My imaginary Xmas wish list
Even though I know that at my age just staying alive and kicking is already something to be quite thankful for, I can’t help but create a wistful wish list for the holidays, a list that I know will materialize only in my wildest fantasies. But then, there’s no fee for fantasizing, is there? *wink*
Top of my wish list is an LCD TV. Forty-two inches will do. Preferably Samsung. Preferably something that can be hung, with minimal effort, from my living room wall. It would be good if I could connect it to the computer as a secondary monitor when I’m editing images too.
More items on the list to follow.
Weight watch-me-not
And while we’re on the subject of holidays, it’s also when I start considering weight loss pill after brands that didn’t really do anything for me except raise my blood pressure and make me cranky and difficult to live with.
So I got to thinking, rather than worry about my weight, why don’t I just eat and the heck with it, I just want to enjoy life (responsibly of course) by eating what I want to eat, albeit in limited amounts. I’m over trying to be Dawn Zulueta in the Marie France billboard just outside my office on EDSA.
The Pumpkin and the Easter Bunny
Went to the mall today to pick up a few groceries, a few hours after Typhoon Santi decided he’d slapped enough trees and pulled the fronds out of coconut trees. I was expecting to find the mall deserted, but since the power was out in most parts of the city, everyone and his cousins thought the best thing to do would be to hang out at the mall.
In fact they not only hung out, they came with their kids dressed in costumes ranging from the so-so to the outlandish, to join the mall’s Halloween event. Some wore off the rack assemblies, I think I saw one dressed as a Oakland motorcycle accident lawyer and a couple who looked like bloody mummies.
There was a time when November 1 and 2 meant going to visit our departed relatives wherever they may be interred. These days it means loitering in a mall with your kid in tow dressed like a walking car crash victim, begging treats from the owners and the general public.
November 1 in the Philippines is All Saints Day. It meant going to church (when I was small I did go) and praying for our dearly departed. Now the malls say that we should go the American way and celebrate Halloween, with all the attendant competitions and activities related to that peculiar American holiday.
I don’t think the ordinary Pinoy in the mall concourse knows that Halloween started out as All Hallows Eve in northern Europe thousands of years ago, and brought into America by immigrants. All the ordinary Juan knows is that Americans celebrate Halloween by dressing up in costumes and going trick or treating. Little do they think that trick or treating in the Pinoy context is actually teaching a child early on in his life the joys of extortion.
All in the name of commerce and the creation of the need for a product where there previously was none. The Pinoy is the perfect target for such marketing strategies, we who so idolize the American that we play basketball despite our average heights, and celebrate Halloween though we have no idea why.
Now don’t get me started about the Easter Bunny and egg hunts.
Paris and the pig
I wonder if Paris Hilton gives her pig pet supplements. But the People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is more concerned about how some celebrities like Hilton are treating animals as part of their wardrobe accessories.
Paris Hilton is a huge animal lover and is often seen with one of her many many many dogs. But her latest purchase has got PETA up in arms.
Last week Paris announced that she’s going to add a little piggy named Princess Pigelette to her growing collection of pets. Royal Dandie miniature pigs has supplied Paris with a four to five-week-old adorable new miniature pig for $4,500.
Princess Pigelette is on its way to the US as we speak and Paris couldn’t be more thrilled about it. And PETA couldn’t be more pissed.
“So excited for my new piglette to come home to me,” Paris tweeted. “I just picked out the cutest piggy from Patty at Royaldandie.com.”
But PETA is accusing Paris of setting a “wretched example” by treating animals like they’re “as disposable as her friends and fiancés.”
I have always wondered about how the mind of one like Paris Hilton worked. Is this the result of just having far too much money at ones disposal, without having had to work for it?
What do YOU think?
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