Well, truth be told, from what I know and understand of how a parliament works, I think it would do this country a load of good – that is, as long as we don’t end up with a dwarf for a Prime Minister. I’ve always felt that the very essence of democracy is lost on people as undisciplined, belligerent, stubborn, and insular as the masses that make up the majority of the Filipinos – and most of Asia, for that matter (read: Thailand) – so a tough, authoritarian system of government is long overdue.

But let’s not get into all that, shall we?

Going back to the subject of parliament, how cool would it be if we had a Whip? And no, I’m not talking about ‘em whips of the S&M kind (sorry, Chin!). According to Wikipedia, “whips are party ‘enforcers’, who typically offer inducements and threaten punishments for party members to ensure that they vote according to the official party policy.” Wouldn’t it be cool if our government officials could stop bickering aimlessly for a change, or at least bicker with more sense because there’s someone around to keep them in line?

Oh, what I would do to become a Whip! If I ever do run for public office and become one, I would do the job one better by really wielding a whip. Then I will literally whip any party member who won’t agree to buy phentermine in bulk to reduce the national weight average, or whatever new drama the country might be facing by then.

Do you think it’s too early to start campaigning for the, umm, Whipship? Just a thought.

]]> http://goddess-i-am.com/2010/05/14/whip-it-good/feed/ 0 http://goddess-i-am.com/2010/05/14/stiff/ http://goddess-i-am.com/2010/05/14/stiff/#comments Fri, 14 May 2010 11:30:02 +0000 Iris http://goddess-i-am.com/2010/05/14/stiff/ Right now, as I type this, I literally cannot move anything but my fingers. I’ve figured that there’s a good chance I will suddenly keel over and die one day, thanks to the spurious diet pills that I’ve been taking as my quick weight loss solution, so I decided to keep my weight in check by doing what everyone else does – exercise.

I wasn’t about to join in on the running bandwagon, however, nor did I want to go back to the gym, so when this lovely girl I write with who does yoga invited me to join her class, I jumped at the opportunity. I’ve been at it for two weeks now, and I really, really like it!

We only have classes every Thursday, though. I guess I could go to another school with more sessions per week, but I quite like the group. So I downloaded a couple of yoga videos for beginners and have started doing it at home instead. I must have overdone my Downward Facing Dog, though, because I am now stiff as a board.

The masseuse should be here any moment now.

Every so often, though, I find myself thinking back to 12, 13 years ago. Back then, my sister, cousins (they’re aunts, actually, but we were in the same age group, so we decided we’re better off cousins), and I were demented enough to think that we did the best Spice Girls covers in this ‘ere parts. We dressed like them, cut our hair like them, and generally acted like them (I was Posh Spice, tee hee). We got the songs (complete with harmonizing, mind you) and the dance routines down pat. Why, we even performed – in church youth activities, mostly, but once in a luxury yacht in front of actual paying customers. Truly, it was horrid. But back then, we felt like the height of cool.

I thank the heavens that we did not have video cameras then, or else we probably would’ve filled many an external hard drive with those ghastly performances. And I cannot even begin to express how thankful I am that YouTube did NOT exist back then.

The idea of seeing myself on YouTube doing the Posh Spice wink-and-point thing really is enough to make my sphincter tingle.

(And no, I am NOT going to post gruesome pictures of such a dreadful time in my life.)

It probably wouldn’t be much of a car, really. After all, we’ve got other more pressing priorities. But say, hypothetically, we had about $100,000 to burn, I would pick these babies any day. Hypothetically. And yes, in this order.

1. The 2010 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 in the Torch Red color with white racing stripes.

2. The Audi TTS Coupe in Meteor Gray or Brilliant Red.

3. The Mini Cooper S in yellow or British racing green with white racing stripes. The Husband would be proud of me, truly. He used to drive a Mini Cooper S back in the UK, but the poor man totaled the poor car in a horrible accident that involved a poor deer.

Goodness, if I ever got one of these, I would definitely need to sign up for a 24 hour towing service. I used to drive a piece of shit 1983 Ford Laser that wouldn’t go beyond 40 kilometers per hour, yet I still racked up around 7 speeding accidents – in my first month of driving! With these babies, I think I will definitely be in trouble.

I suppose it’s only a good thing that I can’t afford ‘em. Sigh.

I’ve seen – and enjoyed – plenty of these B movies in my time. But there’s none that I love more than my all-time favorite, Sinbad of the Seven Seas. Let one of my (many) favorite scenes tell you why:

Seriously, has anyone heard of a more atrocious dialogue or seen worse acting? I think not! Goodness, I could probably spend the entire afternoon extolling the rather dubious virtues of Lou Ferrigno as Sinbad and John Steiner as the evil Jaffar, but then, I’ll probably babble on and on forever! So if you want to learn more – or if you just need a really, really good laugh – read this fantastic review.

He’s awesome, this Lou Ferrigno.

Oh, and it you want to watch the entire movie, it’s easily available on torrent. Or you can always get it from Amazon for as low as $0.99. Seriously.

But today I’m suffering from food poisoning after I ate a bad burger from Brothers Burger yesterday and perhaps my brain has been addled so much from all the throwing up that I’ve been doing that I’m actually finding a new Facebook trend a lot more interesting than the article I’m supposed to be writing on home insurance quotes. So much so, in fact, that I’ve decided to post it on my blog instead.

So this is how it goes:

1. Go to urbandictionary.com and type in your first name.

2. Copy and paste this as your Facebook status and the FIRST entry for your name under comment.

These are my favorites for ‘Iris’ (unedited, so pardon the bad grammar and spelling in some):

1. beautiful, honest, popular, poise, sensitive girl; she is more than meets the eye.

2. A very beautiful girl who was sent from the heavens to come and pleasure all the men in this world. she is one who colors the world, and brings happiness to all, with a wild side.

3. One of the Most Amazing Girls you’ll ever meet. She is one of the nicest people you know, nobody hates her. Easy to fall in love with. A girl you’ll never forget. Every Iris is her own person and you’ll never meet another like her. Very trustworthy. Has beautiful eyes and a perfect face surrounding. She’s more than just a pretty face.

4. A very beautiful, angelic girl with a great smile. When with her, you will feel like the most blissful person on Earth. She has the greatest personality and will be there for you whenever you need her.

6. a beautiful girl inside and out. she is extremely complex and mysterious. nobody truly knows her but that is also what makes her so beautiful. she is the most well-liked girl you know and has an abundance of friends and is the most amazing and caring girl you will ever meet. simply talking to her will change your perception of beauty. she reflects the image of the perfect girl and you will feel incomplete without her.

9. A name for an Asian stripper.

13. A mean girl who thinks she can do whatever she feels like and get away with it. She is dirty minded and makes too many sex jokes.

That was fun, wasn’t it? Head on to UrbanDictionary.com to give it a try.

And so here I am at the dawn of a new year with a head full of dreams and a belly that was full of lechon, pastries, and what-have-yous – and still somehow showing it, several days after the fact.

No, I did NOT eat it all. I had help.

I can no longer ignore the fact that my clothes seem a tad – okay, a lot – tighter, and that I haven’t seen my toes in a while. Methinks it’s time to bring out my hidden cache of the best diet pills ever created for lazy-assed, work-at-home freelance writers like me.

I did consider (however briefly) the idea of hauling my bum off to the gym and sweating the extra pounds away. But I find myself thinking of that disastrous time when I had a gym membership, and I couldn’t help but shudder. You would, too, if you threw up on your trainer’s shoes after 10 minutes on the elliptical machine! I kid you not.

For all I know, I could be very well and truly banned from Cebu Holiday Gym and Spa, anyway. And I don’t want to go anywhere else that doesn’t have a pool. And yes, that’s me making lame excuses not to exercise.

So it’s definitely back to the ol’ reliable for me. And for good measure, I could possibly (highly unlikely, but not impossible) pry myself away from this:

This:

Or even this:

Just wait, this lazy-assed, work-at-home freelance writer will look like this again in no time:

- This week has been all about work, work, and more work. And as we all know, it’s nothing short of criminal to work without sustenance, so I’ve had bags of Goldilocks Caramel Popcorn and those uber-yummy Dentelle Au Chocolat cookies from Don Merto’s Les Chocolateries within reach. That’s only natural, right? Right???

- We’ve had endless meetings with the real estate people and some folks from PAG-IBIG this week, thanks to the impending house purchase. This means endless buffets at The Port, the restaurant my mum manages. But again, it’s only natural. After all, one can’t expect these people to help without at least feeding ‘em (and ones’ self) lechon, baked oysters, pochero, kare-kare, and grilled pork, to name a few.

- We’ve discovered that you can buy prime rib-eye steaks from the Rustan’s supermarket at about P200 (approximately $4) a kilo. It’ll be all wrong not to take advantage of this and not have two steaks each for dinner.

So what was the question again? Tee hee.

Looks like it’s back to the old reliable. Half a dose of the world’s best diet pills should do the trick. Now to find my supplier from eBay…

I don’t think I’ve been this excited to watch a movie since Wall-E last year (and that’s saying something because I love, love, love movies, so I’m always excited). I have great expectations from the sixth Harry Potter movie because if I had a favorite book of the series, the Half-Blood Prince would be it. I sure hope the movie won’t disappoint!

Speaking of Wall-E, why does it take ages for Pixar films to get released in Asia? I’ve been dying to watch Up for the longest time, but though it was released in the US months ago, we have to wait until August to see it here. So, for the moment, I’m consoling myself with Wall-E (yet again), which is by far my favorite Pixar flick (so far). I just can’t get enough of this little guy:

I love how he gives a little shake when he hops off his little green line. M-O (Microbe Obliterator) is so cute, I could just squeeze him! (Though how one is supposed to squeeze a hunk of metal without some sort of heavy machinery is beyond me.)

On a side note, in a perfect world, we’ll have robots to do the dirty jobs for us, while we lie on mobile lounge chairs and get fat. We won’t have to worry about getting them social security disability from Allsup, though we might want to stock up on spare parts from True Value for good measure.

But then again, if robots are like M-O and Wall-E and Eve, I might not have the heart to make them work because they reek of cuteness, plus I don’t want to get fat, so let’s scratch that perfect world scenario. Maybe we can have Harry Potter-esque wands and spell books, instead?

Double, double toil and trouble; could somebody please stop Iris’ babble? Like, now?

Now, I don’t mind losing, as long as I’m losing pounds (as you can probably tell from my numerous almost-diet pill reviews) and not my dignity. But it does feel good to win once in a while – something that I’ve started to discover as of late.

It all started on the flight to Caticlan. When the flight crew started their silly “show me” game, I was only half paying attention. In fact, so immersed was I in reading The Grass Crown that it was almost complete instinct that made me lift the book up when I heard the word “novel”. I was rewarded with a Centrum bag that contained 2 pieces of Centrum, 2 pieces of Advil, and a lemon-flavored Chapstick for my troubles – I say ‘troubles’ because the book weighs about a kilo, so lifting it above my head was no mean feat!

Six days later, on the flight back to Cebu, I won the same prize, thanks to the same book. This time, I was ready and hell-bent on winning The Husband a Chapstick.

Strangely enough, as I was blog hopping the next day, I found out that I won something again – this time, from Kessa’s birthday giveaway. I am currently waiting for a full set of Twilight books and some L’Occitane goodies (if the latter fits the package, according to Kessa) to be delivered from Manila. How cool is that? And how cool is Kessa for giving these away?

And it doesn’t end there, mind you. I went to the Sky Cable office to pay our cable bill, and before I knew it, I was the proud (haha) winner of a Sky ZPDee t-shirt.

I am now seriously considering buying a lottery ticket. Before I do that, however, I’m definitely joining this beauty giveaway. The oh-so fabulous Frances is giving away Maybelline products aplenty, and I can’t possibly NOT join!

Aaahhhh… Contests are definitely growing on me. Maybe I should do one of my own to celebrate Goddess, I Am.’s first anniversary, albeit belatedly (the anniversary was back on the 16th). I have to put my thinking cap on and figure out what to give away. Who knows? Maybe my little contest will become the start of someone else’s winning streak.