I've touched a bit on shoes with my dad's "shoe malfunction" story there in my first part of the "pursuit of beauty" post, and I honestly don't know where I am going with this! But I thought I'd blog tonight about how I feel about my fellow Filipina, Imelda Marcos, who is notorious for her sizable shoe collection. I don't think she's someone to be proud of, I just find her collection of over 3,000 shoes (hate her!) to be ostentatious - tangible, eye-candy of an evidence of her frivolous self-indulgence. Well, she defends herself by claiming that they were given to her as gifts. Painfully faultless samples (sob!) given to her by shoemakers in Marikina - say what??? M-A-R-I-K-I-N-A - it's a city in the Philippines also known as the country's Shoe Capital and apparently by extension, of Asia as well, owing to it's notable shoe industry. I guess, it could be true that she accumulated that many shoesies that way, after all her husband did serve as president/dicator for an overly draaaawwwwnnnn-outttt (reminiscent of the very recent epic John Isner-Nicolas Mahut Wimbledon match) twenty somewhat years. Shall we do the math? Let's just say, that exactly a dozen shoemakers gave her one sample each, every single month for twenty years - that would come up to 2,880 pairs of shoes, just a little over a hundred shy of 3,000!!!! I just wonder whether they were offered up to her nestled on red satin pillows out of the goodness of their hearts, or simply in sucking up leech-style, or perhaps with an ulterior motive of getting a tax break (no, corruption doesn't exist in the Philippines, naahh!!), or maybe in an attempt to appease her wrath after she had threatened to have her hubby Ferdi, annihilate them all if they didn't deliver!!! And yet, how come I don't believe it for two seconds when she says that her entire collection consists solely of gifts. If anything, I believe that receiving those samples in the beginning may have whet her appetite for shoes which later developed into a voracious and insatiable hankering for shoes, shoes and more SHOES over time! Don't tell me she doesn't own any sexy patent-leather Prada pumps (drooling), some funky playful Louboutin platforms, a couple of magnificent diamond (not rhinestone!) encrusted strappy Blahnik stilletos (I can't take it!!!) or a few dainty gaily-bowed Choo kitten heel :) numbers that she had personally purchased with her infamously ill-gotten millions, that's impossible, that just can't be! She's gotta have a few of those - some few dozens of them - and I bet you they are exactly what make up the rest of the 3,000 and more! Apparently, Imelda's shoes are now on display or maybe I should say, enshrined at the Shoe Museum of Marikina...now that I've got to see. I promise to plan to set off on a pilgrimage to this shoe Mecca with Maya the very next time I go home, or maybe I'll just plotthe heist of the century.... hmmm,
we'll see...Oh, did I say that out loud???!!! (Candice, care to join me? Stella and Maya can totally act as decoys!!!)
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
BP Sucks!!!
The following is the content of an e-mail, "A Comment from An Engineer" that a friend had forwarded to me. It appears to be an excerpt of a person's call-in to a radio talk show discussing the BP oil disaster. The e-mail does not reveal the identity of this engineer and he/she probably chose to remain anonymous anyways to protect himself, so I have no way of verifying his/her credibility as a source, nor the accuracy of some of his/her calculations. But what I can say is, is that his/her comment is definitely SOBERING:
"Heard you mention the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico this morning, and you (and most everyone else except maybe US talk show host George Noory) are totally missing the boat on how big and bad a disaster this is.
First fact, the original estimate was about 5,000 gallons of oil a day spilling into the ocean. Now they're saying 200,000 gallons a day. That's over a million gallons of crude oil a week!
I'm an engineer with 25 years of experience. I've worked on some big projects with big machines. Maybe that's why this mess is so clear to me.
First, the BP platform was drilling for what they call deep oil. They go out where the ocean is about 5,000 feet deep and drill another 30,000 feet into the crust of the earth. This it right on the edge of what human technology can do. Well, this time they hit a pocket of oil at such high pressure that it burst all of their safety valves all the way up to the drilling rig and then caused the rig to explode and sink. Take a moment to grasp the import of that. The pressure behind this oil is so high that it destroyed the maximum effort of human science to contain it.
When the rig sank it flipped over and landed on top of the drill hole some 5,000 feet under the ocean.
Now they've got a hole in the ocean floor, 5,000 feet down with a wrecked oil drilling rig sitting on top of is spewing 200,000 barrels of oil a day into the ocean. Take a moment and consider that, will you!
First they have to get the oil rig off the hole to get at it in order to try to cap it. Do you know the level of effort it will take to move that wrecked oil rig, sitting under 5,000 feet of water? That operation alone would take years and hundreds of millions to accomplish. Then, how do you cap that hole in the muddy ocean floor? There just is no way. No way.
On the longer-term side of things, there are signs that this largest oil drilling catastrophe could also become the worst natural gas and climate disaster. The explosion has released tremendous amounts of methane from deep in the ocean, and research shows that methane, when mixed with air, is the most powerful (read: terrible) greenhouse gas — 26 times worse than carbon-dioxide. Our warming planet just got a lot hotter.
The only piece of human technology that might address this is a nuclear bomb. I'm not kidding. If they put a nuke down there in the right spot it might seal up the hole. Nothing short of that will work.
If we can't cap that hole that oil is going to destroy the oceans of the world. It only takes one quart of motor oil to make 250,000 gallons of ocean water toxic to wildlife. Are you starting to get the magnitude of this?
We're so used to our politicians creating false crises to forward their criminal agendas that we aren't recognizing that we're staring straight into possibly the greatest disaster mankind will ever see. Imagine what happens if that oil keeps flowing until it destroys all life in the oceans of this planet. Who knows how big of a reservoir of oil is down there.
Not to mention that the oceans are critical to maintaining the proper oxygen level in the atmosphere for human life.
Unless God steps in and fixes this. No human can. You can be sure of that!"
You see, the problem with BP is that they've exhausted all of their knowledge building the massive oil rig in order to continue to not just tap but exploit the earth's resources and reach their ultimate selfish and greedy goal of amassing more and more wealth. What they failed to do is come up with a contingency plan or at least one, that is, that could address and contain an emergency of the same magnitude as of the one that is frighteningly happening as I write! They have irresponsibly overlooked that part, but worst of all, they and the politicians have been conspiringly glossing over the gravity of the situation. No, things are not OK as they are trying to lead us to believe!
In his conclusion, the engineer humbly acknowledged that it is way beyond human capability to fix this problem, and that God needs to intervene and soon! This in turn, brought to my mind the reassurance given to mankind in the Bible book of Revelation 11:18 that God will "...bring to ruin those ruining the earth." So guys, take heart!
"Heard you mention the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico this morning, and you (and most everyone else except maybe US talk show host George Noory) are totally missing the boat on how big and bad a disaster this is.
First fact, the original estimate was about 5,000 gallons of oil a day spilling into the ocean. Now they're saying 200,000 gallons a day. That's over a million gallons of crude oil a week!
I'm an engineer with 25 years of experience. I've worked on some big projects with big machines. Maybe that's why this mess is so clear to me.
First, the BP platform was drilling for what they call deep oil. They go out where the ocean is about 5,000 feet deep and drill another 30,000 feet into the crust of the earth. This it right on the edge of what human technology can do. Well, this time they hit a pocket of oil at such high pressure that it burst all of their safety valves all the way up to the drilling rig and then caused the rig to explode and sink. Take a moment to grasp the import of that. The pressure behind this oil is so high that it destroyed the maximum effort of human science to contain it.
When the rig sank it flipped over and landed on top of the drill hole some 5,000 feet under the ocean.
Now they've got a hole in the ocean floor, 5,000 feet down with a wrecked oil drilling rig sitting on top of is spewing 200,000 barrels of oil a day into the ocean. Take a moment and consider that, will you!
First they have to get the oil rig off the hole to get at it in order to try to cap it. Do you know the level of effort it will take to move that wrecked oil rig, sitting under 5,000 feet of water? That operation alone would take years and hundreds of millions to accomplish. Then, how do you cap that hole in the muddy ocean floor? There just is no way. No way.
On the longer-term side of things, there are signs that this largest oil drilling catastrophe could also become the worst natural gas and climate disaster. The explosion has released tremendous amounts of methane from deep in the ocean, and research shows that methane, when mixed with air, is the most powerful (read: terrible) greenhouse gas — 26 times worse than carbon-dioxide. Our warming planet just got a lot hotter.
The only piece of human technology that might address this is a nuclear bomb. I'm not kidding. If they put a nuke down there in the right spot it might seal up the hole. Nothing short of that will work.
If we can't cap that hole that oil is going to destroy the oceans of the world. It only takes one quart of motor oil to make 250,000 gallons of ocean water toxic to wildlife. Are you starting to get the magnitude of this?
We're so used to our politicians creating false crises to forward their criminal agendas that we aren't recognizing that we're staring straight into possibly the greatest disaster mankind will ever see. Imagine what happens if that oil keeps flowing until it destroys all life in the oceans of this planet. Who knows how big of a reservoir of oil is down there.
Not to mention that the oceans are critical to maintaining the proper oxygen level in the atmosphere for human life.
Unless God steps in and fixes this. No human can. You can be sure of that!"
You see, the problem with BP is that they've exhausted all of their knowledge building the massive oil rig in order to continue to not just tap but exploit the earth's resources and reach their ultimate selfish and greedy goal of amassing more and more wealth. What they failed to do is come up with a contingency plan or at least one, that is, that could address and contain an emergency of the same magnitude as of the one that is frighteningly happening as I write! They have irresponsibly overlooked that part, but worst of all, they and the politicians have been conspiringly glossing over the gravity of the situation. No, things are not OK as they are trying to lead us to believe!
In his conclusion, the engineer humbly acknowledged that it is way beyond human capability to fix this problem, and that God needs to intervene and soon! This in turn, brought to my mind the reassurance given to mankind in the Bible book of Revelation 11:18 that God will "...bring to ruin those ruining the earth." So guys, take heart!
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Erratum: My take on the Pursuit of Beauty!!!
I profusely apologize for the little slip up on my last post. Apparently I just made mummified Queen Nefertiti as well as King Tut, respectively roll over in their tombs...or wherever it is, that is, they currently rest!!! As it turns out the eye kohl used in Ancient Egypt although being primarily derived from lead, posed no known threat to one's eyesight. As a matter of fact, it was actually beneficial, in that it had antibacterial properties, preventing infections and it would also "ward off flies and the "evil eye" that they staunchly believed in." The eye kohl was used by both men and women and the practice or what I like to call art, of lining their eyes to achieve that feline look (think Angelina Jolie) was their way of paying homage to the cat, an animal they obviously very much revered - just refer to their hieroglyphics! At any rate, I'm still glad for my make-up bag essential, hypoallergenic MAC "smolder" eye kohl which as far as I know, is not supposed to contain even a smidgen of lead and I would never trade in my latest acquisition/baby, Inglot matte eyeliner gel, which I'm still learning to apply properly with my MAC #266 angle brush (meow!) for the original lead-laden concoction from the land of the Nile!!!
Saturday, June 26, 2010
My take on the Pursuit of Beauty!!!
I still remember one girl's horror story that my dad witnessed at his senior prom, which he would tell and retell again over the years. Apparently, the three-inch heel of one of the girl's shoes snapped off in the middle of an energetic boogie number. Unfortunately, I don't recall what my dad said happened to her afterwards, I just can't remember which of the following three scenarios most likely took place: a.) She immediately produced a back-up pair of pumps out of her purse and chucked the defective shoes into file 13 (thattagirl!) b.) She opted to quietly fade into obscurity after the painfully embarrasing mishap (uncool!) or still c.) She was suddenly struck by genius after popping a mint into her mouth and heroically snapped off the heel of her other shoe and carried on fox-trotting (way to go!), just like in the old Mentos commercial - does anyone remember that one? Gosh, I am soooo giving away my age!!!
But while that "shoe malfunction" (a variant of the new term coined by Janet Jackson) story never failed to elicit a hearty guffaw from my father as he would recount the horrific details, deep inside I felt for that nameless once young woman. How could he relate anyway? After all, only a fellow gal could understand the lengths we'd go to in the name of beauty, in her case, braving possible humiliation or worse yet, a broken neck or a concussion, just for the illusion of mile-long legs and a lifted rear??? Why else would the ancient Egyptians risk their eyesight with lead-tainted eye kohl for the desirable, what we now call, smokey-eye??? Or why do the Burmese women of the Padaung tribe endure the discomfort of wearing those cumbersome, and not to mention heavy, rings around their necks in order to elongate them, making Tyra Banks proud, but if not for the tireless pursuit of beauty?
And while we have smartened up somewhat and abandoned altogether (well at least in these parts) some of the archaic and barbaric beauty practices like toying with the risk of setting one's whole head aflame and some resulting nasty third degree burns from singeing one's hair??? Some of them still prevail, but the methods and devices now presently used have been tweaked to perfection over the decades with more regard paid to safety and common sense. Take for example the serious business of hair-straightening. Just like a lot of things, the flattening iron has come a long way from it's cruder predecessors. Does anyone remember the multi-purpose hairstyler that Conair, I believe, used to make back in the day? It had all these different attachments that could be snapped onto the tong-shaped device, enabling one to heat-emboss different shapes like hearts or stars onto their hair (hey, my four-year-old daughter Maya, would have loved that, too bad it's been phased out since!!!) It even had crimpers, and of course, regular flat plates for plain straightening - the product of sheer feminine ingenuity at it's best, one might have considered it to be at the time. But the only downside to the gadget was that they hadn't discovered the equally genius use of ceramic as a coating material yet at the time either, which allows the new currently used versions to just effortlessly glide through the hair offering a virtually seamless, snag-free straightening experience. The bare metal plates of the old styler also did not heat up evenly, causing "hotspots" that would literally burn hair to a crisp (on second thought, I take it back, I wouldn't want that for Maya now!) I've been very pleased with the performance of my sleek, compact and streamlined babyliss ceramic flattening iron that I had purchased back in 2006, but apparently, they have since begun to use tourmaline to coat these devices, which is in fact superior to ceramic, and is now the gold standard in hair-flattening. Personally, I prefer to use my handy-dandy round brush for my everyday hair-straightening needs. I like the more natural-looking end-product of using the brush compared to the edgy straight effect from the iron, which I reserve for when I'm going for a more trendy look every now and then. The barrel of my round brush is of course again, ceramic-coated and the bristles are synthetic. You might find it interesting to know that, originally the bristles of brushes used to be made out of boars' hair (which are basically wild pigs) Ewwwww!!! some might say, but personally, I think this is pretty neat, the practice being totally in keeping with sustainable development which is all the rage these days, SHAME ON YOU BP!!! I mean not a single part of the animal is wasted, from the hocks, down to the very hairs!!! The handle of my brush is ergonomically designed too and is filled with some kind of gelly substance for comfort, good thing, too, for the last thing I need is to develop an RSI from using it so much! I actually bless the day I mastered and learned to wield in a quasi expert fashion, my round brush on one hand simultaneously with my hair dryer on the other, because for the longest time I thought I was doomed to a sad lifetime plagued with frizzy-hair woes! Needless to say, I ♥♥♥ my hair brush and unlike my AMEX which I sometimes forget tucked away somewhere "chez nous," I never ever leave home, especially overnight, without my beloved (limited edition) professional Goody ceramic round brush with it's cool plasmium gel-filled ergonomic handle!!!
to be continued.....
But while that "shoe malfunction" (a variant of the new term coined by Janet Jackson) story never failed to elicit a hearty guffaw from my father as he would recount the horrific details, deep inside I felt for that nameless once young woman. How could he relate anyway? After all, only a fellow gal could understand the lengths we'd go to in the name of beauty, in her case, braving possible humiliation or worse yet, a broken neck or a concussion, just for the illusion of mile-long legs and a lifted rear??? Why else would the ancient Egyptians risk their eyesight with lead-tainted eye kohl for the desirable, what we now call, smokey-eye??? Or why do the Burmese women of the Padaung tribe endure the discomfort of wearing those cumbersome, and not to mention heavy, rings around their necks in order to elongate them, making Tyra Banks proud, but if not for the tireless pursuit of beauty?
And while we have smartened up somewhat and abandoned altogether (well at least in these parts) some of the archaic and barbaric beauty practices like toying with the risk of setting one's whole head aflame and some resulting nasty third degree burns from singeing one's hair??? Some of them still prevail, but the methods and devices now presently used have been tweaked to perfection over the decades with more regard paid to safety and common sense. Take for example the serious business of hair-straightening. Just like a lot of things, the flattening iron has come a long way from it's cruder predecessors. Does anyone remember the multi-purpose hairstyler that Conair, I believe, used to make back in the day? It had all these different attachments that could be snapped onto the tong-shaped device, enabling one to heat-emboss different shapes like hearts or stars onto their hair (hey, my four-year-old daughter Maya, would have loved that, too bad it's been phased out since!!!) It even had crimpers, and of course, regular flat plates for plain straightening - the product of sheer feminine ingenuity at it's best, one might have considered it to be at the time. But the only downside to the gadget was that they hadn't discovered the equally genius use of ceramic as a coating material yet at the time either, which allows the new currently used versions to just effortlessly glide through the hair offering a virtually seamless, snag-free straightening experience. The bare metal plates of the old styler also did not heat up evenly, causing "hotspots" that would literally burn hair to a crisp (on second thought, I take it back, I wouldn't want that for Maya now!) I've been very pleased with the performance of my sleek, compact and streamlined babyliss ceramic flattening iron that I had purchased back in 2006, but apparently, they have since begun to use tourmaline to coat these devices, which is in fact superior to ceramic, and is now the gold standard in hair-flattening. Personally, I prefer to use my handy-dandy round brush for my everyday hair-straightening needs. I like the more natural-looking end-product of using the brush compared to the edgy straight effect from the iron, which I reserve for when I'm going for a more trendy look every now and then. The barrel of my round brush is of course again, ceramic-coated and the bristles are synthetic. You might find it interesting to know that, originally the bristles of brushes used to be made out of boars' hair (which are basically wild pigs) Ewwwww!!! some might say, but personally, I think this is pretty neat, the practice being totally in keeping with sustainable development which is all the rage these days, SHAME ON YOU BP!!! I mean not a single part of the animal is wasted, from the hocks, down to the very hairs!!! The handle of my brush is ergonomically designed too and is filled with some kind of gelly substance for comfort, good thing, too, for the last thing I need is to develop an RSI from using it so much! I actually bless the day I mastered and learned to wield in a quasi expert fashion, my round brush on one hand simultaneously with my hair dryer on the other, because for the longest time I thought I was doomed to a sad lifetime plagued with frizzy-hair woes! Needless to say, I ♥♥♥ my hair brush and unlike my AMEX which I sometimes forget tucked away somewhere "chez nous," I never ever leave home, especially overnight, without my beloved (limited edition) professional Goody ceramic round brush with it's cool plasmium gel-filled ergonomic handle!!!
to be continued.....
Wild Horses
I don't just indiscriminately open every single link my friends share on Facebook - but I took my beautiful friend Jen's word for it when she said this was beautiful...beautiful indeed, Jen! Thank you for sharing! In turn, I would like to share this song with everyone. Apparently the song is part of the soundtrack of the movie Flicka, which is about, you've guessed it right, horses! Here are the lyrics, and my next post is an actual (unofficial) video off youtube...enjoy!
"Wild Horses"
(Natasha Bedingfield)
I feel these four walls closing in
My face up against the glass
I'm looking out...
Is this my life I'm wondering
It happened so fast
How do I turn this thing around
Is this the bed I chose to make
It's greener pastures I'm thinking about
Wide open spaces far away
All I want is the wind in my hair
To face the fear but, not feel scared
[Chorus:]
Wild horses I wanna be like you
Throwing caution to the wind
I'll run free too
Wish I could recklessly love, like I'm longing to
Run with the wild horses, run with the wild horses!
I see the girl I wanna be
Riding bare back, care free along the shore
If only that someone was me
Jumping head first headlong without a thought
To act and damn the consequence
How I wish it could be that easy
But fear surrounds me like a fence
I wanna break free
All I want is the wind in my hair
To face the fear but, not feel scared
[Chorus:]
Wild horses I wanna be like you
Throwing caution to the wind
I'll run free too
Wish I could recklessly love, like I'm longing to
I wanna run with the wild horses, run with the wild horses!
I wanna run too...
Recklessly abandoning myself before you
I wanna open up my heart tell him how I feel
[Chorus:]
Wild horses I wanna be like you
Throwing caution to the wind
I'll run free too
Wish I could recklessly love, like I'm longing to
I wanna run with the wild horses, run with the wild horses!
I wanna run with the wild horses....
(Natasha Bedingfield)
I feel these four walls closing in
My face up against the glass
I'm looking out...
Is this my life I'm wondering
It happened so fast
How do I turn this thing around
Is this the bed I chose to make
It's greener pastures I'm thinking about
Wide open spaces far away
All I want is the wind in my hair
To face the fear but, not feel scared
[Chorus:]
Wild horses I wanna be like you
Throwing caution to the wind
I'll run free too
Wish I could recklessly love, like I'm longing to
Run with the wild horses, run with the wild horses!
I see the girl I wanna be
Riding bare back, care free along the shore
If only that someone was me
Jumping head first headlong without a thought
To act and damn the consequence
How I wish it could be that easy
But fear surrounds me like a fence
I wanna break free
All I want is the wind in my hair
To face the fear but, not feel scared
[Chorus:]
Wild horses I wanna be like you
Throwing caution to the wind
I'll run free too
Wish I could recklessly love, like I'm longing to
I wanna run with the wild horses, run with the wild horses!
I wanna run too...
Recklessly abandoning myself before you
I wanna open up my heart tell him how I feel
[Chorus:]
Wild horses I wanna be like you
Throwing caution to the wind
I'll run free too
Wish I could recklessly love, like I'm longing to
I wanna run with the wild horses, run with the wild horses!
I wanna run with the wild horses....
Friday, June 25, 2010
The (Moonlighting) Metalsmith
Here's my lame attempt to wax poetic:
She fashioned out of scrap, a branding iron bearing her name, took it to a smoldering fire and ruthlessly seared his heart aflame.
He doused the hot metal with a thousand tears, cowering in shame, releasing the acrid stench of a burning soul that had almost gone insane.
When she withdrew the smoking implement, a raw and excruciating wound remain, in the exact likeness of, the mirror-image of her name!
The wound had healed over a million moons, but the unfeeling imprint still appears like a stain, distinct and indelible, a reminder of his once agonizing pain...
She fashioned out of scrap, a branding iron bearing her name, took it to a smoldering fire and ruthlessly seared his heart aflame.
He doused the hot metal with a thousand tears, cowering in shame, releasing the acrid stench of a burning soul that had almost gone insane.
When she withdrew the smoking implement, a raw and excruciating wound remain, in the exact likeness of, the mirror-image of her name!
The wound had healed over a million moons, but the unfeeling imprint still appears like a stain, distinct and indelible, a reminder of his once agonizing pain...
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