Vanity

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Wade Hodges has a biblical alternative to 40 Days of Purpose. Heh heh.

(Okay, okay, so I’m a bit bitter. When I was in Baltimore, I attended several services at a PCUSA church which got so Purpose-Driven-Crazy that they showed a Rick Warren merchandise video at the call to worship, and the pastor filled his Easter Sermon with Purpose-Driven plugs. I stopped attending there pretty soon after. But before I get too elitist about this, I shall sober myself with an Outland admonition. Humble humble.)

Go Yankees

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Thanks to Amy’s influence, I’m now rooting for the Yanks. (At least until Washington DC revives the Senators.) My sympathies to all you Sox fans out there. I remain receptive to contrary views.

To Kris and Hell and Back Again

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I had little to say for Kris Aquino’s latest debacle because most of what I thought at the time, I had written just over a year ago.

(Backgrounder for those just arriving: Kris is the daughter of a national martyr and a former president, who is now a shrill and ditzy talk/game show host, and makes a habit of consorting with rich, married, high-profile movie stars. Now she says her latest boyfriend, a city mayor, was physically abusive, pointed a gun at her, and gave her a venereal disease.)

I cannot bring myself to feel sympathy or admiration for her. I know I tread on eggshells when I say that; certainly no woman deserves to be so treated for not having known better — even when she should know better. But when the lady publicly gallivants with married macho men, runs home to mommy after being jilted/abused, makes a showbiz spectacle of herself, then repeats the whole cycle all over again; at what point in this recurring drama are we supposed to consider her a heroine or a role model?

Lia points us to an important bit of perspective here: Incredible Kris (also published in shortened form in Inquirer). Meanwhile, another commentator considers other takes on Kris’ story.

At first, I had thought of commenting on Kris’s poor taste in men as typifying the Erap-esque macho stereotype which so pervades the Filipino psyche. Then I tried paralleling Kris’s own repetitive relational disasters as symbolic of the country’s penchant for electing, ousting, forgiving, and re-electing the wrong politicians. Then I thought about the fiery circus surrounding Kris’s “shocking revelations” and how the Philippine media milked the debacle for all it was worth, little helping the nation’s collective IQ.

Finally, I decided to just empty my mind and let Teta do the Tohking.

Photos / of

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Photos are back, now with pretty URLs. This was achieved with mod_rewrite and a line in .htaccess:

RewriteRule ^photos/of/(.*)/([0-9]+)$

/photos/album.php?directory=$1&photo=$2

(on one line)

That line takes the info from the album script’s query string and puts them into the new URL, thus hiding default cruft. The result: friendlier, more human navigation.

(I’ve tested it, but please inform me if any problems are encountered.)

OKCancel

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OK/Cancel: Funny up-and-coming online comic about an HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) Designer. Any graphic designer who has worked with hardcore, UI-challenged programmers should identify immediately with this one. (via anil’s daily links.)

Tight Circles

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Traposter, in which Mark traces the depressingly tight circles within which Filipino political power moves. I sort of fit in there somewhere: one of my cousins is married to a niece of former President Corazon Aquino. Not that the connection gives me any kind of public influence.

Taikonaut

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China launches a spaceman. Based on feedback on Metafilter and Slashdot, I would describe the general reaction as “guarded, magnanimous optimism.” The community is ebullient with congratulations to China, but there’s an underlying current of “Oh no, them thar oppressive Communists is a-beatin’ us at our own game!”

Seriously, it takes money, will, and guts to launch such an ambitious space endeavor — ambition which our own space program seems to have lost in a mess of budget cuts and gray hair. Come on, NASA! When will we be seeing that Space Plane? A Moon Base? A Mars Base?

Whales! Mate!

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In Finding Nemo, there’s a part where Marlin and Dory meet a humpback whale right in the turbid waters of Sydney Harbor. At that part, I commented to Amy that such things could not possibly happen near a big city port.

Well, I was wrong. Turns out it’s a fairly common occurrence down there.

Followup: Blogged at Shalom’s. Australia really is an action-packed place, ain’t it?