The Daily Bluster

Extra! Extra! Iranian protesters storm British Embassy in Tehran!   Thankfully Iranian authorities acted just in time to put a stop to it, thus avoiding a repeat of the 1979 US embassy takeover in the same city . Iranians don’t like westerners much, do they.  One reason may be is that Westerners throughout history have this habit of exploiting countries around the world for their own gain. Not because their very survival hinges on the raping and pillaging of other countries ( especially in Asia ); they do this because of old-fashioned greed; or enterprise, as some westerners call it . Oil in Iran (or Persia, as the country was then known) was discovered in 1908 by a British geologist named George Reynolds who was working for William D’Arcy.  The enterprising D’Arcy had previously arranged an oil concession with Shah Mozzafar al-Din Shah Qajar in 1901. A few months after the discovery of oil, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AI...

Somebody once said that us Filipinos’ default setting is a smile . I agree. I actually have several friends whose instinctive response to being surprised is to smile. I don’t really know how that would work, like for example if one is surprised in a dark alley by a mugger. Could one smile one’s way out of that? I don’t think so.  But smile when surprised they do; I’ve seen them do that hundreds of times. I—whose settings range from inscrutable (like a Shaolin monk in a kung fu movie who's just a suit away from being Superman) to downright scowling at no one in particular—am always surprised and mystified every time I see them smile at a stranger who approaches them for any particular reason.   Stranger : Excuse me sir [ we are also polite; we call everybody sir— or ma’am, as the case may be ], what time is it? Friend : ( Smiling as if Scarlett Johansson had offered to have sex with him ) Six po .   Why would they do that, why would they smile at total ...

Yes, I have a beef with November ; then again, this November is a great month for PC gamers. Just look at this month’s releases: Modern Warfare 3, from the franchise that has left many wives and girlfriends doubting the wisdom of having a relationship with a gamer; and Skyrim. I needn’t go beyond Skyrim. The Elders Scrolls V: Skyrim (to give the game its full name) is as immersive as any video game can get. It has a vast, complex game world, numerous quests, and in-game details that can turn a gamer into an obsessive-compulsive asshole .  Yes, pretty standard for an RPG, but this game compels you to actually finish it. I’ve played Bethesda ’s Morrowind and Oblivion (both in the Elder Scrolls universe), but those games quickly turn into a bore-fest, at least for me. The time I played Morrowind, I followed the storyline for awhile, did a few side quests, and when I realized that I am not getting paid to do this mind-numbing chore (I already have my job for that), I qui...

I read about one Tommy Beard, aka Tommy the Leprechaun through Neil Gaiman’s blog . It’s kind of fitting that I should learn about him from Neil Gaiman, as Tommy sounds like a character from one of Neil Gaiman’s works of fiction. An excerpt from the Tommy the Leprechaun article in Missoulian.com :  Sunday, June 14, 2003 Missoula fixture Tommy the Leprechaun dies By ROB CHANEY of the Missoulian The man known as Tommy the Leprechaun died Friday at his home in Hillside Manor in Missoula. Tommy, whose real name was Terry Beard, was 53. For more than a decade, he was a regular fixture of Missoula's downtown streets. In a big green hat and black boots, he'd greet people with riddles, balloon animals and occasional magic tricks. When the sidewalks were sparse, he'd sit with a battered guitar and belt out "If I Had a Hammer" or other folk songs, strumming with a thumbless right hand. He'd hand out business card...

I don’t get that some bloggers (and I guess writers in general) can write about their innermost thoughts and intimate details about their personal lives (and knowing those would be read by faceless strangers) like it was the most natural thing in the world.  Somehow I find the idea too intrusive, and a little self-indulgent.  There are things about ourselves that we simply can’t share with others. In my case, a great many things . For years, I can’t even talk about my son who died at just two months old. I kept my feelings bottled up. When somebody asks me about it, I just shrug and say, well that’s just the way it is, and promptly change the subject.   Seven years after Jedidiah (that was his name) died, I woke up one morning sobbing and bawling; I was crying my goddamn eyes out for a son that died many years ago. It wasn’t as if I dreamed about him, or that his “spirit” visited me or any of that nonsense; I just opened my eyes this one morning and bam! Wept and c...

The Philippine political scene is a mess.  Crazy, dirty, skanky, embarrassing, corrupt politicians lord it over a people who couldn’t care less, except those very few who have access to the internet—those very few who show their concern by assiduously posting their inane and idiotic observations about their inane and idiotic politicians on any website that has a comments section.  And the politicians are actors/famous athletes/famous for whatever reasons--and their spouses and relatives and their spawns, legitimate or not.  …and let’s not forget the political clans . No self-respecting village, town, city, province or entire island/region is without a clan to rule over them—the Philippines’ own version of royalty, plus their rival clans. Yes, they have rival clans. They make every elections very exciting , especially in the provinces.  (Note: image is from here ) The current President—who incidentally is from such a clan—is a former senator who got...