang tatlong-minutong kwento.

Biyaheng Bintan

We went to this magnificent resort south-east of Bintan island in Indonesia, two hours away by ferry from Singapore early this month.   Like most outstanding vacations, we took away nothing but memories.

mad man (mga drawing ni manuel): so long, steve, and thanks for all the fish!

Update: Foreign maids win landmark Hong Kong residency case

“The mere maintenance of link with her country of origin does not mean that (a maid) is not ordinarily resident in Hong Kong.” 

A Hong Kong court ruled Friday that a law banning foreign maids from permanent residency in the city is unconstitutional, in a landmark case that could pave the way for a flood of applications.

The legal action brought by Evangeline Banao Vallejos, a Filipino domestic helper who has lived in Hong Kong since 1986, has cast a spotlight on the financial hub’s treatment of its army of 292,000 domestic workers.

The High Court ruled that immigration laws barring domestic workers – mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia – from settling permanently violated Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law.

“The mere maintenance of link with her country of origin does not mean that (a maid) is not ordinarily resident in Hong Kong,” Judge Johnson Lam wrote in a 78-page judgement.

I have seen the (near) future of Facebook, and it is… i

 

There it was, right in front of me, just as Mark Zuckerberg had promised. The story of my life, laid bare in all its drudgrey and banality, a full accounting of boredom.

So you think Mark Zuckerberg and his cohorts are driving you mad with their latest changes to your newsfeed.  Think again.  Facebook is heading towards a whole new level of crazy, by that I mean elevate your pissed-off-but-there’s-nothing-you-can-do-about-it-so-just-shut-up aggravation from normal to berserk.  By the end of the month, Facebook will roll out a new feature it calls “Timeline”, basically a sweeping overhaul of your profile page.  Your newsfeeds won’t be affected; just that page where you showcase everything about yourself for all the world to see.

I have been using it, and I so far have mixed feelings about it, the same emotions I would have if I were shoplifting: thrilled and terrified.

mad man (mga drawing ni manuel): 911