Britney Spears. Paris Hilton. Nicole Richie. Lindsay Lohan. In the last two weeks alone, these young American popstars have been the stuff of both gossip columns and police reports for their high profile involvement with alcohol, drugs and brushes with the law.
In my former life, I was a non-practicing Catholic. Meaning I believed that there is a God and that there once lived a man named Jesus and that He died for our sins. But I was not a regular churchgoer and was perfectly content with reaching the second half of the Mass.
I didn’t pray, even during the tough times because I didn’t believe in it. But I was not short of foul words to say to the Lord whenever life took a turn for the worst.
At least four times a week, I travel along EDSA avenue from my home in Mandaluyong to my office in Pasay City and back again. Ever so often and whenever I have a little extra money jingling in my pocket, I take a taxi cab. I take the seat beside the driver and endure a constant stream of complaints on my way to my destination, usually punctuated by curses at the public buses that recklessly swerve in front in a bid to outdo its other bus competitors. I could only nod with bated breath as the buses swerve inches away from my side of the cab.
My wife and I love watching TV. And like all couch potatoes, we abhor commercials. So much so that we’ve taken to buying DVD copies of our favorite TV shows. That way, we could watch an entire season without any commercial breaks.
And using Mininova and Limewire, we still manage to keep up to speed with the rest of the couch potato world by downloading the latest episodes of Lost, Prisonbreak, Heroes and CSI to my PC. I’ve noticed that an hour long American TV show actually averages about 45 minutes. Which means that 15 minutes is allotted for commercial breaks.
