As you can see, I’m now hosting my own blog just so I can control it completely. It might take me some time to tweak it just right, but thats OK. I like doing that kind of stuff. Small stuff like layout and for some reason, the tags at the bottom are backwards about ‘older’ and ‘newer’ posts.
There’s something to be said about experiencing the local culinary delights and becoming a more worldly person. Theres also something to be said for getting fed up with crap and getting back to food you savor! Mexican food–think about it for a second—this was not the achievement of great cooking minds. This was the product of necessity.
Phil food? Well, there’s a lot of pork, grease, chicken heads/feet, and thick brown gravy. This should tell you all you need to know about the evolution of necessity in the Phils. They like fat so much that when shopping, the heavy fatty meat of the pork belly is more expensive than the lean cuts…the opposite of what I’m used to. My neighbors brought some roast pork from downstairs and he gave me what he considered to be selections from the best stuff……………..several thick slabs of fat with a little trimming of pork on the side. A five square inch section of roasted pig skin with, yup, fat on the inside. A 2 inch square of fatty pork meat with about 6 cubic inches of fat around it. ————- oh yea, and a Styrofoam coffee cup full of gravy.
He was smiling when he brought this up to the house, I wasn’t about to offend him so I took it and thanked him. I tried eating it but just couldn’t do it, (in private of course).
And that would have been nice if I was a tourist, but now I live here. I was working for a week on the Island of Gambell (Bering Strait) when they killed a whale. I had some muck-tuck…it was the single greasiest thing I have ever tasted. More oily than plain oil. I was a visitor then. I would not eat that shit for more than a week or unless I was starving.
So, getting back on topic, I found this food blog and its pretty damn funny. It’s the anti-Vegan site. If you like red meat, this is the place. This fucker is all about cutting up some dead cow. Heres an article about grinding your own beef…and considering I cant get decent cuts of beef on this island or even get the butcher to leave the meat thick..I’m gonna try this. Every time I order beef, I tell them thick, not thin. 2 inches thick I say…ok’ is the response. But they must think I’m crazy because they still always cut it into thin-assed ‘breakfast steak’ strips. Which have virtually no use or flavor. So I think I’m gonna start grinding patties now. My own hamburgers…..its been forever since I had a decent hamburger.
Ever had those days where you keep picking at your nose….like theres a booger in there that you cant find? Well, I finally found it!
I think it was sponsored by Marlboro. Chad got some good video and you can see it here, http://www.chads-house.com/videoz.html or here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVY5WB8IUTo
I think this is the first time he’s done a video of partying that none of us, including himself, made it in. We’re still not sure how that happened.
It was set up on the beach in front of Hey Jude in a huge private enclosure. They were definately not letting a lot of people in. If you looked poor, you werent getting in. Except for some of the more bum-like crackers such as myself. I think my skin color actually worked in my favor for the first time since being in the Philippines. lets start the story right….
I was drunk. (always seems to be the same beginning, I know)
I dont remember leaving the house, or meeting up with Chad and Auldie. I do remember him telling Auldie to slow down on the way down the beach. Then I separated from them somehow…dont know why or where or for how long. I think it might have been at Juice Bar. But I’m not sure.
I remember walking again and running into a chick that for some reason, I asked about seeing Chad. Amazingly, she said “they” had all gone into Hey Jude already….I asked who they were and she said it was more people than just him and Auldie. I do not remember who this girl was or why I chose her to ask.
At Hey Jude, I asked the bartender and he said they had just left the bar to go inside the party area…..I stumbled over just as they were at the entrance, with a glass from somewhere in my hand, and a friend was there and waved me over - while they were flat out not letting a lot of people in, the security put a purple wristband on me and let me in for FREE!! Yippie. (the wristband turned out to be blue)
I have no clue what they were mixing but they were handing out the drinks for free…something blue and slightly luminous…that means “glowing” for you inbreed types. What the hell, lets drink up! I remember a lot of rich, fashionable, and generally young people being there…lots of Filipinos with lots of cash….damn, I have been on this place too long. I forgot was civilized people were like already.
I met a good friend of mine in there…and things got really sketchy after that. All I’ll say is that my fat ass was dancing to the hypnotic rave music.
I remember knocking a few tables over and falling on my ass at least twice. Various conversations in between. I think. I remember other things and don’t particularly feel like posting them. I remember leaving at one point but I dont remember where I went. I do remember coming back to the party though. I had a great time….sure, some things that are embarrassing in hindsite, but as Auldie said today - thats the way to party!
I left around 0500 I think. I lost my sandals somewhere in the night and caught a motorcycle home and had to walk barefooted up this damn pathway over chicken crap, palm leaves, rocks, and dirt. I didnt even know until today that we lost Auldie before even getting to the party.
I’m slowly drinking water-had some milk earlier in the day—that was a mistake. its been over 24 hours since I last ate, time to see if I’m up for some solid food.
Honestly, I dont even know what the occasion was.
I was putzing around all day yesterday…trying to rehydrate and settle my stomach when the internet went out just as I sat down to do my already-late assignments. But on the bright side, I got some really good sleep in. My only problem now is that I’ve been in the air conditioning for 2 days straight so it’s not going to be easy getting back outside.
I have some new advertising stuff on the sites. Go ahead, click thru and make me rich!
UPDATE 21Mar2008: Sorry, I cannot recommend or even ask a third party to click on the google ads because I stand to gain financially from it. I did not know this until I logged into my account today and theres a whole new (and huge) terms of service I had to agree to. Presumably they would too but I guess they’re looking out for the interest of the ad-owners….I think….to be honest I’m not really sure. But they said so, and I’m sticking to it.
99.5 degree Fahrenheit. Yuppers, I’m a little toasty.
I went out and managed blackout drive pretty quickly. I do remember being a bit drunk and coming back to the house. I remember Chad coming up behind me saying 6 girls were going to drink the ‘Fuck You Archie’ so he was getting the video camera.
Then I remember being at Summer Place pretty late chillin with a friend. I remember getting a motorcycle home.
I woke up hungover and really shaky as they told me about a friend that got the bends pretty bad on a morning dive. I tried sleeping again and didnt do a good job of it. I got up around 15:00 and noticed that I had lost a pillow and somehow, gained a mystery bag of Andoks fried chicken. There was a plastic bowl with about 5 eaten pieces in it and another bag with 6 more pieces hanging on the back of the chair. I dont remember any of it.
Now…what people told me is that apparently I went back down to the Red Pirates and hung out with them drinking some more on the beach(?). They say there was fire dancing and video(?). There were girls drinking FU Archies(?). I was telling people that I was waiting for someone(?). Gaz was wearing short-shorts and his nads were hanging out(?).
I remember none of it. I do remember thinking that I should have some Andoks but I dont remember going there or back or even eating it. I dont remember getting home or why my shirt and boxers were on the bathroom floor soaking wet. I also dont know why there was sand all over them or how I even got sand up to the house.
And I have more coursework to do tonight. Jeeze.
Filipinos have a huge amount of pride. They named a boxer as a national hero. I had never heard of this Manny Pacquiano until after arriving here…but man do they love him. Funny thing is that no one ever talks about him except if theres a boxing match. Recently, there was and everybody was watching.
I heard screaming and yelling and male voices taunting and girls voices like they were injured. I ran out the door and to the balcony expecting to see some gang cartel type thuggery with baseball bat justice going on….but nope. Apparently, Manny came on stage (in Las Vegas) and started yelling “Filipino! Filipino! Filipino! Filipino!” and that pretty much made everyone here shit their pants.
The Black Eyed Peas are likely to be the next national hero. They have one guy thats half Filipino (so they declared its a Filipino band) and they have 2 songs. Honestly, everyone I know thought that one song was Hawaiian but I guess its Tagalog and the other one called Bebot chants the same thing as Manny did on stage.
One downside to it is that anytime these Fil-pride songs play in the club, it’s best for all foreigners to exit the stage and not look like they’re having a good time. Pride turns ugly if a tourist dares to act like they’re enjoying Bebot.
One of the people down the hill was keen to point out that Manny was a champ in America. He had a fiery gleam in his eye that told me I shouldn’t mention that he wasn’t the champ of jack shit in america because he fought some other unheard of boxer from a different country. I’ve seen people and pride, that stuff is dangerous. It starts lynch mobs.
I found this over on The Wily Filipino titled: On eating balut
I don’t think I have ever seen a description of just how to do it before this. I kind of assumed they just cracked an egg and started munchin’. After all, it’s sold all over the beach here by roving vendors. Notice that he says there is nothing sensual about it…..but goes into a long and sultry description that makes me want to try it for the cult-like secret ceremony. In his description, I imagine a few teenagers in a darkened kitchen with candlelight in awe over the prized fruit they are about to partake of.
Then I remember its a partially formed duck….so no thanks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Balut. That much-loved, much-maligned Filipino delicacy: favorite of beer drinkers all over the country, degree zero for culinary nastiness (used as a stunt on TV’s Fear Factor, apparently), the dreaded food test for the Kano (and Filipino American, as my students tell me).
Say it: balut. Ba-lut. Your lips gently press together at the beginning, your tongue flicks quickly up towards your palate, your lips move as one in the shape of a narrow ooo, and ends with your tongue teasingly poking behind your teeth.
(This is, however, in contrast to how balut is sold in the Philippines, by ambulant vendors who yell in the streets, “Ba-luuuuuuuuuut!”)
But there is nothing sensual per se about balut; it is, after all, an aborted duck fetus. As opposed to, say, eating an ordinary chicken egg with yolk and all, the balut is already fertilized and ready to go, as it were, with an actual, healthy, living duck embryo (incubated up to 18 days in a hatchery). And this where, of course, the balut gets its notoriety: the duck really looks like a duck, eyes, pink little limbs, gray feathers, useless beak and all.
Duck embryo in the shell,
I pluck you out of the shell; –
Hold you here, beak and all, in my hand,My fondest memories about balut had more to do with buying them. They were always sold late at night (my father would bring them home after playing mahjongg until midnight), but sometimes we would go out ourselves. In Los Banos they were sold by this gaunt, gray-haired woman who would squat by the side of the road. The balut would be swaddled in cloth, and nestled in an old wicker basket; the woman would carefully unwrap the rolled-up blanket that kept the eggs warm, give us a thimbleful of salt in a twist of recycled graphing paper, and count her money in the light of the candle anchored with melted wax on the pavement. (I remember these were windless, humid July nights.) We would then ride home, feeling the heat of the eggs in our laps.
Instructions for eating balut:
- 1. Boil water gently in a pot, and put the balut in it for a few minutes.
2. Untwist the salt and put it in a dish. (A dipping dish, the kind used for soy sauce or patis, works very well.)
3. Hold the balut upright and, with the underside of a spoon, make a crack at the top of the egg.
4. Chip away pieces of eggshell with your finger until you have a hole about the diameter of a finger. (This could be bigger, it depends.)
5. Sometimes you’ll see some kind of gauzy membrane. Pierce it.
6. You can peek inside the balut now and see broth. Is this albumen? (I always preferred to think of it as amniotic fluid.)
7. Tip the egg to your mouth and suck out the amniotic fluid.
8. Continue removing the eggshell. Depending on how you cracked it open, you may then see an undifferentiated mass of stuff that feels like slightly runny, soft-boiled egg in texture. Dip the stuff in the salt and eat it.
9. Or you may encounter a hard, spherical section that looks like a seed. Throw that away. (My godmother swears that it’s all calcium and good for you, but it’s tasteless and hard for me.)
10. Or you may finally get to the jackpot: the duck fetus. You may pick it up by the head — at which point the body unrolls from its fetal position and its little legs dangle — dip it into the salt, and pop it into your mouth.
11. Wash down with a cold bottle of San Miguel beer. (I think I may have been drinking it with milk when I was in elementary school — now that sounds disgusting. Balut and milk…)Answers to frequently asked questions:
- 1. Yes, you can feel the feathers on your tongue.
2. As a former (white) professor discovered (he was being administered the balut test), entering a pitch-black closet so you don’t have to see it makes no difference. You can still smell the faint, slightly gamey, deliciously menstrual aroma. (Also see #1 above.)
3. No, the duck’s eyes are closed.
4. Of course it’s dead.
5. No, I have never been able to buy good balut in the United States, and I won’t try to. One time my schoolmate Tim (can’t remember his last name, but he lived in Mountain Province once and was studying Heidegger and Japan for his dissertation), Jenny Franco (I wonder where she is now), and I drove to Queens to Roosevelt Avenue to buy Filipino food. I bought a six-pack of San Mig and two balut eggs, which were simply horrible — they were all pinkish and looked under-incubated, and they tasted rotten.
6. No, you can’t pop the whole thing in your mouth. To begin with, there’s too much, unless you have a big mouth. You have to separate the balut into its component parts to appreciate it, and that requires reverent contemplation of the duckling, forever asleep.
7. Yes, it tastes great and I miss it.
Civilized business - no one in a gas station or market in the US will raise the price on you just because you’re a certain race.
I really miss self-checkout in Wal-Marts. Its interesting how we consider the US to have some scummy people all over, but even in walmart, they let you scan your own groceries and pay in the machine…completely unattended. man, that was nice.
Real Products…..as in genuine stuff. Not fake clones from china in real looking packaging.
Real meds. I have gotten fake medications too many times here. I once had cemetadine that were chalk tablets.
Decent staff - I know, its a weird thing but you constantly hear that store staff here will tell you they dont have a certain item when they really do. Seems like a small thing but I have never seen it so common, anywhere in the world but here. I recently bought an electric toothbrush in Manila at the closest thing they had to a Best Buy..nice place…tons of employees waiting on you……. But this guy told me with 100% pure confidence and a smile - that they didnt sell those.
its not a matter of them not knowing, but they dont bother to check. I have never, in my 23 countries of worldly travel, seen that happen anywhere else.
I miss fast-food. Jolibee is not fast food…it isnt even safe food. Fastfood used to be fast food…you didn’t eat it on holiday and you didn’t eat it on vacation. Here, people will save up for a year or more to visit Boracay with their family but on their blogs, they consistently mention that their first meal was fried chicken at Andoks. –what a crappy and greasy and unhealthy holiday meal— Gimme taco bell any time.
I miss..well…i dunno.
I miss the seafood section in the supermarket–for that matter, I miss supermarkets. I looked for frozen or at least decently refrigerated meats fish in Robinsons but nope…it was all open. The 4 refrigerated lanes had hotdogs. I have never in my life seen that much variety of hotdogs.
I miss security - I semi got used to it in the middle east, but never expected to see it here. The ninjas, (muslim women with the full body/face hajib) walk thru security and hand paperwork…no one checks to see who they really are. Now, they’re busting terrorists on this island. Not a good sign.
I miss store layouts. If your place is not large but you have 3 different toy sections and the cosmetics bags are in the wood-crafts section, then the logic escapes me.
I’m not really fond of these chickens and the smell of pigs. I’m used to it but coming back from the airport, it hit me strong as just how much this island smells. I went thru the wet market nad almost convulsed at the smell of milkfish rotting in the sun with nothing more than a small de-fly fan to cool them.
I miss work. Really, I do. I am not allowed to have employment in the Phils. Thats the way they are….from the US? No job for you punk!
I miss driving.
I miss gas stations.
I being able to buy good cuts of beef for a BBQ.
I miss being able to buy chicken for a BBQ that doesnt have bone chips in it from being hacked apart along no particular axis.
I really miss Wal-Mart, I know I already mentioned it…but I do.
I miss having a postal system.
I miss being able to order on eBay without paying double the price of the item on import taxes.
I miss privacy - from neighbors, from resto employees, from everywhere. It’s worse that a highschool girls locker room.
I miss reliable internet.
I miss qualified doctors.
I miss central air.
I miss winter. Snow Ice. I miss seasons period.
I miss traffic laws.
I miss drinkable water.
I miss hot water.
I miss microwaves.
I miss being able to cook w/o having to roadmarch 14 KM for food.
I miss water pressure.
I miss dogs that chase cats.
I miss pet-stores.
I miss post-it notes
I miss not living on a hillside in the fucking jungle with palms and banana trees all over the fucking place and roosters crowing all hours of the night and neighbors cooking with scrap construction material so the fumes of burning paint come into the window and government agencies that use computers and deodorant and toilet paper and sidewalks where people aent trying to seal from me or sell me their children or a whole society where I get charged a different rate for everything because I AM FUCKING WHITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yea, there’s a few things I miss.
We’ve been having a wild time here on Boracay. It started this past week with prostitutes getting jacked up. One was in a fight in the club with another girl over a customer…she was a pretty one too. Got jacked smooth the fuck up and will likely have scars on her face and her legs got messed up somehow so walking is a pain. Over a customer. Another girl from this side of the beach was seen on the other side with a German dude thats been here for a year. She washed up on the beach the next morning with her head split, cigarette burns on her tits, beat the hell up, and a water bottle crammed in the crotch.
Ouch….talk about someone in need of a job as an interrogator.
Next, they caught 3 terrorist guys here on Boracay. (stories and links on the main site). 2 were from some Jeramia group and the other was Abu Sayef. Fil intelligence officers were here doing the raid secretly and local police were in the dark until they heard gunfire and it was over. One clipping said they had guns stashed here too. Then a few more terrorist captures in Manila which leads them right back to Boracay, but this time it’s an Al Qaeda guy.
This morning, 2 military Huey’s flew low over the house heading north along the beach. C has seen them before but it’s the first time I have.
Last night, I drank a 1.5 liter bottle of Tang. Instant drink mix that I put in a coke bottle. I usd to use it all the time for vodka mixer but stopped a long time ago - and now I learned something. All that heartburn that I used to have is from that damn Tang.
So the brother of a friend comes in and we go out drinking. A few hours into it, I start with the sweats again. It took me a while to realize that no-one else was sweating and that I was getting tired really fast without having drank a lot. So I left for some midnight Jammers….:
It was still kinda early when I split. I waited at Jammers for some friends, but after a long while, I was like screw it, I don’t feel good. But Jammers…..damn, I hardly eat there but boy was that good! On the menu it gives you a choice of ‘meat’ or ‘fish’ tacos. Thats the only description. Damn good tacos too! nothing processed..all fresh veggies, shells, and..well, I don’t really know much about the meat but it wasnt really greasy or anything. The burger was massive.
Felt like crap on the way home. Got home and did a double take…Porch lights, a room light, and a bathroom light were all on. I assumed everyone had somehow gotten back before I did, like they skipped Jammers and took a trike straight home - so I went to bed with the laptop. About 45 minutes later, I get a text from them down at Jammers asking where I was…hmmmmm…..I was the last one to leave the house I thought and the lights were off and it was daylight still
Sinus problems game back with a vengeance in the middle of the night…so bad that I thought it was daylight in the AM but when I got up to cram menthol up my nose, I looked out the window to see why it was so dark. Yea, it was dark alright, because it was only 0400. Apparently, I was not in a good shape. I drank a 1.5 liter bottle of Tang in my sleep and still feel dehydrated.
In these online courses, I’m finding myself having to do constructive comments to other peoples posts…..people who write like the takeout window at Wendy’s was the highlight of their career - 4 years ago before they started popping out kids at age 19.
So I wonder…and I think….
The ‘dirty masses’ media says things like don’t compare yourself to models and sports stars. Dont compare yourself against anyone. Be yourself. Do what you enjoy. Money cant buy you happiness.
Bullshit it cant!
So I compare myself against other all the time. The fact that I wont take any job that pays less than $120k/yr might say something about my goals. One person in class mentioned ‘what happens when you reach the top? Why not keep going?” And I think…silly drive-thru attendant. If I reach the economic top, there is no where to go because I will have sucked all of the resources from those below me…..they fail, then I fail. So please, stop having babies so you can keep some of that money yourself. Help make me rich and powerful. Get a second job at the gas station. You know you want it.
Corporate America….its not a job description, its a mentality. I have seen people vastly more intelligent than myself blather on about how ‘it ain’t fair!’ because of how I make money even when unemployed. I guess I could be idealistic and poor. Or not. I joined the other side.
And the other side is nice.
I have only been looking for a job for about a week and someone I didn’t even contact asked me for my resume. I mean hell, I have never had a problem finding a job in my life.
So whats to stop a person from wanting it all? Some people want but …gawd! I swear…even their professional writing looks like the transcript from a Jerry Springer show.
So why not be at the top? I mean, some people are born intellectually greater than others. Imagine a kid that had 20 years of national Geographic magazines and an encyclopedia set that was 10 years older than himself. No kids books. This kid teaches himself to read and already tough himself the practice of basic phonetics, all before entering kindergarten. No, its not a child genius, but the point is that some people just ‘get’ things. Others don’t. Education will not help them.
I think I’ve gotten too used to being down on the south end of the island. It’s the economy/ghetto part. When I run into someone that can use 4 syllable words, I almost feel intimidated like they were sent to test me or send me off to the Soylent Green factories.
I think it’s not just me. I think this place affects all the expats here. Sure, some were already dense but all it takes is a little time away and every one seems different. This place drains you. People talk about how they would love to stay here. But they wouldn’t. This is a place that you come to to die. Retire then die on Boracay. You will enjoy the hell out of it for a week or two as a vacation, but its really boring once you realize how ghetto this place really is. they didn’t spend any effort making it look quaint - that’s just the natural ghettoness of it.
Every time I post this stuff online, someone gets uppity and does the “if you don’t like it, then leave!” OK, so I will leave. I have spent over $30,000 USD into the Philippine economy this past year. I will take it and go. They are steadily letting their anti-foreigner attitudes creep into politics.
I can has cheep boos?
I cant eat this stuff. I know a lot of people that have, and not a single foreigner I’ve talked to can say that it wasn’t a sickening experience for them. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.
One guy listed that this was a “poor mans redbull” and that he loved the stuff (Manila guy). I dunno, that’s a far cry from redbull if you ask me.
I used to say that I would try everything at least once. Even the disgusting and morally reprehensible stuff. I learned when I was a kid that it doesn’t take therapy to get over things as long as you forget to take a sense of morality with you in the morning.
But this? No…I don’t think I will try, even once. Too many people have gotten sick that I know of. Like scat movies….human feces is potential disease from above… Balut, can easily harbor living bacteria that would make me cut my bunghole open wider just to get it out faster. I used to say I would try it at least once, but I dont think so anymore.
I dont care who you are…this one is funny.
I ended up asleep by 2230 last night. Deep sleep then I couldn’t sleep at all after an hour when the sinus acted up really bad. I’ve never had that happen before. I took some methol/camphor vaporub stuff and slathered it all over my face and a little up my nose. Hurt like hell but after an hour, I drained a lot out and was able to sleep again.
I also got up at 0730 today, which is not normal, at all.
Gonna be a busy day today. I have some college courses to finish this morning, again, since the puter locked up on me yesterday and the autosave didn’t seem to be working…..lost all my work. The I have to clean out the maids quarters room, clean the spare CR, move the washing machine, reattach the showerhead, clean the fridge, sweep and mop the floor. I’m not turning into a bitch or anything but we are about to have a full house and it never hurts to spruce up the place.
Personally, I dont mind the gecko shit everywhere. Except on the table.
copyright 2007-2008 homelessdiver.com owner, thats me.
