Those Doughnuts

What is it with doughnuts? I have no idea why people all over the globe are obsessed with doughnuts, I don’t mean just the men in blue. I could remember practically living on Dunkin’ Doughnuts’ munchkins for a day as a kid – I don’t mean a piece or two here, more like the whole mini-bunch.

Growing up, I was crazy about doughnuts: soon as I outgrew the munchkins and started pretending that I’m not absolutely addicted to sweets, I moved on to Mister Donuts doughnut cakes;

when GoNuts Donuts opened at the Fort, getting in line for a solid half an hour (or more) to secure two or three boxes of freshly baked doughnuts holes became part of my father’s aide’s daily duties;

and Krispy Kreme, puh-leeze, I was already having an affair with the glazed sourcream and NY cheesecake way before they even opened here in Manila. Believe it or not, I was so crazy for Krispy Kreme that those I enjoyed pre-Krispy-Kreme-Philippines were flown in from the states.

So what is it about doughnuts that people of all ages and class just can’t resist? I don’t know! Maybe it’s because it’s so easy to eat, especially the bite-size munchkins; maybe it’s because it is so convenient to eat (pick it up, with or without tissue depending on your neatness standards, and go) that anyone with half a brain and the worst body coordination can eat this while doing something else; maybe because it’s colorful (hey, studies proved this!); maybe because everyone we know has stuffed their faces with this particular food at one point of their life or another, that eating it so comfortingly familiar; maybe because we all secretly want to be cops (okay, so maybe that’s reaching). Why do we love doughnuts? I don’t know! I can only tell you why I love eating doughnuts: because it’s sweet and it’s carb and every heavenly bite is guaranteed to go straight to your thighs and ass – and if you can indulge in that and still look halfway great, then by god you have it made. And thanks to the genius who put up drive through at the Krispy Kreme branch @ Greenhills.

Vanity – or not?

When I first experimented with heels, I did so in staggering fashion; with a three inch stiletto, held in place by the thinnest strip of black leather you could find across my toes and a second one running from the outside of my big toe to my outer ankle. I know, it was screaming ‘suicide!’, but well I always prided myself on being a fast learner so…

Needless to say, I nearly cried after five minutes in those stilettos. I nearly cried inside, that is, and I really did cry too – in the safety of my tinted Pajero truck. A week later, I wore the murderous ( I say murderous ‘cos they’re that gorgeous, and they also murder my feet) heels again. It was during this week that I learned of the phrase ‘the price of vanity’.

I don’t think I’m a vain person, although my sister would argue this. I’ve never been one to stick to a regimen of night creams and all that goo, to monthly visits to the derma that for chrissake make people cry, to an hour of gym every night so you could fit into that little black dress, to half an hour of putting on a face – make-up on your face, I mean. I don’t even blow dry my hair and it’s a mass of swirls and curls reaching my elbow, so yes, I really don’t think I’m vain.

Not that way, anyway.

You see, I believe in something I once heard someone say (can’t rightly recall who…) ‘if you’ve got it, flaunt it’. Looking back, I think this might have influence my line of thought more than I thought, shaped my philosphy on this matter, so to speak. So I whenever I see people struggling to stay awake as they smeared whatever’s poop or something on their faces to have white skin, wince in pain to create the illusion of lighter-coloured brows, nearly collapse from a solid hour of crunches to flatten a rounded belly, and so much make-up it’s more of a mask… I can’t help it! I can’t stop the disgusted look on my face, and think ‘you had it coming’ when they get cramps or shed a few tears for pain. I know it sounds evil, but come on, isn’t it just a bit ridiculous?

Maybe my thought is twisted, likely I just haven’t thought it through enough to construct it nicely. But I really believe that those things are different things from, say, wearing rollers for a few minutes to discipline your waves, or putting on some tint to your defined cheekbones, catching extra rays to enhance your tan. I think my philosophy is really working with what’s there. Whats the use of cursing down entire religions because you weren’t born with the skin tone or hair texture that you want? Nothing, that’s what.

I”d rather work with what I have. Improve it, enhance it, highlight it. Point for me is, these things are mine, they’re real; it’s not comparable to bleached skin, straighthened hair, implanted boobies and such, at least not for me. I’m five feet six inches and a half tall, I have a natural purplishh hue to my cheeks and Asian tan, midnight eyes and a stream of black swirls and curls. Oh, and one of my favorite pairs of footwear is a pair of black four-inch peep-toe Aldo’s.

the Morning Rush

If you have ever experienced the morning rush in Manila with the FM turned on, you’d know that Morning Rush is a radio show aired during (you guessed it) morning rush on weekdays, hosted by the funniest twosome in FM, Chico & Dela Mar. I’ve been listening to this duo since college when I’d first driven everyday to and from school, and if they turn out to be one sort of vampire or wolf or any other immortal (notice I didn’t add elf or fairy or any fair species here) then I’d probably be listening to them for the rest of the my life – that I’m awake between 6-9 on weekdays, that is, and where there is a radio or internet connection.

I like listening to the Morning Rush because of the Top Ten (which is basically the top ten of pretty much anything under the sun and some that would never see the sun, sent in by rushers – that’s us, people). 95% of the time the Top Ten is freakishly hilarious; 5% of the time, its cornball, which is still funny as Chico & Del are experts at cornball. (go to chicogarcia.wordpress.com and click away at the TopTen for a replay of past TopTens)

Another reason to love this show is the music (duh, it’s FM radio). The DJs have pretty good taste and odds are good that you’d catch something funky, something mellow, something to make your car frame vibrate, something to sing along to at the top of your voice in the privacy of your car as you otherwise wouldn’t dare play it let alone sing to it even though you know every word by heart and could do every dance step in your sleep (… as long as you love me, baby…)

What’s cool with this show is that they also feature student DJs from different schools. So yeah, we get a chance to ‘preview’ the voices that would soon rule the airwaves. (sadly, haven’t heard from a Knoller here, but I must keep my hopes up…)

What’s impressive is the bits and peices of knowledge you get from the Chico & Del which, one way or another, just comes up (Chico can be such a geek; it’s good geeks are in fashion nowadays).

And what kicks ass (you MUST tune in to 93.1 and listen to this firsthand) is the jingle performed by Rico Robles – who, by the way, is pretty cute.

This is why I don’t despise the morning rush so much, I always have the MorningRush blaring from the car stereo; and soon as you’ve tuned in, I’d bet you be a rusher too in no time at all.

Airsoft: WarVets Style

the WarVets (or some of them)

Something to remember about airsoft game sites in the Philippines: they’re usually located @ the places you wouldn’t expect them to be.

If you’ve ever dreamed that you were a rookie soldier (the kind that would be a general in three days’ time, of course) then WHAM! you’re suddenly chucked off the plane and smack in the middle of hostile, trained Iraqi soldiers, then you know how my first airsoft game was. BBs (those are the plastic bullets, or pellets as they’re popularly called locally) were everywhere that for the first few seconds, all I could see where the tiny white balls!

But to give credit where it’s due, Team Talahib, who manages the game site – dubbed the ‘forest’, which is inside Ecology, along East. Ave. (you wouldn’t think to look for a game site there, now would you) – gave us a tour of the place and a rundown of the rules. However, good game site managers notwithstanding, we (that’s me and what would-be my team) decided that playing @ the forest was not for us – not to discriminate or anything, but @ that day there were just too many chinoys who mostly acted like they owned the place, and I gotta say, the attitude of some of the players left a lot to be desired, sportsmanship-wise.

So that first airsoft experience was willingly and easily curbed, and soon enough I was introduced to the only brand of airsoft I would be stuck on…

This one started with getting tossed into the middle of a game as well (hmmm… I wonder if that’s a given with airsoft?). Well, maybe I wasn’t exactly tossed into it because two minutes into the game and my father yanked me behind him while yelling ‘Jerome, nakikita mo, sa dulo ng ruins?’ as he pointed @ something across the field to a brand new acquaintance and team mate. I never could recall who my father directed Jerome to shoot at, or if he did hit that other player (mostly because I was sprawled on my bottom by then) but that’s mainly because of observations and lasting impressions from that day:

1. When we got to the -Veterans Memorial Hospital (you wouldn’t think to look here either, right?) this loud, friendly, bear of a guy wrapped in impressively complete BDU (that’s battle dress uniform) gathered the newbies under the shade of mango trees and enumerated a few, concise rules, each one capped with a joke. He also didn’t use a megaphone to do this, didn’t need to;

2. The WarVets, who managed the place and were basically doctors, nurses and personnel of the Veterans Memorial Hospital, introduced themselves in very friendly manner (it was something like this: si Ryan yang malaking ma-ma na yan, puede na kayo magtago sa likod nyan… si doc Mark tong pogi na nagpasimuno ng games dito sa Veterans, speech, speech!… si Larry yang mukhang NPA, mag-ingat kayo jan… I’m Papang, hi, and I’m not actually a WarVet I’m an OZ! – a champion team, I later learned, and he is now my airsoft icon, he kicks ass!). Everyone there pretty much had the same attitude. A friendly wargame in hospital grounds, can’t get more oxymoronic than that;

3. Kuya Ryan (basically he’s the spokesperson and yeah, a pretty colorful personality) announced that there are girls playing. He introduced us, there were four of us – me, my sister Anne, Ana & Richelle, all from our team –, then told everyone to have a good look. Before I could ask what that was for he continued with the reminder: ‘single shot lang sa mga girls ha, single shot lang, paalala’ (no one said this @ the forest);

4. It did not rain BBs. Far from it. There was absolute quiet and stillness from the ‘defend’ team as the ‘assault’ team tried to identify the other team who were naka baon (hiding in a depression on the earth, surrounded by grass, shrouded in vines, mostly covered by crumbling cabinet) before methodically approaching the ‘ruins’ (in reality, this is a side of the game site populated with pretty much everything that the hospital no longer used – decades old bed, even older machineries, lockers older than my grandparents, that kind of stuff, all ridiculously swathed with big vines and fenced in or under big trees, small trees and whatnot. It’s wonderful and my absolute favorite part of the game site!);

5. In this game between fourty-something players, we had just ONE marshal. Players simply admitted when hit and would stand aside and watch the rest of the game (except when kuya Ryan was the marshal, because the guys tend to aim for him instead of other players when that happens, especially when he yells ‘ceasefire!’);

6. In the middle of games, it wouldn’t be unusual to see hilarious stuff like kuya Larry bellowing in a loud kontrabida voice ‘kala mo kasha ka jan, Ryan?’ as he opened fire on kuya Ryan who insisted on stuffing himself into the ancient, narrow locker for cover as people rolled over laughing (like I said, colorful persona);

7. After each game, someone would shout ‘reload!’, which would take all three minutes, gulping down your Gatorade included. We get loads of playtime;

8. We mix and match. Sometimes by colour, sometimes by pattern, sometimes it’s just what everyone agrees on. So you get to team up with pretty much everybody, which is great as people here share laughs and airsoft tips.

That’s the airsoft game that I got to know, and that’s basically how I spend my Sundays, between 1PM until everyone agrees it’s too dark to play anymore, except for some days when kuya Ryan gets people in early and everyone partakes in good ol’ barbecue prepared by men without mom supervision – a single piece of anything, whether it be a full size steak or a huge sausage or a mere piece of tomato, is mercilessly skewered by one barbecue stick – or people get lazy and starved so we’d troop down to halfway (a turo-turo style place within Veterans) for their garlic chicken and ice cream for the girls.

Here’s to the WarVets & the HQ, for getting us started on a game that we love, and for keeping it coming!

Filipino Airsoft: a (very, very brief) History

Nowadays, when we talk about recreational activities in the Philippines (and elsewhere ’round the globe, I might add) the word ‘Airsoft’ comes up within the first three minutes of the conversation. There’s piko, patintero, luksong tinik -oops, wrong era, let me do that again: There’s basketball, volleyball, swimming, baseball, PSP games, on-line gaming, and then there’s airsoft.

If you’re lucky to have cool, adventurous friends they’d drag you right off Starbucks, stuff you into protective gear and toss you right into an airsoft game site (there’s also karting where you’d get tossed into a kart but that’s another story) – if your friends are really cool, you’d be lobbed smack in the middle of an ‘invitations only’ game site where you’d undoubtedly be overwhelmed with the sight of a select handful of people dressed in kickass BDU (that’s battle dress uniform); an assortment of rifles and handguns so wide it would leave your head spinning; and a downright amazing camaraderie between the select fourty-something strong players (name another game where you plot and scheme to hit a friend using an M14 rifle or knife-kill a whole bunch of them, and right after they’d slap your hand with the compliment ‘nice one!’ If that’s not camaraderie, I don’t know what is).

But before any more airsoft talk from me, a brief Filipino history of the game that we love (found the perfect one on the web which I decided to borrow, a little tweaking here and there and I’ve posted it here; hope the original author neither mind nor press charges… to pay homage where its due, gun salute to the San Pablo City Airsoft Club for this). Here we go:

Not so long ago…

in a place not too far, far away (from Quezon City)…

a band of brothers and their friends decided to stay home for the weekend

and pass the time away by re-enacting the never-ending saga of good vs. evil, macho style…

Some played good soldiers… others played war lords…

They started shooting it out the way only overgrown boys would…

With the SWAT theme blaring on the surround sound component, the boys ran up, down, in, out and around the house, out into the street, and over fences into neighbors’ yards, trying to tag each other using toy guns that fired 6mm hard plastic BBs…

The year was 1985… it was summer… I had just turned two years old… and airsoft wargames was born in the Philippines.

And so, like wildfire at old Binondo (which I’ve never been to, but what the hell), airsoft as we know it in the Philippines grew, and kept growing. hallelujiah!