I’ve been trying to lose some excess weight since… um, I guess, ever. I’ve always been on the full-figured side for people in my age group, so I’m no stranger to calisthenics and aerobics and basically anything that gets me to move my “humps” (or “jelly,” if you prefer the Destiny’s Child term). I used to work out using home videos, particularly the MTV “The Grind” workout series. The “Grind” workouts featured dance moves that were fun to execute even as I all too easily broke into a sweat.

When Marielle and I received our gym memberships at Gold’s Gym last July, I started using the treadmill and elliptical trainer machines for my cardio workouts. I didn’t get to bust a move much in the ten or so months that followed; the Gold’s branch we went to did have some aerobics and dance classes, but they were always scheduled during times we had to be elsewhere.

Our parents are enrolled with Fitness First, so when a promo came up, they grabbed Passport memberships for Marielle and me beginning last May. Since then, we’ve been exploring the group exercise opportunities that the Fitness First gyms have. I love the Les Mills BodyJam workouts they’re offering because the choreography is fresh (changed every three months), and after one or two tries on the dance floor I pick it up easily. I also attend a hiphop class where the choreography is more technical and changes weekly, but the challenge is what gets me out of bed on Monday mornings.

Let me tell you a little bit about my instructors, though I won’t name names. Let’s talk about my first BodyJam instructor. He’s this guy who’d show a new move twice or thrice, and then kick off into a full-speed rendition of it. This is great for people who’d already been through the choreography once before (say, a previous class), but I incidentally had started going to his class three weeks before new choreography was to be released. Thankfully I was able to keep up, but he liked to show off more complex moves on stage.

When BodyJam’s new choreography was released last week, I took a BodyJam class where he was the substitute instructor. Amazingly, he was focused on the workout at hand; there was no grandstanding this time, except at one point in the workout he came down off the stage and danced with me. Heh. Maybe I was feelin’ it too much? Ü He’s going to be away for two months. Guess who his sub is? My hiphop class instructor. This guy can really move, but he just can’t help himself and tends to yell his instructions when he’s really pumped up. I guess it’s his way of energizing himself. After all, it’s pretty hard to stay motivated for a 6:30am class, and he had to do that twice in a row this week for the hiphop and BodyJam classes.

If there’s one thing I don’t want to do in a dance class, it’s to draw attention to myself. When that happens, thoughts start coming into my head, like “Am I trying too hard? Do I look like I’m from the Pretty Fly (for a White Guy) video?” I suppose these instructors take note of people who look like they’re enjoying themselves, though. Two weeks ago I was attending a BodyJam class and the female instructor set up a dance-off, and she put me on the front lines. After a bout of stage fright where I messed up mightily, I really got into the groove and left class with a big smile on my face. Or maybe that was the endorphins. Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands!

One thing I can say: this isn’t me working out in my living room with the shades drawn anymore. With my videos the instructors couldn’t see me and I didn’t have people shaking booty alongside me. In dance class, I get feedback and encouragement from the instructors, and when I mess up a move there are other people who can see. Thankfully they’re usually also messing up and don’t notice.

Tags: Dance, Exercise, Fitness First, Hiphop

While we may not all fall victim to a maliciously poisoned cup (like the Queen in Hamlet), eating out has risks of its own. I’m talking about food poisoning, of course; I’ve just recovered from a bout of Salmonellosis and I’ve got to say, it was not pretty.

Last Saturday, my family and I were at Megamall and decided to have some hot chocolate at Cafe Xocolat for our afternoon snack. Since the taza de xocolat we had all ordered is an extremely rich and heavy drink, my mom asked my dad to purchase some salty food from a nearby Chicharon Espesyal stall. He bought a small paper bag of pork chicharon (rind crisps) and another bag of chicken skin crisps. While Mama and Marielle indulged in the chicken skin crisps, Papa and I ate the pork chicharon. I was able to snatch only three pieces from the bag before my dad finished the whole thing.

I started feeling weird around 9pm that night, while Marielle and I were at Sugarnot having a late dinner with friends. The nausea only worsened as the night progressed, and I begged to go home two hours later.

The next morning, I felt feverish and had no desire to eat. At breakfast, I found that my dad had spent the rest of the previous day in the bathroom. I didn’t feel much better than that, and after breakfast I had to go lie down and sleep, or else I felt I would start vomiting. I slept most of the day away, didn’t eat lunch, and had a piddling dinner before tottering off to bed at 8pm.

We figured it must have been the pork chicharon that did us in, because both my mom and Marielle had felt no ill effects — and they had the chicken crisps, not the chicharon. My dad and I were both knocked down by the food-borne illness, but our symptoms were different in intensity. While I only experienced nausea, fever, a bad headache, and loss of appetite, my dad ran almost the whole gamut of symptoms representative of salmonella poisoning: fever, abdominal pain, headache, nausea, diarrhea, and loss of appetite.

This morning, my dad still couldn’t get out of bed. I awoke feeling much better and raced off to hiphop class at the gym with my sister. My appetite still hasn’t returned to normal, but that’s to be expected for a few days more.

In any case, I lost two whole pounds, which makes me feel just a teensy bit better about the whole ordeal. Just a teensy bit.

Tags: Food Poisoning, Health, Weight Loss

I enjoy looking at my visitor stats just because it gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling to know that people actually do read what I have to say in this little pocket of the Internet. Ü Some come in through direct links from fellow bloggers, while others stumble in through search engine results that may or may not give them what they were looking for. While the search strings I get generally aren’t as cringe-worthy as Ade’s, I do get some interesting hits.

• my poor hungry experience philippines essay: Uh, okay. I’m not Claire Danes.
• puppy in my pocket sets: How cute!
• bikini girls in boracay: I should have expected this search result given my posting about bikinis and Boracay in the same month. Still, pervy!
• nothing is sound CD trojan: Yep. I wrote about that.
• scrufus: Hi J!
• Noelle “This Summer”: You really wanna know what I’ve been up to this summer? Heh.
• free URL file+switchfoot+music+listen online: You might be interested in downloading Switchfoot’s free unreleased song, “Daylight To Break.”
• I’ve got a whole in my pocket, my pocket, my pocket lyrics: Keep on looking, man. But remember, “whole” and “hole” are not the same thing. Need I point you to my grammar rant?
• a women using a rocket pocket: EEEEWWWW!
• dont go to the beach the next day if you have a sunburn: Point taken. I’m still peeling.
• supergirl cosplay: Interesting. I really should post up that old pic of my toddler self in costume.
• girls on coco beach: I shudder to think what this search string really means. Get away from me, you perv. Far, far away.

Despite some creepy search hits, I like knowing who’s reading. So, how did you get here?

Tags: Internet, Search Results

First off, let me say that I avoided making this post yesterday because, you know, 6/6/06 is t3h ebil!!!1oneone!1! Oh wait, the only evil part is releasing a crappy The Omen remake and making Julia Stiles play a mommy role.

I was just really lazy and unmotivated yesterday, and today’s subject is a dead horse beaten to such a bloody pulp that I’ve put off writing about it for as long as I possibly can. This is why you’ve had to suffer through painful opening paragraphs that have absolutely nothing to do with what I’m writing about, other than the fact that The Da Vinci Code is, like the new Omen movie, an evil, life force-sucking vortex for commercialism.

Oh, good. You’re still here. I just wanted to catch your attention about the whole phenomenon that is Dan Brown’s take on Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and a certain Renaissance artist. (Here, read the whole load of informative DVC links Brownpau’s accumulated.) Just so you know, I read the book back in 2004 by borrowing an illustrated copy from a friend. While I appreciated the pace and twists of the novel, in order for me to be able to suspend my disbelief, my fiction should be sprinkled with factual information, not spackled with baseless assertions. Shouting “it’s historical fact!” several times isn’t enough. Also, Dan Brown can’t write.

Still, regardless of my lack of affection for it, The Da Vinci Code is a huge phenomenon, definitely affecting people’s lives. Imagine going on a tour of Europe — okay, maybe just France and the United Kingdom — and using a work of fiction to set your itinerary. You don’t need to imagine it: there are many tour operators offering a Da Vinci code tour, and if you’re not willing to shell out the Euros for a real live tour guide, there are self-tour guidebooks floating around out there.

(I’m well aware that there are tours of places where famous authors lived and where they set their novels; the Jane Austen Society of North America schedules tours of England. Still, Ms. Austen was very detailed and accurate about the England she wrote about. I can’t say the same for Mr. Brown.)

Apparently, attaching the name “Da Vinci” to anything is a surefire way of getting people’s attention. For example, spam emails have gone out inviting people to join a book club and offering a free copy of the book as incentive. (I wouldn’t sign up for anything that offered me a free Dan Brown book, but that’s just me.)

And in possibly the most ridiculous and most recent attempt to capitalize on the hype surrounding the book and movie, some baker created a diet based on the Golden Ratio. Sure, the disciples of Pythagoras believed this number Phi expressed an underlying truth about existence, the architect Le Corbusier based his system of architecture on the number, and Plato wrote some gobbledygook about two things being able to join together completely through the adaptation of this proportion. Still, nothing seems to be able to move units like “Da Vinci,” and the author and publishers of the diet book are hoping “to pique the interest of Da Vinci enthusiasts and weight-loss seekers alike.”

The diet is 20 percent protein, 52 percent carbohydrates, and 28 percent fat. I guess in this low-carb world you can’t blame a baker for trying to create a market for his goods. This should also be good news for the established Italian pasta brand Da Vinci. Possible tie-ins should not be ignored. (There’s a Flying Spaghetti Monster joke in there somewhere, but I can’t juggle two heresies at once, dammit!)

Behold the awesome moneymaking power of da Vinci! Even better, behold the awesome attention-getting power of da Vinci! Let’s face it, why else did you read this post to the end?

Tags: Bandwagon, Da Vinci Code, Hype

I’ve been listening to a lot of Switchfoot‘s music lately; I never tire of their blend of catchy pop-rock and inspirational, meaningful lyrics. Sad to say, all my Switchfoot tracks weren’t acquired through purchasing their CDs, although for the past few weeks I’ve been trying to change that by locating and purchasing their latest album, Nothing Is Sound (2005).

Unfortunately, there’s this beast of a computer program called XCP included in a number of their record label Sony-BMG’s releases. Last November I wrote about the nasty malware-type actions of this XCP bug. It’s supposed to be copy-protection technology to prevent the user from making more than a limited number of copies of the disc or ripping the content into MP3 files. (Afterdawn.com has an article on the legitimate uses of CD ripping and why the recording and entertainment industry don’t want people making copies for personal use.)

However, XCP installs itself without the user’s knowledge or consent, then more or less hijacks the computer system. It also has some serious open backdoor issues which leave a way for trojan viruses to sneak into the computer while it’s connected to the Internet.

Sony-BMG supposedly ordered a recall of Nothing Is Sound as well as the other infected albums, and has offered non-XCP discs to exchange with these at the point of purchase. There’s even a settlement website where people can file claims for exchanging their CDs, although it seems to be only for the benefit of residents in the United States.

And that’s where my main problem lies. XCP has received so much press in the United States, and the threat of a class-action lawsuit forced Sony-BMG to pull its act together there. Here in the Philippines, however, consumer rights seem to be secondary to ensuring business profitability, and Filipino customers culturally aren’t very vocal about failure of service or product (politicians are the notable exceptions — there is always someone around to criticize them). After more than six months since the infected Switchfoot CDs were pulled off shelves in the US, record stores in the Philippines are still receiving shipments of XCP-“protected” discs.

Last Sunday I was at SM Megamall and dropped by Radio City to look for the aforementioned album. I was so excited when I spotted it that I almost bought it on the spot. Then I remembered the signs to look for when determining if a CD has XCP packaged with it: A symbol on the spine of the CD with the text “Content Protected,” and a box on the back panel of the CD with the URL “cp.sonybmg.com/xcp”. I checked the CD, and sure enough it had both of them. This stopped me dead cold in my purchase-bent tracks, and I put the CD back in the display and decided to try my luck with other stores.

I thought that Tower Records/Music One was a chain of stores major enough to warrant a fresh, non-XCP shipment of albums. The CDs proved me wrong again (frustrating!!!) and I just had to ask the saleslady, “Miss, when did these CDs arrive?” She took a look at the barcode sticker and told me the store had received them only in May of this year. Again, I forced myself to walk out without buying the CD.

That night, I logged onto the website of Sony-BMG Philippines to see what was really up. To my surprise, the website proclaims:

Sony BMG Philippines has not released any XCP-Protected CDs. Local patrons need not worry about content protection software installation on their PCs, or any threat of infection from the virus which exploits said protection.

…which is complete bollocks since I saw such CDs with my own eyes. Still, I was willing to give Sony-BMG Philippines the benefit of the doubt, since the record shops I had been to that day might have imported the CDs instead of acquiring them from the local label. I withdrew the benefit of the doubt when I visited an SM Record Bar this past Thursday and again found XCP-protected Nothing Is Sound discs.

There is an avenue of redress provided by Sony-BMG Philippines. The site continues:

Should despite this, [sic] any of Sony|BMG’s local patrons find themselves having a purchased CD with content protection software embedded therein, please call our offices at 632.636.37.21 that appropriate action may be taken.

Ibig sabihin, nakabili na. (Meaning, the customer has already purchased a problem disc.) I don’t even think they’ve made an effort to pull out XCP-infected discs and instead are relying on the consumer to pipe up and ask for a replacement. It’s no skin off their nose if the poor buyer doesn’t know any better to avoid such CDs in the first place.

I’m holding out on buying the Nothing Is Sound album until Sony-BMG Philippines starts releasing non-XCP versions. However, I will be buying Switchfoot’s earlier album The Beautiful Letdown (2003). I like all the tracks on it, but more importantly, it doesn’t have XCP. It’s a sound CD.

Tags: Music, Sony-BMG, Switchfoot, XCP