Pickup Truck and Pickup Lines

I'm an avid reader of Askmen.com and one of the features today was the week's pickup line:

"You know how some men buy really expensive cars to make up for certain shortages? Well, I don't even own a car."

I love it. I don't own a car. Family cars don't count. link: Johnny Cursive can't drive

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I'm looking for a car to replace our '97 Toyota Hilux. It's only parked for most of the week and it's only taken out on Thursdays when it's coding, or when we have to go to the farm. But I don't wanna drive it around the city because it's a manual transmission and I've no more time and patience to learn the stick shift. And it's humongous. I'd prefer to drive something tiny, like a cute compact or hatchback. I can't though; the mother won't sell the truck and give me the proceeds to add to a new car unless I use it to buy another truck or something that serves the same purpose. So I'm looking for something that can be taken to the farm and carry coconuts and at the same time be good enough to take around the city. I can't believe my first car would likely be a monster truck.

Johnny Cheapskate: Burberry and Ralph Lauren Upgrade

I wish I could wear t-shirts to the office; Work requires all my shirts to be collared. Unfortunately, you gotta spend a pretty peso on a really good one.

So I became very happy to find out that I could buy really good Burberry and Ralph Lauren polo shirts at the last place I’d expect to get them—S&R. You’d need a membership to shop, but it’s quite worth it. Obviously there’s not a lot of people going there for pique shirt shopping so you get dibs and a bigger chance that a random manong won’t be wearing the exact same shirt. Everyone already knows that Burberry and Ralph Lauren are of excellent quality and that they look good at the office. The slim fit and the custom fit shirts are perfect. They’re not becklette shirts—they’re pogi shirts. I’ve stocked up on them for work and play, so I might not be wearing my normal plain crew neck shirts as often as I used to. T-shirts still need to be only around 200 bucks, but I allow myself to spend a little bit more for the office.

Burberrys were at less than 800 bucks, Ralph Laurens at less than a thousand. They even still had their Neiman Marcus price tags attached, costing 125 USD originally. My crew necks just got upgraded.

Fagulous (Too Gay?) # 4: Pointy Shoes + Super Skinny Jeans

It's the fabulous way to get bunions.

I did have a pair of slightly pointy shoes back when I was a teenager; I would probably attribute that to my naivety and not my gaiety. Ok maybe just a little bit. 

One thing I've never owned is a pair of jeggings. Those really tight, nut-killing pair of jeans. Pair the pointy shoes with these things and you get half the outfit of Kim Kardashian. Liam Gallagher of Oasis says: “I’m not into the skinny look and pointy shoes. They’re just not on - they’re for girls. I have never worn a pair of pointy shoes in my life and I never will. If you ever see me in a pair, drive over me. That and spray-on jeans”.

There a very small population of men that can pull this look off, i.e:

Johnny Cheapskate: Half-price at Powerbooks

I like to purchase stuff but I hate spending a lot for it. Like a t-shirt should only be 200 bucks. There are certain things I just have to spend for, like books. I know that books can be downloaded or bought from a 2nd hand book store but I prefer my books to be fresh off the oven. I like it smelling of cut paper and fresh ink after I tear off the plastic. Otherwise, I should at least know who the last reader was if it's a borrowed book. American Gods was a book I bought from the garage sale and it smelled like a hint of storage, mold and male stranger. The residual energy was giving me rhinitis.

So I was glad to find out yesterday that i can use my Citibank points to purchase from Powerbooks! Half can be taken out of my points so I only need to pay half. There's this one hardcover (The Black Prism) that I wanted to buy but it's above a thousand bucks; thanks to my Citibank points, I get a 50% discount. I was already planning to cut my Citibank Visa; it's scary to have a 184,000-peso limit. What the heck am I gonna do with that?! But with this Powerbooks promo and the other promo where I get free movie tickets for every 1.5K make me think of keeping this card for another few months.

Also: Carpe Diem means seize the merchandise

“Life is what happens while you’re making plans” is how Kulay, my favorite OPM band of all time, would sing it. Work on a perfect now and tomorrow falls into place is how I like to think about it.

There’s a danger to enrolling in my school of thought though. Isaiah 22:13 quips the existential caution, “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” to emphasize the impermanence of life. However, I for instance could sometimes take it differently and simply miss out on the future effect of my current actions. Carpe Diem has evolved a new meaning: seize the merchandise.

Thanks to Horace’s Carpe Diem, I am now a proud owner of a credit card debt that’s probably too big for a 25-year old dude like meself. Get now, pay later, is an American pitfall that I checked out and tripped into. I don’t even like most Americans that much.

 Apparently, this gold card is both my best friend and my worst enemy.

On my Bedside Table and Some Under It

Neverwhere was really good. It's dark and imaginative. Nothing says verisimilitude more than a book that stimulates even your sense of smell through hundreds of pages.

Currently reading:

I'm hoping this is good.

I picked it out at random from the shelves of Powerbooks and read the reviews at the back. It seemed like a good book; I'm taking chances at this one.

I'm half expecting Shadowmarch to be similar to David Eddings' Belgariad and Malloreon but I'm hoping it would be better. After a couple modern fantasy Gaimans, I'm craving for high fantasy already.

The Belgariad and Malloreon quintets are a classic; but frankly, they are not excellent. I'm sure if I've read them when I was a teenager I would have enjoyed it more. There's just not enough cussing and sex and gore in all of these 10 books.

Joe Abercrombie's "The First Law" Trilogy serves up enough fantasy and dirt that when you flip the pages really fast, you'll smell blood sweat and sex. Loved it.

There's more blood and sex and magic in Book 1 of this trio than what's good for you but the excess is exquisite.

Johnny Cursive's Uniform

Except for actual work days; office requires me to be a little more office-y.

My normal uniform for church, movies, beer, diskuhan, eating out and random errands is the 200-peso crew neck shirt from SM department store. It has no frills, no print, no hassle--for the price of a Japanese meal. Nothing but a good fit, neither slutty-tight nor sloppy loose, the way all cotton t-shirts should be regardless of the price tag. I just throw a jacket or a button-down shirt on top if the occasion (or the weather) demands it. I have them in red, military green, black, white, brown, and 3 different shades of blue. I pick them out of the closet by random, cutting deciding time by half. And because I have no hairstyle to speak of (unless semikal is considered a hairstyle), most of the time is spent on the appearance of the bottom half a.k.a. the more important half.

When my navy crew neck got worn out with tiny little holes from machine washing/mangling, I went ahead and got myself a spankin' brand new navy blue crew neck and nobody else but myself could tell that I bought a new shirt. I just couldn't justify spending more than a thousand bucks (or 500 bucks, for that matter) for a goddamn t-shirt.

The Destiny's Child Connection



Shalala descended from Andre Leon Talley, the most influential

man in fashion, and Jay-Z, hip-hop music mogul. I'll bet my

appendix on it.

 I've always known that anyone as effervescent as Shalala could have only descended from royalty.
I am so loving Shalala; I hope he can introduce me to Beyonce to complete my quest of shaking hands with all of Destiny's Child. And yes it includes all the other forgotten members that were left in the gutters.

The best seats in the house HANDS DOWN!

I've already completed part of this quest by shaking hands with lady Kelly Rowland a couple of weeks ago at the Supa Fest concert! Scored Gold tickets thanks to my sidekick that got upgraded to VIP seats thanks to my best friend Adren. And then got 2 backstage passes thanks to sidekick's friend! My girl best friend Martha and I were brought backstage to meet Kelly Rowland and I was star struck to the point of paralysis. At that moment I think I've forgotten how to blink.

Kelly Rowland was stunninGG. Still haven't received my pictures from the official photog tho. Eeeek! I hope Shalala can introduce me to his stepmomma Beyonce one day.

Little Red Riding Horses

I went home early Friday night after watching Aussy-sounding owls in Greenbelt where there were at least a couple of hundred faeries that came in pairs. Sidekick and I were still ridiculously trying to be discreet so we walked around the mall a few feet apart and one of us was in front of the other. I even left the movie house first because I needed to pee, though it served as excellent cover. I went home immediately after the film.

As I was walking 4 blocks away from my house, I was held up for a few beers with the neighbors—a mix of swarthy swashbucklers, good-looking boys that required no effort being that way, lanky nerdy types and three chicks. Most of them I’ve known since childhood. They were talking about basketball when one of them pulled me into the kanto inuman.

We drank 12 grandes and 4 regular bottles of Red Horse. It was a magnificent hangover.

It’s been a couple of months since the last time I drank with the straight people from the neighborhood. Thank goodness I could speak kanto very fluently. One girl was reprimanding her straight brother for being such a wimp, calling him effeminate. And she called another guy effeminate for not being as tough as the rest of the guys in the group. Thank goodfuckness she didn’t put me in that category or baka nasabunutan ko sya ng bongga. That girl had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

It’s really fun and quite humbling—drinking sa kanto under the stars and lowering your voices when the tanod comes patrolling past you. It was great to talk about topics that weren’t very deep or intellectual but reached you deep enough anyway because you were creating and rekindling connections beyond what’s spoken. The fact that I was a closet case in a sea of people that I'm sure as hell were straight was a non-factor. Everyone has closets. Mine just happens to be bonggang bonggang hot pink and I didn’t care what they hid in theirs. Of course that was until they started talking about cunnilingus which totally grossed me out. That was the only time that the conversation was fun for all the boys and girls except for me.

Currently on my Bedside Table

American Gods was a good read. It's not epic, but it's very entertaining.

Right now I'm 30% into Neverwhere.

I'm glad I've been through Europe this year so it helps make the atmosphere of the story a lot more tangible. I haven't been through sewers and tunnels lately, however. A lot of the scenes happen in the dark but it's only compelling me to create vivid imaginations within vivid imaginations.

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Book 2 of the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss comes out March 2011! This is what excites me more than anything. The only reason why I've been reading so much for the past couple of years is because that's how long it's taking for book 2 to come out. The first book I've read out of leisure is Name Of The Wind back in 2009. It was the best book I've read thus far; I found it better than Harry Potter and other books of the epic fantasy genre. I daresay it's a lot better than Neil Gaiman's Stardust. Because I was left starving for the 2nd book that's taking forever to come out, I had to feed myself with Gaimans, Abercrombies, Eddings, Martins and their metaphorical beer buddies. Name Of The Wind is the best book I could recommend anyone.