9/25/2017 ‒
The queue

This isn't a hipster claim, but I've been listening to podcasts for almost ten years now.

It started when I got myself an iPod. Well, I didn't get it; my parents got it for me, a graduation present. Despite the fact that we still had dial-up Internet I decided to subscribe to a couple, just for the heck of it. One was This American Life, because that was the default. The other was Answer Me This!, because I read about it in a magazine. There soon was a third: Wiretap, because it was being promoted on the iTunes Store at the time.

I've listened to a bunch since, although not a lot of them. I never was the guy who went subscribe-happy. I am subscribed to eleven podcasts, and that's already on the high end. It's usually at around eight, seven. (And eleven is only manageable because a bunch of them upload new episodes twice a month, or once a month, in the case of Answer Me This! And then there are the shows that are currently off the air, whatever "air" means in this case.) I try new podcasts but then I unsubscribe whenever it doesn't really spark my interest after three listens, which means Live Wire Radio could only introduce me to Christina Tosi and cereal milk, and nothing more.

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9/19/2017 ‒
Three possible official narratives

Narrative one: 21 September is proof that everything in the Philippines is terrible.

 Why else would you need an entire day to protest? If everything was going well then people wouldn't find the need to gather in the streets, wave a few placards and shout a bunch of invectives. Instead, here we are, living in a country where everything is going to shit: traffic is bad, politicians are corrupt, television is unimaginative...

But protests are disruptive. We all have something to complain about, but whenever we see a protest on the streets, we don't think of how we're all fucked together, but of how they are fucking our lives up. They're causing traffic, these fucking idiots! So, this one's a masterstroke. A government-designated day where anybody can protest about anything.

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9/12/2017 ‒
Killing season

Through a viva voce vote - so as to ensure maximum results, perhaps dramatic results, without being held accountable by their constitutents - the Philippine lower house voted to award the Commission of Human Rights a budget of a mere thousand pesos in 2018.

This, after constant attacks from the president, who sees the commission - a government agency mandated to be the watchdog against human rights violations, established by the 1987 Constitution - as a thorn in his campaign against drugs.

That is it. It's killing season.

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9/10/2017 ‒
Pancakes

Gather the ingredients. They will say pancakes are best when you start from scratch, but you won't always, or ever, have the time to figure out the right proportion of flours, or which flours to get, or what else to throw in. Just get a couple of boxes of pancake mix and you're good to go.

Make the batter. You're not doing it from scratch, so you have instructions from the box to fall back on. Beat two eggs, then add four tablespoons of oil, a cup and a bit of water, and two packs of pancake mix. Or you can mix the order up a bit. Mix the liquids first, then add it to the dry stuff - like those chefs on TV do, with a well in the middle of the bowl of flour. Whatever. It's pancake mix. You'll be hard-pressed to get it wrong.

Add fruits, if desired. Last night you thought of making banana pancakes, but this morning you forgot to mash some bananas up for the batter. But it's not yet too late. Get two bananas, mash them up on your hand, and them smoosh them up to the bowl. Then stir. Then wash your hands.

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