JUST STUFF

I RESPECT those who unfriend “friends” due to differences in choices in presidential candidates, food/eating behavior, ideological preference, religious faith, or March Madness bracketology. But me? I prefer my FB “friends” very diverse. Like Chinese-Italian-Pan American buffet. I dig a marketplace of crisscrossing sensibilities and scrimmages of views—as long as people “speak up” with words than spit out one-line or one word snides. Well, wit and intelligence or idiocy and jerkness come not just from my side of the fence—wisdom and coolness as well as dafuqness and stupidity also emanate from the other side or somewhere in the middle. The universe is a world-music open jam. Just because some people don't agree with me—don't mean that they are dumb or nincompoops. That is ignorance. Let us try to learn life from people who seem so different from us—and not just from those who sing in our own choir. Dig?

SPAM TALES. [1] The subject matter says, “What have you cooked lately?” From someone with only a first name, that is also the first name of one of my daughters. So I clicked. Someone was selling me pot (I mean, Le Creuset kitchenware), not what you're thinking. [2] A startling email comes in, heading: “What is wrong with your neighbor?” sent by a dude named Alfred. So I thought, maybe a concerned fella who shares my frustration over neighbors who whine a lot when Georgia barks 7 consecutive times 7 times a month, dig? So I clicked. It was a campaign blurb from a politician on my state.

DAYS ago, I got an email with a subject that says, “Happy Birthday! How are you these days?” Sent by a (supposedly) lady whose name was an ex's name, right? Oh well, an ex-girlfriend has forgiven my past shenanigans—after 15 years??? So I clicked. It was a spam-pitch to a weekend in a spa/resort in Charleston, 25 percent discount with free volcanic stones (whoa!) and meditation CD by Yanni—if I purchase the offer in two days with a credit card. Damn! I was in Las Vegas?!? LOL!

AN OLDER lady, supposedly common friend of a number of FB friends (that I know in person), wanted to be friends. So no problem... Internet friends evolve into “outernet” (my word) friends. Then she asked for my email address. No problem. Then she talked about God and a $5 million sitting in a Nigerian bank waiting for me. I immediately unfriended her. I don't need $5 million to support my ramen noodles addiction! LOL! That's too much moolah!

THERE are a lot of “news” these days that point to other countries and cultures inferring that these people/governments need to clean up their act because our system is much better—instead of in-depth/investigative reportage about local/domestic issues that hit the gut. It's fine to write about international happenings if these somehow revolve around our government's foreign policy and other internal concerns but if we are just going to pick on peoples' ways and lifestyles with the aim to accentuate that they suck and need to behave because we said so, our so-called voice will only fall bounce back at us. If others eat snails dipped on balimbi sauce so be it, we have our own bizarre foods to enjoy. If others jail people for “mere” spray-painting one's new Buick so be it, we got our own share of dafuq laws to amend. There are so many matters within our fences, basic and important, to cover as media practitioners other than write stories that are more replete with “opinionated” self-righteous yarns than straight info (4 Ws, 1 H). Otherwise, it'd be more sensical for (some of) the current media to just post a damn funny cat video or a Bee Gees song like “Stayin' Alive.” I am talking about me as a Filipino and a resident of America, the Philippines and the US of A.