Not Having the Best Week Ever: Countries on the Pacific

If there's a side of the world one should avoid right now, it is anything that lies on and along the Pacific Ocean. What's going on? Is 2012 coming sooner than expected or is this a marketing ploy from Sony Pictures? Both ideas are stupid and I'm sorry that I even brought them up.

Since last Saturday, three natural disasters have hit several countries in the Asian-Pacific and South Pacific regions and have claimed, about 1,000 lives (with more missing).

September 26 - Typhoon Ketsana/Ondoy which hit the Philippines on September 26, leaving behind the worst flooding in Metro Manila in the last 40 years. It went on to wreak havoc on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

Septemeber 29 - An undersea earthquake (8.0 magnitude, approx.) trigerred a powerful tsunami which devasted the islands of Samoa and American Samoa in the South Pacific.

September 30 - A 7.6 magnitude earthquake off Indonesia's Sumatra island in the coastal city of Pandang. Indonesia has been a hit by another quake earlier in the month and several lesser quakes have been reported since the 7.6 hit the island.

To a quick lesson on tectonic plates, click here.

Growing up in the Philippines, I have experienced typhoons, earthquakes and a major volcanic eruption. We were lucky enough to be living in an area that was not devastated by any of these natural disasters. I could hardly imagine living in Cainta or Marikina right now and my thoughts and prayers go out to those affected in the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Samoa, American Samoa and Indonesia.

Thanks AlJazeera!

A lot of fellow Pinoys have been complaining about the lack of coverage (in the US media) on the Manila floodings. Unless you have TFC or have access to the interwebs, you don't really hear much about it. I am always on Google News and the media outlets that have been covering about the unfortunate disaster comprised mostly of non-American news outlets, well except for CNN and AP. Anyway, if Pinoys want to read more about the typhoons and the devastation it left/will leave the Philippines, they should just head over to AlJazeera.

Snarkiness aside, please help out and donate however much you can. Here are just a couple of sites you could go to send in your help:

Ondoy Relief

UNICEF USA

ABS-CBN Foundation

Thank you.

Oh BTW, my heart was broken... AGAIN

After I read this, I heard my heart shatter into tiny little pieces afterwhich I then imagined Michael Bublè collect the bits and grind it further before snorting it up his nostril.

At least it's with Emily Blunt. I like her. Not that he needs my approval.

And that's how I ended my birthday month.

Lesson of the day: Don't ever say that "Korea is gay"

OK, so I'm not trying to start something here. This is really just a "moral of the story"-type of thing I learned from following the K-Pop industry.

WTF Korean netizens! I cannot get over the immense power these people yield in Korea. This is plain internet bullying but in a completely different level (like, X 1000!). In less than five days, someone’s career went kaput because of these no-life netizens. I suppose I could include myself in the demographic, but I refuse to be corralled in with this bat-shit insane group who would go as far as start a petition for someone to off himself.

Anyway, it makes me sad that that this is the event that made me post again. There have been so many things that have transpired from the last time I posted and I can’t believe that the latest “hot talk topic” in the Korean entertainment industry would be the one that made me go back to blogging.

Here are just a few of the (I guess) less important things that have happened in the last couple of months:

· March – had a car accident which totaled my car… AGAIN!
· April – went to the Coachella Music Festival with Joe
· May – Didi passed away a month shy of her 7th birthday *tears*
· June – what did happen in June? Oh shoot, Michael Jackson passed away *tears*
· July – left for a family vacation in Hawaii, where I’m sure I had H1N1
· August – turned 30! (with a precious gift of H1N1, hurrah!) *tears*, LOL, not really

As you can see, the year hasn’t really been great for me (thus, the hiatus). It seems like my Chinese horoscope for the current lunar year is true, I like reading horoscopes for fun and although I don’t necessarily believe in them I like putting coincidences together. Unfortunately for me, my Chinese horoscope outlook for the year of the ox wasn’t very good. Apparently, the ox doesn’t like the goat (my sign) so yeah, it’s been a sucky year. I was hoping that the lunar gods (or whoever’s in charge of “giving out luck”) would give me a reprieve since I turn 30 this year. No luck there either.

At least I get to post on 9-9-9. Happy 9-9-9! What could go wrong today? It’s the reverse of 6-6-6 so I’m sure it’s “happy” rather than “oh-my-god-the-apocalypse-is-coming.” Case in point: I am going to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs show tonight in Oakland, a belated birthday gift from a friend.

Still grieving

I'm still grieving over the fact that Thursdays won't be the same anymore. Sure there's a couple more new episodes of 30 Rock (which has been totally brilliant this season), but Thursdays from fall thru spring won't be the same without The Office. :(

Then I see this news. Horrible.

Tomorrow, I'll try to write my uber-late recap of last week's episode. "Try" being the operative word.