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Have you always wanted to see the editors of The Man Blog do something besides be fat, mean, and manly? Did you know that rock music is the evil spawn of Satan? Would you like to get your face melted off by overripe yellow bananas of awesome?

If your answer to all three questions is a YES, then head over to Bela Bar, Greenhills on May 3 where The Man Blog will be holding their first musical production ever - The Banana Gangbang Rock Festival.

Expect to be entertained by Gino Carteciano’s poster-making skillz, Bim Barbieto’s hosting skillz, and music from the bands of self-proclaimed internet celebrities Mike Villar, Ade Magnaye, Marco Palinar, and yours truly. And because I have sneakily snuck my way into Ade’s band, I shall be playing with not one but two bands that evening (Zoo and Lose Your Beer Belly). Is that awesome or what?!

Tickets cost a hundred bucks and are consumable in the form of beer, women, or wet t-shirts (tits not included).

Don’t know where Bela Bar is? Here’s a map to the place.

Still not convinced? Here’s what people are saying about The Banana Gangbang Rock Festival. And by “people” I mean “the blogosphere’s elite”, so you better damn listen to what they have to say:

“Prepare to hold on to your lugnuts! Be there, or be scared!” – Steel Ventus

“Bring your own vaginas.” – Pau Araos

“Be there for this balls-busting, world-shattering, face-melting, death-defying ROCK… Thingy!” – Baddie

“BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM! You’re bound to eargasm four times right there and right then! Heh.” – Fritz Tentativa

“There will be ass-tons of fucking and blowjobs and tits and balls and shit.” - Coco Collantes

“I’m totally going there just to see Baddie in a wet t-shirt.” - Ade Magnaye

“BWAKANGINANG PAKSHET KALA MO PUGE KA?” – Mike “Fucking Drunk” Villar

See you all on May 3!

I had been to Anawangin Cove only once and had a great time despite never having gone camping before. Of course the last time I was there, I was also with experienced campers, a car, a cooler, and had answers to questions like, “What’s for dinner?” and “How are we going to keep the beer cold?” I was more than excited when I found out that the Hohobags, the Hohofags, plus Anne and Helga would be heading to Anawangin for the weekend. We all needed the beach but more than that, we all needed a vacation.

You’d think that the conflict of a camping story would be the man-vs-nature type but really, the problems we encountered were more like man-vs-man. Dealing with no cellphone signal and no electricity was the easy part. It was dealing with everyone else that was roughing it that took away the vacation-like quality of our vacation.

So maybe none of us have ever really gone camping before. So maybe we were only going to take a bus, and we weren’t entirely sure how we were going to make dinner or keep our drinks cold. So maybe we got ditched by the very person who planned the trip. So what? How hard can it be? What kind of trouble can eight girls, two guys, and one missing mountaineer get themselves into on an isolated in the middle of nowhere?

Summertime, and the livin’s easy. NOT.

(Warning: picture-heavy)

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s realization: doctors are the best salespeople for the pharmaceutical industry. They capitalize on people’s fears of sickness and they do it well, because with ten years of med school (with diplomas on the wall for proof) and a white coat, anyone will believe what they say about your health. Or lack of it.

My health is just about as important to me as religion - which is to say, not very important. Oh sure, I think it’s important to think about the existence of God every now and then but I’m not going to go out of my way to do research about why he doesn’t exist. Nor am I going to go out of my way to earn brownie points so I can sing hymns and play the harp beside the cherubim and seraphim when I’m dead, just in case I’m wrong and God is actually up there, being great and all. Normally I don’t go out of my way to make sure all my parts are in working order either. But get me paranoid enough and you’ll find me waiting outside the doctor’s office within the week and cranky, because doctors are ALWAYS late.

Two weeks ago, Anne and I went to the gyno because that’s what you do with your friends when you’re a woman in your twenties. The following day, our YM conversation looked something like this:

(1:31:03 PM) Anne Gomez: Did you get your meds?
(1:31:05 PM) Anne Gomez: Fucking vaginal suppository
(1:31:08 PM) Anne Gomez: Fricken weird
(1:31:15 PM) darthlaurian: hahaha i did
(1:31:23 PM) darthlaurian: i used one na last night
(1:31:35 PM) Anne Gomez: Now I’m discharging yellow shit and she told me not to use pantiliners
(1:31:40 PM) Anne Gomez: Eugh
(1:31:40 PM) darthlaurian: ohhh o_o
(1:31:56 PM) darthlaurian: bah i hope these wont be a bitch to wash
(1:32:01 PM) Anne Gomez: It’s from the meds, sabi nga nya wag daw akong mashock
(1:32:11 PM) darthlaurian: yeah
(1:32:18 PM) Anne Gomez: How grown-up are we? Talking about vaginal meds and shit
(1:32:32 PM) darthlaurian: we gotsta take care of our sex organs, ya know!
(1:32:41 PM) darthlaurian: they’re like, the most important part of our bodies
(1:33:03 PM) Anne Gomez: Ya ya!

Today I went back to the gyno with my mom because she was concerned that I might get cervical cancer like, sometime in my life. Apparently, boys don’t just bring babies - they could bring cervical cancer without their knowing it too. The gyno then informed us that the cervical cancer vaccine will cost six thousand pesos a pop. I’m getting mine on Wednesday, and then one in two months, then the last one in six months. That’s eighteen thousand bucks to protect myself from the possibility of cervical cancer.

Naturally I freaked out at the price. My mom mom will be subsidizing the vaccination costs, but come on - I could be using that money for my travel funds! But noooo, my hard-earned sweatshop blogging money will be used to protect myself from a mere possibility instead. When I pointed out to my mom how ridiculous this all sounds to me, she shot back by saying that my uncle who got leukemia went bankrupt because of the treatment. The saddest part of the story is that he died anyway. “Prevention is better than the cure” sounds like a cheap advertising slogan to me, but I guess my mom has a point in there somewhere.

Today’s visit to the doctor got me around to thinking - are all the pills prescribed to us by doctors really necessary? I mean, I had to take anti-depressants for months but I stopped when I found out that I could deal with the serotonin imbalance without the happy pills (which didn’t even do shit to make me happy to begin with). The anti-depressants were supposed to prevent me from doing something crazy, like killing myself or raining bullets on people. But I’m still alive and I’ve never taken out my bad moods on anyone, not even when I was at my worst. You know what did make me snap out of the depression though? Quitting my shitty office job and going back to school. Whenever I start feeling nihilistic I give Ale a call, or one of my friends, and a few hours later the world doesn’t seem like such a half-bad place to live in. Pills aren’t the answer to the meaning of life. The don’t even do that much of a good job supplementing it.

So now I’m going to be x amount of pesos poorer because of the damn cervical cancer vaccine which is, now that I come to think of it, really quite clever of the medical/pharmaceutical industry.

Medical/Pharmaceutical Industry

So maybe we’re not gonna get rich off your family because you won’t be getting teh kansa anymore. But at least we’re making money while we’re preventing it! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Lauren

…I HATE YOU ALL.