Currently Reading Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers By Mary Roach see related

i'm now seoul, south korea's international airport hanging out in one of it's internet lounges while waiting for my connecting flight to the philippines which is not till two hours from now.  the airport is pretty slick, very modern, much like munich's.  you can't get lost as the gate numbers are ginormous. 

my butt's exremely sore after sitting for thirteen hours in the flight from chicago.  i saw two movies, scoop and breaking up. scarlett johansson is a goddess and woody's sense of humor very subtle and cerebral.  i'm surprised that it didn't get such great reviews when it came out.  breaking up also made me laugh.  i didn't realize how gorgeous jennifer aniston is.  how could brad and vince dump her?  i'm so willing to father her child. 

i also managed to read half way through this book about cadaver's that the professor recommended to me (i pretty much read only books she recommends).  it's very interesting to find out what kind of lives cadavers take live after they die.  the surreal part was when i was reading through the section about how they investigated the corpses that they recovered  from the explosion of twa flight 800 over the atlantic a few years ago. there i was in a plane 35,000 feet in the air over the pacific reading about exploding planes!

the airplane food was surprisingly good. the service was of course exceptional.  anything is exceptional compared to american service which is rude at the onset to say the least.  you pretty much know that you're leaving the u.s. once you get in a foreign carrier and see the attendants smile.  you don't get the condescending, impersonal, i-don't -care-about-you-i'm -just-here-to-get-a-check american attitude.  and this has nothing to do with race or economic superiority of the carrier's flag.  my best experience was with lufthansa which is german and very white. japan airlines is a very close second and japan is a very rich country.

anyway, i'm so psyched about this vacation.  i'm finaly getting much needed time off by myself.  finals exam is over.  i passed the aiki test after weeks of sleeplessness and palpitations. now it's time to chill.  i'm off to panglao island on the 19th and will stay there for a week before coming back to manila for christmas, then meet family, friends, and old classmates.  it should be three weeks of decadence, i only hope my liver and lungs do not get fried by the time this vacation is over.

Currently Reading The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals By Michael Pollan see related

sexy

i don't watch much tv anymore, maybe thirty minutes a day if at all,  but last night was an exception. all throughout the day i kept on seeing ads for the victoria's secret annual lingerie show while at work.  what caught my attention  though was not the women but justin timberlake's sexyback.  that f**ckng tune is so catchy and i wanted to see the women strut thier stuff to sexyback.  kind of like a striptease but not really.

i used to know all the victoria's secret women back in the days of stephanie seymour, when heidi klum was just starting out. now i don't recognize any of them except for giselle bundchen.  and my god they're really skinny!!!  i thought to myself "this must be what they mean by a size 0" or perhaps even -2.  how realistic is that?!!! how many women are really that skinny (excluding those that are malnourished)?  you have to be on coke or some kind of drug plus have an eating disorder to maintain that seeming weightlessness.  i'd say less than one percent, especially here in the u.s. where two thirds of the population is obese. 

and who gets turned on by "that"?  maybe teenage boys who don't know any better.  as one gets older and wiser, one just realizes that skinny is not attractive.  maybe it's because of evolution. we evolved to pair up with women who will "survive".  those that have fat reserves who can withstand the cold weather, water and food shortages. this i think is the scientific reason.  on the practical side, a women who's a size 0 is just not as cuddly as someone who's an 8, or a 10, or even a 12.  and when you're having "sexytime" (according to the words of the great borat), it's just not pleasurable. it could sometimes even be painful.

on my way to barcelona i had a stop over in munich and in the airport they have this shop which i thought was really awesome.  victoria's secret ain't got nothin' on this one.  the display alone smacks kinky.  you'd think they sell bondage paraphernalia or sex toys you just haven't seen in your life before.  and this was in the airport! check out the shadow of the airport security men. were they watching the airport or the store display?

Currently Listening Adore By The Smashing Pumpkins see related

i thought i'd never post again and it's been quite a while since the last one.  many things have happened but everything's been pretty much the same.  school sucks and so does work.  i just got back from barcelona and am still recovering from over exhaustion.  i have lots of pictures to share but now i have to prepare for my trip to the philippines in two weeks while at the same time prepare for my aiki test and finish my xmas shopping.  too many things happening all at once and here i am sitting in front of the screen after i promised not to post anymore.

back in march i decided to disconnect myself from the net, cellphones, pagers, tv and any ohter forms of artificial communication and work improving my "personal" connections.  i still believe that virtual connectivity is the bane of this generation as it depersonalizes each and every participant in it while trapping us in our own personal cocoon while thinking and pretending that we are being social, perhaps more so than our parents and grandparets, since we have "connections" or "friends" from another city or country thousands of miles away.  this is probably why many of the youth today are so apathetic to the things happening around them.  the weather is out of whack and they turn to their computers.  people get bombed and they turn to their computers. a neighbor gets raped or killed and they shut everything out pretending nothing is happening while being protected in the safety of their virtual world.  escapism at the very least, criminal behavior if you ask me.

                                                           to be continued..........

                                      2252 dead.  
   

   For empire -- for ExxonMobil's HIGHEST PROFITS IN
HISTORY -- for Bechtel -- for Halliburton -- for
U.S. corporate hegemony over the Middle East and
permanent military bases in Iraq whether Iraqis want them or not  -- whether we want them or not.  And
what do we get?  Lies, lies, and more lies.
Torture, extraordinary renditions, chemical weapons
used on civilians during the siege of Fallujah,
pallets of cash stolen by Heritage Foundation hacks,
two countries destroyed, declining standard of
living in U.S., domestic spying -- especially on
antiwar groups, vets coming home to a VA system in
shambles, depleted uranium and the still-denied Gulf
War Syndrome affecting hundreds of thousands of Gulf
War I vets, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, not to
mention the seething hatred of U.S. foreign policy
by hundreds of millions of people all over the world
and especially in the Middle East.
    

This illegal war and occupation is coming up on
three years old now.  A movement is building of
people of conscience and principle who oppose it,
growing much much faster than the resistance to the
Vietnam war.  Be a part of history.  Be a part of
the Antiwar Movement.