“I just want you to know. I would never hurt him. I love him.”
“I know. I also know it can only bring him unhappiness.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because part of him is a man.”

I was browsing through the TV Shows category of The Fanlistings Network while waiting for WinZip to download when I came across the approved FL for the 1987 television series Beauty and the Beast.

The show was aired on Philippine television when I was still very young, but I can recall clearly that the story had a modern spin on the fairy tale.

The series starred Linda Hamilton as Catherine Chandler (Beauty) and Ron Perlman as Vincent (The Beast). It had a modern-day, urban backdrop.

Catherine was pretty much an ordinary working girl based in New York City. One day, she was beaten and left for dead in Central Park, where she was found and rescued by Vincent, a magnificent and noble man-beast.

Their extraordinary love story then began, a meeting of two vastly different worlds – Catherine’s glittering city apartments and law firms and Vincent’s mysterious underground dwellings and its outcast inhabitants.

Beauty and the Beast was a deliciously dark yet romantic show, with a beautiful soundtrack entitled Of Love and Hope that features heart-wrenching love songs and the hoarse, sexy voice of Ron Perlman reading poetry.

In the Philippines, I could occasionally hear the show’s theme song, The First Time I Loved Forever, still being played on the radio, most often during the wee morning hours.

The First Time I Loved Forever
Lyrics by Melanie Safka

The first time I loved forever
Was when you whispered my name
And I knew at once you loved me
For the me of who I am

The first time I loved forever
I cast all else aside
And I bid my heart to follow
Be there no more need to hide

And if wishes and dreams are merely for children
And if love’s a tale for fools
I’ll live the dream with you

For all my life and forever
There’s a truth I’ll always know
When my world divides and shatters
Your love is where I’ll go

This is an e-mail that went the rounds of lots of virtual mailboxes. I got such a great laugh out of it when I first got the message in my inbox some time ago.

I am feeling a bit disillusioned with my home country, so I might as well share the reality and get a chuckle out of it.

Well, I shall not give away the punchline or anything. But be sure to look at ALL the cars, from beginning to end – in THAT order!

A side note: I took the liberty of editing the pictures and putting the captions on them, but these images are all copyright their respective owners. Just did a bit of tweaking for the sake of fun.

THE BEST POLICE CARS IN THE WORLD

After my month-and-a-half vacation in my native country, Philippines, earlier this year, I returned to Oman on 25th March. I left a humid, sweltering country, rife with brown-outs, and returned to a hot and dry Middle East, smack dab in the beginning of the summer season.

No complaints there, though – sacrifice comes with the territory of being an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW). I was back in circulation on 27th March and have been at work since then.

The Philippine National Elections took place last May 10th. I take no shame in saying that I did not register for Overseas Absentee Voting at the Philippine Embassy here in Oman. Thus, I was not able to cast my vote.

I do not regret my decision to boycott the elections. I honestly like none of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates. A few of the senatoriables I found massively amusing and entertaining, but none of them really deserved my vote. In the local arena, in my native city, I found the candidates to be either traditional politicians (trapos, a local term for dish rags) or severely elitist.

In the end, I could not find the energy to haul my arse to the crumbling villa that housed our embassy, even though it is literally across the street from my office.

Honestly, the only person who deserved my vote of late was Rica Paras of Pinoy Big Brother: Double Up. I diligently cast my save votes for her a few times when she was in danger of being evicted from the Big Brother House.