Insomnia

So. A tricky storm is springing up around the corner of the building. Windows rattle, punctuating the Hollywood grade moaning sound made by the wind like teeth in a set of dentures being bought on the layaway plan. Or something.
The truth is I haven't slept in days and it is beginning to affect my writing. Death is clearly inevitable.
Though I suppose it has provided a topic. (Look at me, turning my frown upside down.) I have also managed to hook up my swish new wireless printer and, look, there on TV the new "giant ship sinks and kills a bunch of people" is on: Poseidon. Definitely not all bad: look at that wave!

Spiders

Just when I think there is nothing to write about, I hit the keyboard and dozens of tiny spiders burst from beneath the letter 'k' and start swarming over my hands. No bites so far, but here's hoping. Seriously, how better would the next entry be if I were to report a massive Philippino spider was growing in the space behind my eyeball!

Happy Birthday to Me

Even those of us who prefer to remain Eponymous have birthdays. I am turning forty in a couple of weeks and the event will not be celebrated, here, at Leah Beach as was somewhat erroneously advertised.

But rather, here, at 'White' Beach. White is a Tagalog word which roughly translates to 'Insanely Lecherous Drunk Old Man in a Toga'.


So if you find yourself in Oriental Mindoro around the end of August, listen out for the hangover. If not, and you still feel moved to get me a little something, buy the next drunk guy you come across a drink he doesn't need.

* Ride the Lightning

It would seem the obvious thing to do when you have waited fifteen minutes for a taxi is to head down into the basement and jump on your scooter. After all, how would you get through the working week if you missed that all important meeting on the new stationery ordering process. (In Manila, just so you know, they are just 'folders' ... get it?)
So what if it a category two *typhoon could be waiting for you at that first bend on the flyover? In truth, I fear it less than the drivers here who seem to think that when it rains most of the laws of physics and motion are temporarily suspended. After all, it is just wind and rain and the occasional piece of sheet metal, what could go wrong?
* Sorry to disappoint you Metallica fans
**A typhoon is like a hurricane.

Cockroaches were never a feature of the house where I grew up. Not even at university, when I lived with a large number of young men whose hygienic concerns were, shall we say, not foremost, did I have many day to day dealings with cock roaches. But here in the Philippines the cucaracha is indeed a force to reckoned with.
They fly, and word has it they bite and will drink from the corner of a sleeping child's mouth. One smack with a flip flop, for example, is rarely enough to get the job done, I have read they can live for a month without their heads. They eat paper.

Sandy walks keenly to the beach, turns at the gate to wave to me eating breakfast, safely out of reach of the guys selling coral necklaces.
His father was a fisherman pulling crayfish from the sea. He reels in pink fleshed Germans with tattoos on their shoulder instead.


The worst part of scuba diving has to be the dying. It is, after all, easy to forget you are under water and not flying in the tree tops. Though a lung or two of brine is a fishy reminder. I have often wondered what you would last think?
Probably that you’d paid too much for that coral necklace, or not enough depending on who you are, and that here at twenty meters, with the entire reef around your neck, it seems colorless by comparison.

Incommunicado

Just spending some quality time here in Oz with the wife's folks, reading and spinning yarns as they say. Not really out of choice if you have to know the truth. You see until this morning they only had a dial-up connection. (For you kids, imagine a series of squirrels with small packages running from point to point and you're close to the idea. Though, if you don't know what a squirrel is, you may be a little confused).
I have signed them up for ADSL with Telstra, the national carrier and it is a little better, though the promised 1500 kps is patchy and every now and again it won't connect to anything at all, even the Telstra site.
Here in Australia they have download limits. One package (39.99 a month) offers the following treat: up to 256 kbps and a limit of 200MB of download. So that's one way to battle Internet piracy. I suppose it is rewarding for me as a blogger to know that most Australians are willing to pay so much to read these words. Certainly wouldn't cut it in Korea.
Incidentally, Telstra shares are worth about half what they were when last floated a couple years back.