In the past, I’ve written about pronoungender change in songs. Having Idol on in the background, I listened to a perfect example of a song that shouldn’t be sung by the other gender. Consider: Maroon 5 – This Love.
My pressure on your hips
Sinking my fingertips
Into every inch of you
Cause I know that’s what you want me to do
The lyrics can be interpreted innocuously, but they can also be taken in a very sexual context. Frankly, that’s the sense that I always hear the lyrics in. With that in mind, when the lyrics are sung by a woman it sounds like she’s singing about prostate milking.
I don’t think I really touched on the plot of Bituing Walang Ningning the one or two times I’ve mentioned it here in this blog. The main plot revolved around the fan-star relationship between super fan Dorina and rising pop star Lavinia. Dorina idolized Lavinia to the point of going to all her concerts and attempting to make every one of Lavinia’s public appearances. Through a few singing contests–leading up to a nationally televised contest (think: Idol), Dorina’s star rose as she gained fame and popularity. Lavinia becomes jealous and ignite a rivalry between the two.
So, anyway, after going through the whole series, my aunts started talking about Filipino real-life talents that are on the rise. In particular, they were throwing around the name Charice Pempengco. I really wasn’t sure who that was until I looked her up on YouTube. That’s when I had a light bulb moment. I realized that I saw her before from a link I was given. She was singing on some Korean talent show called Star King. Oh man, she was good.
After seeing that, I guess she just faded from my mind. After all of the mentions by my aunts of her gaining fame among people like Ellen, Oprah and David Foster, I took some time to look up more of her appearances. Holy crap. Amazing. I think we’ll be seeing more of her in years to come.
So, after all of this, I’m surprised no mention has been made of one Arnel Pineda. I came to know of him through my running group. They were familiar with this fairy tale like story of Arnel’s rise.
So the story goes, one of the members of the American band Journey was going through YouTube videos searching for possible lead singers for the band. Upon seeing Arnel and his band singing covers of American bands with a voice eerily similar to Steve Perry, he got in contact with Arnel through a friend. The rest? Well…see this video:
Craaaazy! In both cases, YouTube actually played such a huge role in getting names out there. I honestly don’t know if it’s just my perception, but it seems like there are more and more Filipinos making waves on these shores. Much as I label myself as a second-generation Canadian most of the time, hearing such news makes my heart swell.
Now among my aunts, one in particular has been rather ill as of late. So, she hasn’t really accompanied us on any outings and has just been hanging around in the living room. My parents suggested that I start playing one of the F-dramas they’ve been watching over the past year. I decided to put in Bituing Walang Ningning which was the drama that we all got really sucked into last Christmas. Ever since then it’s been a marathon viewing session. The goal was to watch the whole thing–all 104 episode before they left. As of just a few minutes ago, that goal has been accomplished. Yeesh! Out of all of the serials my parents have watched so far, this one has been my favourite. It was interesting to watch the show with people who are seeing it with fresh eyes.
It’s interesting. This is the third year in a row that I’ve ended up watching a Tagalog series during the Christmas break. This is sort of becoming an unintended tradition. To be honest, I’m kind of looking forward to having a look at the Filipino adaptation of Yo Soy Betty La Fea–probably more well known for its American adaptation: Ugly Betty.
In any case, I’m quite glad the show is done. That means that once again the TV is free for more regular fare. God, I haven’t watched the news in days. I kind of feel like I’m missing out. Sure, I can look things up online, but there’s also something more comfortable about seeing talking heads, you know?
Do you remember that game show Distraction? It was kind of one of those guilty pleasure type game shows: it was fun to see how far some people were willing to humiliate themselves for some cash. I remember a segment where these cubicles with rigged toilets were wheeled onto the stage. Contestants had to sit on the toilets which were semi-private. They were asked questions and had to buzz in to answer. Thing was, in order to buzz in the contestants had to pee into the toilet. There was another segment where the contestants were in a phone booth and for every question the got right they got a rather large nudist to join them. After a few questions the phone booths got crammed with a lot of flabby flesh. Another segment involved playing leapfrog with the large nudists.
Anyway, I’m writing about all of that because I suddenly had an urge to look up YouTube videos of the game show. I ended up seeing this clip, which involves buzzers, blindfold and cacti. Brilliant.
I mentioned earlier in a tweet that I text messaged in from Loblaws that President’s Choice somehow has this power over me. Ah, but it’s not just me–the company has seduced a load of consumers. Seriously. Galen Weston either has this weird ju-ju thing where he hypnotizes people that see his commercials into buying these things.
For example, there’s this one commercial he’s in that talks about this dulce de leche cheesecake that PC has introduced. At the end of the commercial he jokes around about how viewers should go out to buy it that very instant. When I first saw it, I scoffed at how such a plea just wouldn’t work on the average consumer. And yet, today, there I was circling the pie and dessert area looking for a box of that cheesecake. Sadly, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I stepped aside momentarily and observed many other shoppers circling the area, probably looking for the same thing. Yes, as much as PC’s key lime pie (really good) and other cheesecakes are tasty, it’s that dulce de leche cheesecake that we were all looking for. I’m not kidding. In the span of just a few minutes I can think of five or six people hunting for cheesecake and walking away disappointed.
That’s some powerful advertising. Thing is, this brand in particular seems to have a good reputation for innovative products. So when something like these cheesecake gets airtime, people assume it’s going to be fantastic. I don’t really want to admit it, but that assumption is probably right; the reputation is there for a reason. I swear, I’ll get a hand on some of that dulce de leche cheesecake one day. Just you wait.
I need to preface this video with a bit of an explanation because, really, there *is* a train of thought that led me to post it here.
I was surfing around some random blogs at work (yeah yeah, I know) and came across a post by Muse @ I’m the Dot about her visiting a website about flatulence that amused and educated her. Edutainment at its best, I suppose.
I posted a comment there saying that she should look up this Frenchman named Joseph Pujol that lived in the late 19th/early 20th century. He learnt at an early point in his life that he had great control over his sphincter and had an easy time with air intake. What started out as a parlour trick for his peers developed into a full-fledged act. The act involved musical instruments, sound-effect imitations, blowing out candles from a distance, etc. That’s right, he became a professional fartiste. His stage name? Le Pétomane. You could crudely translate that into English as “the farting maniac.”
Side note: how the heck do I know about this guy? I think there was a mini-documentary on the guy that I saw long ago on Discovery Channel. Yes, my mind is a a reservoir of useless info.
Anyway, thinking about the farting maniac made me wonder if there were any professional farters in existence in this day and age. Then, I suddenly remembered, “Yes! There is!” I remembered back years ago to when Howard Stern had a TV show. I didn’t watch the show, but upon flipping channels I’ve caught a few segments now and then. One of the segments involved this guy from the UK named Mr. Methane. Yes, professional farters do still exist. I looked him up on YouTube and came across this video.
I swear, I don’t want to come off as the blogger that constantly talks about toilet humour. That being said, I can’t deny the fact that I actually have a blogging tag flatulence. I suppose this post isn’t going to help my case in any way, but this video needs to be shared.
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