We had a storytelling exercise in our speech class wherein we were told to share our most unforgettable experience. Since I couldn’t think of any unforgettable story to share, I wrote this one instead. Fortunately, I received a high grade because of this. And my classmates and my professor were moved by what I shared. I just thought of sharing it with you, too. Here it goes…

When you encounter a fork in the road, be sure to take the right path. I happen to run across one, and it was a big turning point for my life. Mine is a story about love, friendship, and the risks and complications that come with both when they meet in a complicated intersection – a fork in my road.

In my life, I consider only two persons as my real best friends. One’s a girl; the other one’s a boy.

I met her nine years ago at a youth camp in a nearby church. I may say that we got along very well. She tells me her stories, I tell her mine. Years went by and our friendship started to grow until we became real best friends. I say “real” because what we have is something real and genuine. No adulteration. No vested interest. No strings attached. She’s like an older sister to me. And she said that she found a brother in me. We are best friends for eight years now.

I met him four years ago in school. We both passed the school paper’s qualifying exams. We got along pretty well. He tells me his stories. I tell him mine. We practically became part of each other’s routines. From going to school, covering news stories, and doing press works, to washing our clothes, cleaning the house, eating, and yes, sleeping. I may say that in him, I found a constant companion. He’s a real brother to me. And what we had is the kind that I’m willing to defend.

Until everything seemed to fall apart. We reached a forked road and the decisions that each of us has to make changed the course of history.

I fell for her. Paulo Coelho, in his book The Zahir, says that love is much like a dam. When you allow even just a trickle to form, that trickle will start to form a big crack that will eventually collapse the entire structure. And when that happens, there’s no stopping it. Getting past the first stage of whether to tell her or not was difficult. Will telling her about how I feel bring about positive outcome? Or will it restrain the free, “no holds barred” friendship that we nurtured for a long time? What if she doesn’t feel the same? And what if she does? I love her. And I need to find out nonetheless.

Guess what I did. Yes. I told her. Her answer was vague and indistinct at first. But to cut the chase, luckily, she feels the same. She told me she loves me. What started out as friendship began to rise to a whole new level. You know, it isn’t everyday that best friends fall in love with each other, especially in our case. She’s a couple of years older than me, and I’m definitely so out of her league. And knowing that my best friend feels the same about me is something… no, not something, it’s everything!

But I’m sorry to burst your bubbles. No, that’s not the end yet.

Unluckily, he is also in love with her. I wish I could tell you the whole story but that will take me another 45 minutes to narrate, and the last thing that I want to do is to bore you with my emo cheesy story.

Causing pain to my best friend is never in my Christmas wish list. I’m the kind of person who treasures friendship a lot. Tell you what; I choked myself up in tears many times because of this. I’m not the typical guy who walks up to a girl, asks her name, and says, “Hey, I think I like you. Would you mind going out with me sometime?” I rarely fall in love. And when I do, I want it to be the kind that opens a million flowers in a field. I want it to be perfect. Well who doesn’t? But this is far from being a perfect love story.

Now what do I do? Should I forego this chance of a lifetime so as not to hurt my other best friend? Doing so will hurt her. And I wouldn’t want to hurt her. More so, what we feel is something true. I know that I love her. More importantly, I know that she loves me just the same.

Will you call me a traitor and a friend-deserter if I choose to pursue what I feel? Hard as it seems, I did. I had to choose between two options.

Today is actually the first year of when it all started. August of last year. After a year, she’s still with me; we are still best of friends. Just best of friends. But he isn’t anymore. I’m not so sure if things are still going to work out just fine someday. Regretting isn’t good, especially when the decision that you made is what your heart dictates. The road ahead is still fuzzy and uncertain for the three of us. I just hope things will turn out for the better real soon.

Apparently, fairytales are only for those who sleep. Not all roads lead to a happy ending. And not all “once upon a time” end with “and they live happily ever after.”

And when you encounter a fork in the road, be sure to take the right path.

“JELL-O is JELL-O and not creme brulee…”

- Julia Roberts, My Bestfriend’s Wedding

When my best friend’s kid Canadian cousin heard that my name’s Jello, he laughed really hard and, grinning, he asked, “Why is your name ‘Jello’?”. Well it wasn’t the first time.

My father named me after a punk rock band’s vocalist, Dead Kennedy’s Jello Biafra (Eric Reed Boucher is his real name). I heard that he’s an intelligent man; ran for both mayor and president in San Francisco; was involved in political activism and supports leftist political causes. Biafra (or Boucher in real life) created his stage name as an ironic combination of the brand name JELL-O, a nutritionally delicious treat, and Biafra, a short lived country which apparently failed to secede from Nigeria in 1966, a country of horrific mass starvation. “Jello Biafra,” says Urban Dictionary, “is now the sexiest 46-year old ever to live.” Hehe…

I visited urbandictionary.com and scoured for some meanings to my name. Here are what I found which really amused me.

1. Jello – the sexiest food alive. Yum… Jello…

2. Jello – mediocre sex. Sex is like Jello. When it’s good, it’s really good. But when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.

3. Jello – short hand for jealous; to be jealous without reason.

4. Jello – ass, usually that of a female booty. Make it wiggle like Jello – the Pack!

5. Jello – a person who is known to break girls hearts and do it continuously; also known for cheating on girlfriend with girlfriends bestfriend!

6. Jello – (i love this one! Haha!) hot, attractive, good looking male, boyfriend, husband, etc.

7. Jello – (here’s another one!) a word standing for totally sweet, awesome, nasty, hot, super, etc.

8. Jello – a woman’s breast. Check out the jello on that chick.

I have no idea why most of the matches have something to do with sex. I’m not so sure but I guess all the Jello’s in the world are sexual. Haha…

This is something you ought to keep in your bookshelf for another read in the future!

Eleven Minutes is a story of a young girl named Maria from a small Brazilian village. After being heart broken in her first innocent encounter with love, she developed this stigma: Love is a terrible thing that will make you suffer. By some twists of fate, Maria finally ended up working as a prostitute in Geneva. She developed fascination with sex. There, she slowly drifted farther away from real love. But her despairing view of love was put to test when she met a painter who sees in her an “inner light.” Maria was brought to an enigma where she has to choose between two diverging roads: pursuing a path of darkness or risking everything to find her own “inner light.”

This wonderfully written novel is an interesting study of scared and profane sexuality in the context of real love. Dealing with a myriad of emotions, the novel carefully and skillfully touched issues on sacred sex and sadomasochism. Coelho’s candid and utter simplicity brought about unreserved sophistication, capturing the readers’ emotion.

Soulful and expressive, the novel was filled with vivid illustrations and visualizations through the author’s unreserved literary expressions. His understandings of sex as a prayer – a way to touch divinity, and his ability to show the co-mingling world of sex, love, pain, and loneliness, showing these things through characters that are enticingly human prevailed in the entirety of the novel.

Caution: this book is certainly not puritanical. Some scenes and moments in the book are sexually charged, hoisting the story in its zenith. This book is highly recommended for people who are open-minded.

“Eleven Minutes is an exploration into the things we crave most out of life presented in a way that will awaken your soul and change the way you love and make love.”

The long wait is over! Featuring its carrier politically aware single “Waiting on the World to Change, John Mayer is back to the mainstream musicscape as he releases his third studio recording album “Continuum.

After two years of hibernation since “Heavier Things, the grand slam Grammy Award winner is back from being the backseat poet as he flaunts his way to the lime light once again with songs written and performed in his own genius in-your-face blues, jittery beats, witty wordplay and guitar-slapping strums. Continuum is a collection of the guitar and vocal maestro’s pop/rock songs all packaged in one soulful, enthralling hybrid and artistic fretworks display.

Having performed with some of the music scene’s bigwigs and iconics like Eric Clapton among others, John Mayer redefines himself as a music master who exceeds beyond genre boundaries. In this album, John Mayer showcases his musical influences in his songwriting and music-making blitz. Continuum features lounge-ified grooves such as “I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You), “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room, and the Sam Cooke-influenced “I’m Gonna Find Another You. Also, keep in-step with John Mayer’s signature in his new songs “The Heart of Life and “Stop This Train.

Guess you’ve already heard “Waiting on the World to Change creating huge impact on your radio frequency. Buy this album and prepare to be caught up in an emo trance with the bluesman’s guitar-slinging and the soulful vocal’s music masterpiece. Find yourself a comfy spot while enjoying the guitar genius’ artistic blips and cutthroat lyrics all included in one great album that all John Mayer fanatics should never miss. Or if you’re not, Continuum might be a turning point for you. Grab it and listen up!

Don’t wait on the on the world to change! Look up for this album in the music store near you and grab a copy of John Mayer’s Continuum!

Get yourself a hankie, grab your pillow, or go find some huggable companion before watching this film. I’m pretty sure (and that’s a “sure” sure) that you’re gonna have a good cry afterwards.

Facing the Giants stars coach Grant Taylor (Alex Kendrick), Shiloh Academy’s high school football coach, who, in his six years of leading Shiloh Eagle’s puny bench, has never led the team to a winning season. That, and his other austere personal crises, makes giving up the best and the easiest escape. But not until some heaven-sent ¬visitor managed to get him back to his senses, reminded him to take heart and “prepare his fields” for God’s coming rain.

Directed by Kendrick himself, Facing the Giants is a film which surely hits a soft spot in all of us. Though the film exhibited conventional camera angles, framing of the shots, and not so out-of the-usual cinematographic style, Kendrick gave well-deserved justice in hoisting the story in its zenith through the film’s sheer simplicity, matched with brilliant script and story line. I myself had my eyes watery and felt irresistible goosebumps several times while watching the film. Find yourself crying one moment, laughing so hard the next, or cheering your heart out for Shiloh Eagles the other, for this film will surely get you to the edge of your comfy seat while watching it.

Facing the Giants is a story about trusting in the power of faith and discovering the strength to persevere; about giving God your best, and letting Him do the rest. It is about facing your giants, i.e. family struggles, personal crises, and emotional chaos.

This film really has it all so I encourage you not to miss this one. Since it’s family-friendly all the way, there’s no way I won’t recommend watching this film to everybody. Better yet, buy your own DVD copy so you could watch it again and again and find out that a new revelation is in store for you each time.It’s rated five-star so don’t miss it!

It’s stupid to ask for that one constant thing in this world of shifting sands…

A story was told about an Andalusian girl who works in an antique shop somewhere in the dry region of Southern Spain. Her name is Martha. This is her story… along with the relics that surround her fragile world.

Everyday she goes about her routine – carefully wiping every piece of priceless artifact made more valuable through time. This she does with extreme cautiousness. She needs to be very careful since the pieces of stuff around her have been in this earth centuries even before she was born.

A simple yet elegant vase on the last shelf in one corner of the room was her favorite. A day won’t come to pass without her sweet strokes and mild caresses touching its fragile exterior from its mouth to the base. This vase never loses its luminescence and elegance because of the love and attention that Martha gives to it.

Many times, the vase nearly falls from its place in the shelf. Good thing Martha is always within the proximity to save the vase from its fateful end. Martha loves the vase. And the mere thought of losing it gives her heaves of sigh. She nearly cries every time she thinks of it.

Martha’s worst nightmare had finally morphed into reality. Caderousse, the store owner, approached Martha. His news was shocking. Martha was stunned. She was fired from her job for no apparent reason at all. She cried. Martha just lost the job that she dearly loves.

“Please Señor Caderousse… I can’t afford to lose this job. All my life I’ve been doing this job. This is my life. I’m begging you Señor Caderousse… Please let me stay,” Martha was on her knees. But Caderousse didn’t budge. His heart was as hard as stone. “Leave now and never come back,” he adamantly, but coldly, answered. Martha had no choice. She left.

Before finally leaving the antique shop which she considered her home and refuge for such a long time, she stopped by to have a final glimpse of the vase at the corner of the shop. She cried her last beside the vase that she loves so deeply. Her cuddle was so tight; a child could have been suffocated at the grip of her warm embrace. Her tears fell on the surface of the vase.

“Can I take this vase with me, Señor Caderousse?” “No. You have to earn a fortune for you to afford that!” was Caderousse’s cold reply. She then left without a word. But tears flooded her eyes.

Martha made it a point to drop by at the antique shop and spend some stolen time with her favorite vase. Everyday she would visit the vase at the corner of the room as if it was her child. But Caderousse would always drive her out of his antique shop. It hurts her every time.

Months passed and Martha was hired at an antique shop in the neighboring town. Inevitable it might be, because Martha soon became preoccupied with her new job. And she soon got used to not seeing her favorite vase. She also grew tired of Caderousse’s rejection. She then found another lovely antique in the shop that she is working in, a gold plated jar with silver lining in its outlines. Elegant. As elegant as the vase that she used to venerate.

Meanwhile, the vase at Caderousse’s shop lost its elegance and splendor. The elegant vase that used to sit in simple and sheer magnificence at the corner of the antique shop is now covered with dust and dirt. No more Martha to show love and affection. The vase lost its value. Pathetic.

Martha’s attention was diverted to the new vase that had drawn her attention. It became beautiful with every touch and caress. It was adorable. Martha soon forgot about her once-favorite vase at Caderousse’s shop.

Something dreadful happened at Caderousse’s shop. A Chinese merchant went to the antique shop. While clumsily examining every piece of artifact in the shelves, the Chinese merchant accidentally elbowed out the pathetic vase from where it recline…

Did it fall to pieces? Did it break? Who cares? Martha doesn’t care.

Some ants are stupid. They dive into a pool of vinegar and drowned. I happen to witness these stupid ants earlier this afternoon in my extreme boredom.

I was sitting on a chair in front of the dining table when I happen to see those bigger-than-the-usual red ants feasting over a cup of suka from our afternoon merienda: lumpiang “something”. My initial reaction was to play Ant Bully over these relentless creepy-crawlies just as I always delightfully do. So I crushed and smashed and snapped and squashed happily, enthusiastically, and joyfully with all my might. You should have seen the devilish grin on my lips and the diabolic look in my eyes while I indulge in that fun activity! When I finally got tired of bullying them, I rested for a while until I observed some of them diving into the cup of vinegar on the table. So I laughed. “Ang bobo naman nitong mga langgam na ‘to,” I exclaimed. It’s not that they dive in literally. They just lose their grip while sipping the vinegar and fall into it accidentally. Almost 50% of them who sipped fell into the vinegar and drowned, and I (the Ant Bully that I am) delightfully watched with glistening eyes and wide-opened mouth as I witness them squirm and fight for their poor little lives. Poor ants.

The lesson: ants get drunk in vinegar. So, ants… drink moderately.

***

When watching these stupid ants became boring, I shifted focus to our pet dog Lana’s three little pups. Believe me, this is one touching story, so brace yourself.

To begin with, allow me to introduce Lana to you. Yeah, her name’s Lana, our pet dog. (We got her name from Kristine Kreuk’s Smallville character, Lana Lang. I know she would seriously protest when she meets our dog Lana. Sorry.) She used to be totally black all over, but her fur’s a little bit turning into brown now. That’s what she got when black starts to fade. I guess it’s because of infrequent baths and exposure to sun, rain, storm, UV rays, El Niño, La Niña, dust, red ants, and anything and everything that the outside world has to offer. Lana is a long-legged dog. She has four long, slender legs, a disproportional long muzzle, and short drooping ears. I’m not even sure if her parents are real dogs. I guess she’s a hybrid of a horse and a premature giraffe. She jumps high and wags her tail so strongly. Totally monstrous, so even we used to be scared to get near her. Well, she used to stay inside the house when she was still a cute little black puppy. I’ve even mistaken her as a black Labrador when she was little, and we’ve seen her slowly transform into a Doberman as she grows bigger. Now I’m completely convinced that she’s totally Pinay and she’s no other than a black “Lagrador” or a “Doggerman” as Serg calls her. We ostracized her and resorted to tying her on a mango tree outside when she started sneaking out of the fence and began living her dream and fulfilling her destiny of eating kaning-baboy and nibbling on trash cans outside. Right now, Lana’s ribcage is so visible to the naked eye even from the outside; so visible that you can even count her ribs, identify joints, tendons, and ligaments, and bring her to school for your Biology class presentation. I also believe that she’s mentally retarded.

So Lana is faded black, horse-looking, and mentally retarded. And (sorry, I forgot) she’s stinky. In short, she’s a typical askal.

Lana almost meant nothing to us because of her unrefined breeding. But not until she gave birth to three cute babies… (Poor dog Max, he had to satisfy his man nature and contented himself with Lana. So Lana got preggy and miraculously gave birth to cute little puppies. Oh yeah. They’re cute. I know, I know. It is really hard to believe. I actually thought she’d give birth to little dinosaurs.)

Earlier this afternoon, I was watching in surprise how her three little babies eat solid food for the first time! They were ravaging the leftover noodles for Lana which my father gave. I saw poor, ugly and retarded Lana watches over her pups monstrously guzzle the food prepared for her. I know that at the moment, she’s also starving to death. Her ribcage reveals her dire need for food. But she didn’t budge! No, she didn’t even move to have even a taste of the food. I saw her looking at it, and I know that her mouth is watering as her tummy churns in serious starvation. But that’s all that she did – stare! My kuya even dragged her muzzle near the food twice and told her to eat with her babies but (guess what!) she refused! Oh man! That was the first time I ever saw her refuse! I can see that she’s sad and hungry at the same time, but she let her babies enjoy the food while she watched and contented herself with looking at her happy little girls. And when they finished eating, she began devastating the leftover food as expected. I saw Lana’s effort to contain her hunger for her little ones (and I know that it was indeed a serious struggle for her since she’s a certified PG). Awww… What a doting mother she is. Isn’t it heart-warming?

The moral: even retarded dogs know how to love and care for their loved ones. Do not judge. (Whatever!) Now my kuya plans to buy her her own dog food. Congratulations!

PS:

If you have been touched by Lana’s life story, you may send in your donations both in cash and in kind to our home. Contact me in my mobile number for more details or you may leave a comment after reading this post (but I recommend the latter). Thanks!

Only a rare few crime-suspense novels possess a perfect blend of mystery, thrill, comedy, and passion all boxed up in one neat package. Kyra Davis’ “Sex, Murder, and a Double Latte” is one such piece; so perfectly blended that you may want to enjoy reading it over a Grande Caramel Brownie Frappuccino at the nearest Starbuck’s.

“Sex, Murder, and a Double Latte” kicked off when Sophie Katz, a hard-boiled mystery novel scribe, gets convinced that some psycho whacko reader sneaks into her apartment to reenact scenes from her book. Her hardly-suppressed jitters and alleged caffeine-induced paranoia prove to have logical bases however, when precedent murder incidents rev up her befuddlement. A filmmaker friend was brutally murdered in exactly the same manner reminiscent to one of his movies; not to mention a gangsta rapper’s murder as a reenactment of one of his songs. If she doesn’t solve the riddle of all these serial killings, she might as well find herself getting hacked up with a rusty hatchet by some crazed, copycat serial killer, just as how she has designed her fictional character’s murder in her book.

So Sophie, backed-up with the most unlikely detective squad (her gay hairstylist, a sex-shop-owner friend, some exaggeratedly naïve but funny dimwit friend, her friend’s aspiring vampire weirdo boy toy, and Mr. Katz, Sophie’s slothful cat), engages in a serious sleuth extraordinaire detective work, running across all possible suspects along the way, and thus pointing them towards Anatoly Darinsky – unfortunately Sophie’s new love interest – as the prime suspect.

I personally loved the book in the way that Kyra Davis wittily juiced out and squeezed every snippet of the story. Since the novel is mostly plot-driven, the story’s development depended primarily on Davis’ story-telling whiz. It’s also a commendable plus factor how she successfully developed each character in the novel. The lines and conversations were fantastically written as much as how the story arc has been fruitfully developed. Davis really is a promising story-teller as she sends me through inevitable grins and roll-over-the-floor laughs through her punch lines and witty attacks. It’s amazing how she manages to tickle some funny bone and make a normal talkies scene so hilarious that you’d laugh by yourself and would definitely make the people around you to look intently puzzled at you. I guess Kyra Davis is Bob Ong’s female American counterpart (that’s if she’s American).

One downside of the story though, is how the novel seemed to be predictable on the mid-part of the book. Though she seemed to have successfully veered off the reader’s attention from this lingering predictability for a fleeting while, I’m pretty sure you’d find yourself in an “I knew it! I told you it was him!” squeal after going through that part. (Well, at least for me, it had been unpredictable.) Also, the story’s climax didn’t come for like after the 18th chapter, which was a bit off for me since I’ve been kept hanging for it for a relatively long time. (But Davis – in all fairness to her – managed to offset the delay through her witty punch lines however.)

Another thing is that the author could have chosen a more fitting title for the novel. First off, the story didn’t disclose as many gory details on the novel’s relatively few murder incidents as you would expect from a thriller novel (ala Stephen King). Notwithstanding the fact that only a single murder did take place during the novel (since the filmmaker’s and the rapper’s murders were merely flashbacks in the story). Second off, the novel’s title includes SEX, Murder, and a blah, blah, blah… But Davis’ never did include even a single steamy whoohoo moment in the story (which I so patiently anticipated in vain and in false hopes because of the rather misleading title. Hehe!) And third off, double latte was mentioned in the title, but I honestly don’t find any relevant connection with that and the story. Although Sophie Katz is a caffeine-addicted writer, I didn’t note any noteworthy event in the book that transpired in Starbuck’s or over a venti-sized double latte beverage. But then again, in fairness to the author, her title was a bit catchy and has rather had me intrigued; that’s why I found myself buying this book.

Another minor blow on the masterpiece which I find rather off is the oversight of spelling typos and other noticeable blunders and slip-ups (i.e. “while” in place of “whole” in “through this while thing,” and “accept” in lieu of “except”.) Kyra’s copy editors had better be blamed on this.

All in all, “Sex, Murder and a Double Latte” is an exceptionally hilarious thriller novel, not what you’d expect from a (supposedly) mystery novel (which was supposed to get you to the edge of your seat all throughout.) Kyra Davis’ way of thinking so out of the box will compensate it all though. And I guarantee that you’d find it hard to put this li’l fancy-hot-pink-girlie-covered book down. If I had to, I’d rate it with a four-star. And I recommend reading this book to everyone who enjoys reading fancy stories. I think anyone – as in practically anyone who loves a latte and otherwise – who just wants to let time fly by while reading a good book will enjoy it. But if you’re a mortido-filled die-hard mystery series fan who is up and about for some hardcore, mind-boggling, tummy-turning murder story, I’m sorry, this isn’t it. Go buy some Stephen King book instead. He’s even more violent, you know. But who knows? Even you might secretly enjoy it.

I bought my copy from Book Sale so I honestly have no idea how much it actually costs. I don’t think it’s too pricey anyway. It cost me just about the price of a venti-sized Starbuck’s Mocha Frappe, though, and I must say that it’s all worth it. Buying it won’t hurt at all anyway. Tell you what, this book is worth shelving for another good read in case you find yourself bored and is in need of a worthy read in the future.