Sitting Out Dances

Tuesday morning linkies

2012-01-31T09:19:00.001+08:00

- How to have the Force [Altucher] On honesty.
- Algorithmic Education (including the Mathematics of Cramming) [Wired]
- How to write a best seller [WSJ's Dear Book Lover]

A short stroll through the massive library of advice books for writers proves that if there's anything writers like more than writing, it's telling other people how to do it. But not surprisingly, no two writers ply their craft the same way. Some writers outline their books, some don't. Some start with a character, some start with a scene, some (like Charles Dickens) know what the title is going to be before they write a word. Some insist that you should write in longhand; others swear by their laptops. It's a reminder of W. Somerset Maugham's statement that "There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."

- Are expensive batteries worth the extra cost? [Wired]
- Meet the parents: a fiancé for hire [FT]

Now, thanks to Taobao (the Chinese version of Ebay) and the inventiveness of the Chinese entrepreneur, they do not need to: for as little as Rmb100 per day, Chinese singles can rent a boyfriend to take home for lunar new year.
Chatting up the parents is included in the price, while hand-holding and hugging sometimes cost extra. The boyfriend-substitute will even share a bedchamber with the customer, if that helps persuade the doubting parents. There seems little limit to the a la carte ingenuity of the companies that provide this service: some even offer to waive the fee if the girl and guy share the same bed.

- Starbikes: the poor Indonesian's Starbucks [Jakarta Globe]
- Meet the marriage killer: nagging. [WSJ]
- How do we identify good ideas? [Wired]
- "What if..." Movies reimagined for another time and place [Behance Network]
- Everything you thought you knew about learning is wrong [Wired]
- NattO, maggot cheese and other food that may repel [WSJ]

Locals consider it unsafe to eat casu marzu once the larvae have died, so it is served while the translucent white worms, about one-third of an inch long, are still squiggling. Some people clear the maggots from the cheese before consuming it; others do not. Those who leave the maggots may have to cover the cheese with their hands—when disturbed, the maggots can jump up to six inches.

It is no accident that you likely feel revolted by many of these descriptions. The most elemental purpose of the emotion of disgust is to make us avoid rotted and toxic food.

So why are fermented saliva, decomposed shark and maggot-ridden cheese so desirable in some cultures? Is it just a quirky paradox of the human condition that we eagerly consume things that give off all the signals of putrefaction?

- Don't call introverted children 'shy' [Time]

Let's get it on

2012-01-28T05:51:00.001+08:00

Sunday morning linkies

2012-01-22T09:57:00.004+08:00

- What is it like to be asexual? [BBC] I wish I were a plant. Well, I'm a bit like one, I guess.
- Sequoia: Looking for the Next Berkshire [Morningstar]
- The secrets Apple keeps [Fortune]
- Throwing a large dinner party [WSJ]
- Five ways the digital camera changed us [BBC]

But Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture, says the digital camera has destroyed the craft of photography.

"Everyone now is a photographer. Everyone now likes to record everything endlessly." There is a huge contrast, he suggests, between that and the distinguished female photographer he's friends with who takes very few photographs but with huge care.

"Photography has become so easy meaning that people don't really think a photo has any intrinsic value. And what concerns me most is that photographers as a profession are being decimated by online theft."

Of course, it's easy to counter that this is more about the internet than digital cameras and is hardly restricted to photography.

But there are some who wonder whether the ease of recording vast amounts of visual imagery might have changed fundamentally the way we experience things.

- Are smart people ugly? The Explainer's 2011 Question of the Year [Slate]
- Some of my worst friends are books [The Guardian]
- Things I wish I had written [Penelope Trunk]
- Consumption makes us sad? Science says we can be happy with less [the Daily Beast]

In reflecting on the past or contemplating the future, people are happier when they have experiences on their minds than when they have things on their minds. And the higher a person’s income is, the bigger the disparity between the joys of doing and the joys of having.

- No one knows truth about $300 billion bonds from alleged crash [Bloomberg] Bond forgeries in the Philippines!

Wednesday Linkies

2012-01-18T10:40:00.001+08:00

- John Steinbeck on Falling in Love: A 1958 letter [The Atlantic]
- This is why you don't go to the gym. [The Atlantic]
- Breast implants: the first 50 years [The Guardian]
- Ricky Gervais would like to nonapologize [NYT]
- The art of the modern movie trailer [NPR]
- In praise of binge TV consumption [Wired]
- Simon Doonan's eating guide for gay and straight [NYT]
- Community star Donald Glover / Childish Gambino interview [GQ]
- Happy enough: finance is regulated as much as we want it to be [Interloper]
- 9 things I learned from Woody Allen [Altucher]

Period.

2012-01-16T14:30:00.000+08:00

What kind of woman hasn't at least once become cantankerous at the appearance of one's monthly visitor?

It's that time of the month again for me, and I'm on my second day which accounts for my hunching over my laptop as my back begins to ache, with my stomach pressed almost painfully against my desk in order to stop the discomfort inside my traitorous body.

And since my period did not show up last month as my body schedule was disrupted by more than usual fatigue and stress, this month's wondrous side effects are really making themselves felt. Which is why I am currently resisting the urge to vomit and and then curl up under my desk in a fetal position while I curse at all the men who are not going through the same thing.

The worst part about having one's period is that you can't even wish that you don't have it. Because usually, not having one's period means one of two things: (1) there's something wrong with you, or (2) there's something wrong with you. And by number one I mean there's a parasite living in your womb, and by number two I mean your girly inside parts are really sick, e.g. your body is clogged up which means all the filth that's supposed to come out is swimming inside your body, unable to get out.

Saturday morning linkies

2012-01-14T07:28:00.001+08:00

- When Foodies Marry Non-Foodies: How Couples Keep Mealtimes Happy [WSJ] For any future boyfriend/husband I might have.
- Ted Weschler: More on Warren Buffett's Reluctant Sidekick [WSJ]
- New ways calories can add up to weight gain [WSJ]

The findings suggest that it matters little whether a diet is high or low in fat, carbohydrates or protein, it's calories that build body fat.

"That's a very important message," said Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, an obesity researcher at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., who wasn't involved with the study. "Weight gain depends primarily on excess calories, regardless of the composition of the meal."

- Canadian Pacific and Ackman Spar [Value Plays] Response over here.
- The ONE way to achieve your New Year's resolutions [Altucher]
- The big bad swap: the problem with replaced music [NPR]
- Steve Jobs owes us all an apology [Dinosaur Trader] The title's too sensationalist for me, but the blog post's pretty good.
- Album covers minus the dead guys [ONTD]
- How many Stephen Colberts are there? [NYT]
- Honest brand logos

- The myth of Japan's failure [NYT]

By many measures, the Japanese economy has done very well during the so-called lost decades, which started with a stock market crash in January 1990. By some of the most important measures, it has done a lot better than the United States.

Japan has succeeded in delivering an increasingly affluent lifestyle to its people despite the financial crash. In the fullness of time, it is likely that this era will be viewed as an outstanding success story.

How can the reality and the image be so different? And can the United States learn from Japan’s experience?

- The root of some evil [The Epicurean Dealmaker] TED comments on research regarding links between banker compensation and the financial crisis.
- Behind every great woman [Business Week]

“Once I knew my role was providing for the family, I took that very seriously. But there was envy knowing I wasn’t there for our son during the day,” says Blodgett. “Keith does everything at home—the cooking, repairs, finances, vacation planning—and I could work long hours and travel a lot, knowing he took such good care of Trent. I love my work, but I would have liked to have a little more balance or even understand what that means.”

Blodgett’s lament is becoming more familiar as a generation of female breadwinners look back on the sacrifices—some little, some profound—required to have the careers they wanted. Like hundreds of thousands of women who have advanced into management roles in the past two decades—and, in particular, the hundreds who’ve become senior corporate officers—she figured out early what every man with a corner office has long known: To make it to the top, you need a wife. If that wife happens to be a husband, and increasingly it is, so be it.

Risk

2012-01-13T07:36:00.001+08:00

Read a few pages of an old romance novel I've read a few times now. The male protagonist said, "I think you should come out of hiding, Sofie. Paint what you want. Openly. Sell your paintings. Risk rejection. Wear beautiful gowns, change your hair, go to society balls and teas and the races. Let men see you as you really are."

Come out of hiding.
Risk rejection.

The problem with being deeply averse to failure and rejection is you keep yourself locked up, away from both the bad things and the good things that could happen to you.

I want to be less afraid. But I think I'll always be afraid; I'll always think of what could go wrong because that's the way my mind works. I think of all possible scenarios and rank them by probability of happening. I like being prepared.

I won't try to be less afraid. I choose to be more courageous.

Dating vs. Hanging Out

2012-01-11T20:40:00.002+08:00

Dating to me is when both parties are at the time of the date, open to the possibility, even if improbable, of a relationship happening between them. Anything outside of that is just hanging out. Even if one person likes the other; it can't be a date simply because one person wants it to be a date.

Men vs. Women, on new clothes

2012-01-10T09:26:00.000+08:00

A girl friend, upon seeing me in something new or something she hasn't yet seen, immediately makes a remark: "Oooooooohhhh, nice dress/top! You look so nice!"

A boy friend, upon seeing me in something new or something he hasn't yet seen, talks about everything else except my new clothes. After he blathers on about other things for ten minutes, I say, "Hey, this is the new top I told you about!"

He says, "Oh okay."

Dear guy friends -- this is the point where you either (1) say "Oh hey, it looks great on you," or (2) lie.

Things That Make Me Deliriously Happy, Part VI

2012-01-07T22:56:00.001+08:00

Dear Hanakazu,

I don't know what you include in your food or how you cook it, but damn it you make me like Japanese food*.

Danielle

*some, anyway.

Insults

2012-01-05T11:07:00.000+08:00

I love insults but it's hard to find a suitable situation to use them in without actually insulting anyone. So far, I've only been able to call some people (read: boys) troglodytes -- because they really were -- and that went okay.

I do however, wish to call someone a scoundrel (appropriately) to his face. Now if I can only find one.

"You scoundrel!" she whispered angrily.

Perhaps this:

"You cur! You ill-mannered buffoon!"

Or how about fiendish? Incorrigible. Oh -- insufferable! I.e. "You are the most arrogant, insufferable person I have had the misfortune of meeting."

Okay, I might have read too many romance novels.

Wednesday Linkies

2012-01-04T11:21:00.000+08:00

- Dutch TV hosts eat their own flesh on air [Time] Because why not?
- 'Financial amnesia' a factor behind crisis [FT]
- Insights on the writing of Steve Jobs [Fortune]
- Forgetting is key to a healthy mind [Scientific American]
- Regrets of 2011 [Frank Voisin] Five regrets people have near the end of their lives.
- 'Harry Potter': Alan Rickman looks back on decade of dark magic [LA Times]
- James Altucher on marriage; a checklist or guide of sorts that a person considering marriage should really go through. They should make couples go over this before they get married.
- What Fidelity asked Warren Buffett [WSJ]
- Mindy Kaling on chick flicks [The New Yorker]
- From six economists, six ways to face 2012 [NYT]
- Scott Adams's Year Without Fear [NYT]

My danger-avoidance lifestyle worked, and I enjoyed a long string of injury-free years. But I always had a nagging feeling that I was missing out. How can you know if the chance you didn't take was the one that would have enriched your life versus, for example, something that would have ended up with you chewing your own arm off to escape? Enrichment and arm-gnawing look roughly the same when viewed from the start.

- How to break up with a woman [Yahoo]
- The 50 Best Movies of 2011 [Paste]
- The Fat Trap [NYT]

For years, the advice to the overweight and obese has been that we simply need to eat less and exercise more. While there is truth to this guidance, it fails to take into account that the human body continues to fight against weight loss long after dieting has stopped. This translates into a sobering reality: once we become fat, most of us, despite our best efforts, will probably stay fat.

- Most Popular Photography Tips, Tricks, and Hacks of 2011 [Lifehacker]
- The Red Giant (Five Reasons Facebook is Over) [Reformed Broker]
- The Money Paradox [Barron's]

Surprise! Investing money is like sex: "Passions makes fools of the cleverest men and can sometimes make a fool seem clever." Investors should remember this old French aphorism in times of market stress and volatility.

- George Whitman: A bibliophile in Paris [The Economist]
- Ready to try on Mr. Buffett's Shoes [WSJ]
- What Vietnam taught us about breaking bad habits [NPR]
- Chicken Dinner [Of Bat Shit Crazies and Downtime]
- The New Full-Frontal: Has Pubic Hair in America Gone Extinct? [The Atlantic]

Herbenick recalls one encounter in which a popular, well-liked college student in a class she taught openly professed that he had never hooked up with a girl who had pubic hair, and would frankly be disgusted to undress a woman and discover a veil of genital fur.

"Some girls talked to me and wrote in their papers that they had always had pubic hair, and in a couple cases never did anything to their pubic hair," she said. "They never thought it was a problem. But when he said that, they went home and changed it. They really started to feel ashamed about their bodies."

- The Joy of Quiet [NYT]
- Why is the Freedom app so popular? [Slate]
- Solitude and Leadership [the American Scholar]

So this is the new year, and I don't feel any different

2012-01-02T23:31:00.000+08:00

Spent the first day of 2012 with my family and two groups of friends, which meant I had a pretty good day.

The food certainly contributed to my happiness:

Le Magnifique - bananas, almonds and chocolate syrup

This peach concoction which I didn't bother to learn the name of because I don't like peaches

The wonderful, wonderful cafe mocha at Cafe Breton

...and the breast cake from Starbucks

May this upcoming year, regardless of the amount of crap that may or may not come, still be as nice and happy as that first day.

December 31, 2011

2011-12-31T21:28:00.000+08:00

Dear 2011,

Hi.

You gave me a lot of reasons to hate you, but I'm kinda okay with it. By now, anyway. I mean sure, you did give me The Cockroach Incident and the even worse Fly Fiasco. A copious amount of tears were shed when my much-loved grandfather passed away, and when our beloved dog Kobe also said farewell. Then there was the surprise break-up, and failing the CFA exam (I'm pretty sure) twice.

On the one hand, you certainly put a lot of color into my relatively quiet life: great music which of course includes this concert, new food that I surprisingly liked and now love, plenty of awesome gifts, a super nice 25th birthday, new friends, and more time with people I really like and love.

And GISHWHES. Let's not forget GISHWHES.

Also, dog. Because dog.

In any case, regardless of whether there was more of the bad stuff than the good (I honestly can't tell because I don't think that way), I'm pretty happy. Though I figure that's partly because that's my default setting, just generally being happy with how my life's moving along.

You're leaving in a few hours, 2011. With all that's happened this year, I'm not compelled to say that you suck, or that I'll miss you. I'm mostly just pleased with you because any year where I: am happy + live in a house with my family + see my friends often + meet new people that I like + get to read a lot + get to listen to music a lot + eat food that I like + is relatively healthy -- well, that can't be anything but a damn good year.

Happiness at the end of a rough year

Tuesday Linkies

2011-12-27T12:40:00.000+08:00

- An inside look at David Einhorn's big short [Reuters]

- Five reasons why most don't become wealthy [Brian Tracy]

- Confessions of an Amazon elf [The Globe and Mail]

- Twas the night before Christmas, Value Edition [Frank Voisin]

- How to ace a Google interview [WSJ]

- Navigating Love and Autism [NYT]

- Amy Chua: Tiger Mom's Long-Distance Cub [WSJ]

Here's the key to tiger parenting, which a lot of people miss: It's really only about very early child-rearing, and it's most effective when your kids are between the ages of, say, 5 and 12. When practiced correctly, tiger parenting can produce kids who are more daring and self-reliant, not less.

Tiger parenting is often confused with helicopter parenting, but they could not be more different. In fact, the former eliminates the need for the latter. At its core, tiger parenting—which, if you think about it, is not that different from the traditional parenting of America's founders and pioneers—assumes strength, not weakness, in children. By contrast, helicopter parenting—which, as far as I can tell, has no historical roots and is just bad—is about parents, typically mothers, hovering over their kids and protecting them, carrying their sports bags for them and bailing them out, possibly for their whole lives.

Cupcakes

2011-12-25T23:43:00.001+08:00

I baked at least 200 mini-cupcakes for The Sister's Christmas giveaways. And then I baked at least another six dozen more for my own Christmas giveaway.

By the end of it I never wanted to see a chocolate cupcake again. 'Course, a few days after, the pain over making so many cupcakes subsided and I find myself wanting to bake something again. I have my eye on a chocolate chip cookie pie that would probably go well with vanilla ice cream on top. Mmmmm.

This post is brought to you by a sleep-deprived mind. That is all.

Linkies: single women, China's real estate bubble, gift-giving, and Ron Paul's portfolio

2011-12-22T12:42:00.000+08:00

- All the Single Ladies [The Atlantic] Emphasis mine, by the way. Great article about marriage and being single.

In 1969, when my 25-year-old mother, a college-educated high-school teacher, married a handsome lawyer-to-be, most women her age were doing more or less the same thing. By the time she was in her mid-30s, she was raising two small children and struggling to find a satisfying career. She’d never had sex with anyone but my father. Could she have even envisioned herself on a shopping excursion with an ex-lover, never mind one who was getting married while she remained alone? And the ex-lover’s fiancée being so generous and open-minded as to suggest the shopping trip to begin with?

What my mother could envision was a future in which I made my own choices. I don’t think either of us could have predicted what happens when you multiply that sense of agency by an entire generation.

But what transpired next lay well beyond the powers of everybody’s imagination: as women have climbed ever higher, men have been falling behind. We’ve arrived at the top of the staircase, finally ready to start our lives, only to discover a cavernous room at the tail end of a party, most of the men gone already, some having never shown up—and those who remain are leering by the cheese table, or are, you know, the ones you don’t want to go out with.

- China's real estate bubble may have just popped [Foreign Affairs]

The biggest unanswered question is whether existing investors -- the people holding all those sold but empty "ghost" condos and villas -- will join in the sell-off, which could turn the market's retreat into a rout. So far, that has not materialized. Unlike highly leveraged developers, most multi-home buyers invested their own money and do not face the same immediate pressures to sell. However, their willingness to hold idle properties depends on real estate's reliability as a store of value -- a rationale that seems to be disintegrating before home buyers' eyes. While pre-owned home prices in Beijing fell only three percent last month, transaction volumes there and in other cities have plummeted (down 50 percent year on year in Shenzhen, 57 percent in Tianjin, and 79 percent in Changsha), suggesting that many owners would like to sell -- so long as it is not at a loss -- but are having trouble finding buyers. Would-be residents, who once felt pressured to buy before prices rose even further, now prefer to wait and look around for a better deal.

In recent weeks, a growing chorus has called on the government to lift restrictions on multiple home purchases -- revealing, when push comes to shove, just how much the market has come to depend on investor, rather than end-user, demand. But both types of demand depend, in their own way, on the assumption of ever-rising prices. Unless that assumption can somehow be restored, neither looser regulation nor looser lending will persuade the Chinese to pile back into property. Just as elsewhere, China's monetary authorities may find themselves, as it's said, pushing on a string of unwilling demand.

- Giving a condom, plus 11 other things one can give [Altucher] These are the best kinds of gifts, in my opinion. Think of this, specifically letter B, when you're getting someone a gift.

- How Ron Paul invests [WSJ] Ron Paul FTW!

At our request, William Bernstein, an investment manager at Efficient Portfolio Advisors in Eastford, Conn., reviewed Rep. Paul’s portfolio as set out in the annual disclosure statement. Mr. Bernstein says he has never seen such an extreme bet on economic catastrophe. ”This portfolio is a half-step away from a cellar-full of canned goods and nine-millimeter rounds,” he says.

Dear Julie Gail L. Malana

2011-12-21T06:49:00.000+08:00

I was supposed to record this skit about how the Cow and the Sheepy met. It would've gone like this:

Once upon a time, on one 21st of December, a super cheerful Kitteh-Cow was born into this world. She grew up a relatively happy child, but her childhood is of no importance here because the ONLY thing that matters is her sixth year in grade school where every morning before class she would play jackstones with a quiet little Sheepy. [Well, it would've been the only thing that matters were it not for the fact that Cow cannot recall playing jackstones with the Sheepy.]

Anyhoo, Cow grew up befriending people who were also friends with Sheepy, but it wasn't until they were in fourth year high school, when they bonded over anime and their efforts trying to write stories of romance, that they became Friends.

Suddenly - college. The Sheepy and Cow remained friends, helped by the fact that their schools were right in front of each other. And then a bunch of other stuff happened that I can't think of right now because I haven't gotten any sleep and my eyes are practically closed as I type this THEPOINTBEING Sheepy and Cow somehow became super duper awesome best friends despite driving each other nuts occasionally.

I was even thinking of doing a stop-motion video showing that, instead of just recording a video of us [as portrayed by Puck and Evil Cow].

But then 200+ mini cupcakes got in the way and before I knew it, it was five in the morning, I'm famished and weak and my heart's palpitating for some reason.

So instead of that epic Excel-laced [seriously, I planned to put some Excel work in that video. Because.] stop-motion video of friendship, here is a video where Sheepy ignores Cow for a book and Cow reacts accordingly.

That is all. Bow.

Wait, no -- P.S. please remember that I haven't slept at all hence the silliness. You will also notice that my arm peeks out throughout the video, caused by my unnatural position against the floor with my neck bent at an odd angle [among other body parts] in an effort to see the video while it was recording. It was difficult. But I persevered (if you can call one take perseverance) and finished the damn video.

So there. A ridiculous video from a ridiculous sheep for a super nice Kitteh-Cow.

...And for the lulz, of course.

Happy happy birthday, Jules! \o/

Tuesday Linkies

2011-12-20T11:20:00.000+08:00

- Ta-Ta! Woman's body 'swallows' breast implant [ABC News]

- Stephen Merchant moves from Gervais's shadow to stand-up [NYT]

Mr. Merchant’s comedy routine is gentler, less spiky and less meant to provoke or spread uneasiness than that of his prickly, controversialist friend. He lampoons his own extreme stinginess (“If you go on a Steve date, there will be no popcorn”); his extreme height (he’s 6 foot 7; “I spent a lot of my youth leaning”); and his extreme haplessness, as when an attractive woman in a crowd at Trafalgar Square asked him to wait for her, “because my friends and I have arranged to meet back at you.”

- Men think they're hot -- and it works [Discovery News]

Plenty of previous studies have confirmed the stereotype: Men tend to have an overinflated sense of how sexually appealing they are to women. It's not that they think every woman they meet wants to go to bed with them, Perilloux said.

Rather, men are more likely to walk away form an interaction with a woman thinking that she's into him, while the woman thinks, "Well, that was a nice friendly conversation."

- Book Review: Magical Mathematics [WSJ] TIL you need seven shuffles to adequately mix a deck of 52 playing cards.

- The Bobcats! Episode 5! [The Oatmeal]

- Louis C.K. plays a serious joke on TV [NYT]

“I think it is really interesting that I brought the price so close to stealing and made the movie so easy to get and made it so clear that it’s a human offering that it sparked a debate about pirating,” he wrote. “To steal from someone and not feel bad, you either have to be a sociopath or view the act differently.”

Thursday Linkies

2011-12-15T12:10:00.001+08:00

- Why it really is better to give than to receive [WSJ]

Another problem is that, even when we do know what people want, we often ignore this information and buy them something we think they'll think is more special or personal. Big mistake, say Profs. Flynn and Gino. Their study found that even though we expect solicited and unsolicited gifts to be appreciated equally, the truth is that people are more appreciative of gifts they request than those they don't. This holds true even when nonrequested gifts are similar in price to requested ones. Recipients simply feel that gifts they've asked for are more thoughtful than gifts they haven't requested, and that people who give requested gifts are more attentive and responsive to their needs, according to the study.

- OWS and why anyone not at their desks by 7:30 is a nobody [Interloper]

- How to spot a scammer [Altucher]

The way they talk it almost sounds like there’s free money. One guy said, “just go to this lunch and we’ll give you part of the company.” NOBODY wants to give you money for free.

- Chinese Investors Face New Pressures [WSJ]

Nearly 70% of consumers surveyed in the richest provinces in China – Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, Tianjin, Zhejiang and Jiangsu – agree with the statement that “owning luxury goods demonstrates my success and social status.”

- English butlers making a beeline to China

- Ten Biggest Market Moments of 2011 [Reformed Broker]

- Don't support your local bookstore [Slate]

Rather than focus on the ways that Amazon’s promotion would harm businesses whose demise might actually be a cause for alarm (like a big-box electronics store that hires hundreds of local residents), Russo hangs his tirade on some of the least efficient, least user-friendly, and most mistakenly mythologized local establishments you can find: independent bookstores. Russo and his novelist friends take for granted that sustaining these cultish, moldering institutions is the only way to foster a “real-life literary culture,” as writer Tom Perrotta puts it. Russo claims that Amazon, unlike the bookstore down the street, “doesn’t care about the larger bookselling universe” and has no interest in fostering “literary culture.”

That’s simply bogus. As much as I despise some of its recent tactics, no company in recent years has done more than Amazon to ignite a national passion for buying, reading, and even writing new books. With his creepy laugh and Dr. Evil smile, Bezos is an easy guy to hate, and I’ve previously worried that he’d ruin the book industry. But if you’re a novelist—not to mention a reader, a book publisher, or anyone else who cares about a vibrant book industry—you should thank him for crushing that precious indie on the corner.

Things That Make Me Deliriously Happy, Part V

2011-12-01T14:04:00.000+08:00

This is the chicken shawarma from SSC. You can confirm how much I enjoy this by my glazed eyes and moans of pleasure. This isn't just food, it's an experience.

A Very Sweet Birthday Greeting

2011-11-29T10:40:00.001+08:00

Happy 25th Birthday, old lady! You know what this means:

-Your lifelong dream of becoming a GRO will never be realized. You're too old to be a GRO. Strip joints will surely never hire you. You probably won't even get a job as a waitress or as a concierge.

-Crushing on a cute japanese boy? Forget it. You're 25, single and thus, succinctly called "old fruit cake" in Japan. If you were able to magically travel back in time to WWII, japanese soldiers wouldn't even bother to turn you into a comfort woman. (What a shame!)

-You're automatically disqualified from joining most beauty pageants. (Too bad, I know how you love answering those Q&As).

-25 years old is the average marrying age for women in the Philippines. Since you're not married yet, you are definitely an old maid. Well, at least in your grandmother's eyes.

-Your market value will decline immensely regardless of looks, skills, intelligence and personality.

-In pro-forma application forms, you'd have to check the box corresponding to the age bracket of 25 to 40yrs. old. (Nobody gets over this. Nobody!)

-"I'm young" is no longer an excuse. (Dammit! It's my favorite get-out-of-jail card.)

-Your claim to fame, e.g. being too young to be doing whatever it is you are presently doing, has become moot and baseless.

-Berlusconi wouldn't even bother to sexually harass you.

-You've become a potential cougar.

-Expect some changes in physique. Seriously, you will lose your strength, stamina, vitality and sense of focus. You'll also start to have wrinkles and gain some weight.

Again, my dear best friend, whom I endearingly refer to as "The Penis Lady" (for your strength, vitality, endurance and hard-headedness), I wish you a happy, happy birthday! On a serious note, I am proud of the person that you've become. You are, indeed, one of the best people I know. I wanted to buy you Eric Bana for your birthday but that dude costs like $300,000/12 hours. So, I bought you Justin Bieber instead for a cheap price of PhP20.00/hour. Enjoy! You'll receive him through FedEx tomorrow morning in your office. Beat the crap out of that kid!

Irish

Why I Want to Make Money

2011-11-25T13:26:00.001+08:00

1. So I don't have to worry about not having it.

2. So I can help people out. [Idea: Library/study place for students, since we have really crappy or few libraries.]

3. So I can do the things I really want to do. If I want to stop working and just read for three months straight, YES I CAN. FYEAH. If I want to walk where Julie Delpy did in Before Sunset, YES I CAN.

4. It buys me time, to a certain extent.

5. It will enable me to do super awesome things [e.g. do all of the things on the GISHWHES List, if I wanted to] which will likely include charitable activities.

How can it be a bad thing to want money? It isn't. You might be referring to greed instead.

Damn, that shit is whack.

2011-11-16T13:52:00.001+08:00

These three songs have been on heavy rotation on my iPod lately, quite simply because they're like crack for ears:

Amazing live version of a very good song. Starts out almost meek but then it transforms into a mass of F-ING BRILLIANCE and eyes made out of intensity. I think it's time for me to spend an hour or two singing along until I can correctly sing along with it. I'm gonna be in line in a Starbucks with my ipod/earphones on and Imma rap along out loud with this genius motherfucker.

Everybody wants somebody who doesn't want them

Best song off Patrick Stump's album Soul Punk. Nice live acoustic version over here. Dude's singing still improving, from the looks of it.

Oooh ooh-ooh ooh, I gotta love that keeps me waiting

Lonely Boy is the Black Keys' first single off their new album El Camino, coming out on the sixth of December. As if the song by itself isn't great enough, they make a video of this guy dancing and singing along to the song. Good luck trying not to dance, too.

Bonus: Awesome dancing guy being interviewed by Ellen (more dancing ahead.)

11/11/11 a.k.a. Day of Keisie

2011-11-13T21:57:00.001+08:00

This blog post starts with a yellow birthday cupcake.

When Keisie arrived in Starbucks, I already had her space on the study table prepared: there was a gift atop it waiting to be opened and a venti iced americano drink waiting to be consumed. (Thank you, Starbucks baristas for knowing what Keisie always orders. I've already forgotten what that americano drink is, actually.) Meanwhile, she had with her five delightful red velvet cupcakes that looked so cute I wanted to lick them, until I remembered I can actually eat them. We set them aside, and went on to the gift first.

Keisie unwrapped the gift slowly and very carefully. The gift-wrap paper with prints of pretty shoes revealed this book: Ultimate Food Journeys. We oooh-ed and aaah-ed over it, all giddy and such. We agreed that the book called for handwritten notes; hopefully in a few months there should be some scribbles in it.

Birthday Lunch

We decided to eat at Hanakazu along Aguirre Ave. even though I usually dislike Japanese food because one - she loves their food, and two - as for me, I thought I'd give it a try since Keisie always tells me that I should give good Japanese food a shot.

Keisie did the ordering, naturally. While waiting, we were served this:

I'm not quite sure what that is, and neither was Keisie, but we tried it and we both liked it. Which is pretty much all that you want from food, so that was good.

And then there were the rolls. I also liked them, never mind that it had a bit of mayo in it and tiny pieces of cucumber, two food items I hate. It's hard to go wrong with prawn.

Closer...

Moment before being devoured

I took out the cucumber slices before eating this. Heh.

As for the tempura, they were deelish. I'm not sure what kind of prawns they use in Hanakazu, but it both tasted and felt different -- better.

We also had a piece each of chicken, the ingenious backup order in case I did not like anything else. It was okay, but it got eclipsed by all of the other orders.

Specifically, the beef.

Uncooked but still pretty

Simmering

Ready!

Oh God, this beef. I could write an ode to these strips of soft, succulent beef. My friends and family know of my aversion to red meat, especially beef, so this is definitely a surprise, but man oh man. This beef. It is made of magic. It made me like beef. (But just that particular beef.)

In fact, while we were waiting for a jeep back to Starbucks, we fixated on the beef. Keisie would go on full-foodie mode, describing how and why the beef was so luscious while I nodded my head and repeatedly replied, "Mmmmm. Good beef."

Birthday Cake/Dessert

Finally! I've finally eaten a red velvet (cup)cake. I have low tolerance for food that is sugary sweet but I happily had my first taste of a red velvet cupcake.

I'm glad I had to take the day off from work to get some things done, which allowed me to have a super fun birthday lunch with this lady:

...who has been my pusher, introducing me to a lot of awesome things (Harry Potter quiz games, Risk, graphic novels, goddamn Monopoly Deal, even MORE reading, good romance novels -- among many others) since we became close friends in the year 2000, fourth year high school. (Incidentally, eleven years ago.)

Happy birthday again, dear!
*hugs*

This blog post ends with a seriously injured red and yellow cupcake, with the heart still intact as of the moment the picture was taken. The cupcake was properly disposed of after the photo. With our forks.