in these hard times…

earlier this evening, i was idly scanning news headlines to pass the time, but this bold banner made me do a double take.

“13-Year-Old Boy Accused of Robbing Illinois Bank” (Reuters)

i was like — whoah! surely, this must be a joke(?). as in really? a 13-year-old could plan this, and actually do it? that kid sure has balls.

wow. either this boy is some precocious, felon-in-the-making or just a misguided youth hoping to find a short cut to his problems (hopefully, it’s the latter). or this could be hard proof that we’re really living in desperate times these days — even a pubescent takes to crime as easily as he might have watched a concert or planned an outing or something. one wonders what he’ll do next when he’s older and begins to encounter tougher problems.

*sigh*

lenin’s derriere

whew! it’s been a while, but i guess there’s just no way i can leave i.Ph for good. i might not be here as often as i wish, but my i.Ph blog is still one of those loose ends that i can’t quite discard…

***********

roughly 80 years after he died, it looks like Vladimir Lenin is finally getting some form of an indirect comeuppance — courtesy of an unidentified vandal(s) who placed a bomb on Lenin’s bronze statue in St. Petersburg, Russia. The blast blew a hole in Lenin’s coat, leaving a gaping opening in the 10-foot statue’s rear end, which strikes an unwittingly funny chord fit for April Fool’s day.

this statue of lenin, one of the most feared and hated man of the 20th century, is a commemoration of the historic speech he gave when he returned to Russia in 1917. Local authorities have announced that plans are underway to restore the monument to its former glory.

nice weather, this

for the first time in many months, i am not bellyaching about the weather — except maybe on rare occasions when it suddenly rains and i happen to have no umbrella with me or when i’m out for a late afternoon walk while wearing a thin shirt.

still, i can’t say that i have much to complain about. frankly, i would rather shiver in the corner than burn and steam under the sun. for one thing, the cool weather has reduced my electrical bill by roughly P400 — although this is probably largely due to the substantial drop in oil prices in the last month or so. naturally, this thrills me no end, and sometimes i wish the weather would stay this way for the rest of the year.

and then there’s the fact that i am now able to wear the thick sweatshirts that have been languishing (aka unused) in my closet for months. my ACU  has never had so much R&R. conversely, i seem to be heating up a huge amount of water in the past few weeks, too.

ambivalent thoughts on christmas

i don’t know what it is about christmas that can lift up and plunge my spirits at the same time. when i was a lot longer (and therefore a lot less complicated and far easier to please), it was just a simple matter of marking the date in the calendar and looking forward to the festivities, gifts, christmas shopping, and delightful surprises. in fact, the anticipation alone was enough to propel my youthful imagination to stratospheric heights.

this gradual tilt towards ambivalence (regarding christmas) started when i got into college, i think (yeah, i guess i was a regular stick-in-the-mud even then weheheh), and occasionally inched owards negative territory when i actually started working, particularly when i began living on my own. this is not to say that all my christmasses since then have all been gloomy ones. like most people, i had my ups and downs, and there were a couple of years at least that have been really happy ones.

lately though, i just seem to be wallowing down in the dumps whenever the yuletide season comes. for some reason, after attending various gatherings and all the gifts had been unwrapped, exclaimed over, and duly appreciated, i find myself vaguely ‘unsatisfied’ — like i’ve overlooked something, despite the material and intangible things i’ve gained. the maddening thing is that i can’t even put my finger on it.

perhaps it’s because christmas occurs at the end of the year — just around the time when some of us (un)consciously tally our ’score’ for the year, and more often than not, find the net figure well below our expectations. or it could be just my habitual gloomy musing whenever another year comes up (2009!).

oh well. here’s hoping i can shake off this dismal mood before christmas comes around.

call of the wild

for some reason, pictures of young cubs (particularly huge cats) hold a compelling fascination for me — the wilder and more untamed, the better. i like looking at dog pictures, too, but wild animals are another matter. i suppose that’s just my ornery, perverse nature cropping up, but i just can’t resist ‘em.

the fact that they’re rarely seen (except in zoos and documentary films) and are savagely beautiful make them an irresistible magnet for a clueless tenderfoot like me. you may call it what you like, but there’s something about these pictures that connects with me on a basic level

three white lion cubs

a couple of bengal tigers

peek-a-boo: a snow leopard

this one’s named cinderella by its clearly besotted owner. she’s too domesticated to make the grade, but i’m including her in this gallery for contrast. nyeheh.

(source: ABC news)