The Dizzy Reed of Posts

I went back to the hospital today. No strange rice-related illness this time, just a straight-up cold. Usually I’d just ride it out, but my eyes have become inflamed to the point where it hurts to be awake. I fixed that little problem yesterday by taking four extra strength cold and sinus Tylenol, the extra drowsy shit. After waking up from my 14 hour nap I still felt terrible and decided that over-the-counter self medication was a short-term solution at best. I went to the hospital and saw the same infectious disease doctor as last time. Blood-work and a facial x-ray later I had my diagnosis: I was home to a wonderful bacterial infection. Also, my blood was packed with allergens. This is what she told me. When I asked what I was allergic to the Doc kind of shrugged it off and wrote a prescription for some random drug. Whatever.

Matthew Walsh

I now have four prescriptions and a written suggestion (?) for an over-the-counter anti-bacterial soap for sensitive skin. I also got some free tips such as: “Wash your face” and “Don’t put your fingers in your eyes”. Finally, a doctor who tells it like it is.

The above paragraphs were written a few days ago. Since then I’ve been on the good drugs and feel 100% better. It’s amazing what blind trust in random drugs can do for a person. Not only do I feel better, but I look better too. For a few days I had some serious zombie eyes going on. It was so bad that I didn’t even want to go out in public, afraid that the locals would think I was some recovering World of Warcraft degenerate or Pete Doherty.

Not Matthew Walsh

To celebrate my recovery Andrew and I rented a motorcycle and went to Nagtabon Beach today. Man oh man what a beautiful spot. I took a bunch of pictures that I will eventually post on my Facebook account. We spent the whole day swimming, checking out the beach, and lounging around in the sun. Good times.

On a completely unrelated note, I downloaded the new Guns N’ Roses album a few days ago. Chinese Democracy has become something of a music industry joke, a very long and drawn out joke. I mean, it’s been in the making for the past 14 years, the band itself is now comprised of a constantly changing cast of musicians, and the only original remaining member is Axl Rose. Yes, keyboardist Dizzy Reed is still a member of the band, but he joined the group after the release of Appetite for Destruction, so technically he isn’t an original member. Besides, he’s the fucking keyboardist. No one gives a flying shit about Dizzy Reed. Anyway, the album itself has been in the oven for so long that, inevitably, the hype surrounding it was absolutely huge. Evidence arose early this year confirming that Chinese Democracy was indeed coming out November 2008. The punch-line was on the tip of the collective tongue. Everyone anticipated an unmitigated disaster. It couldn’t possibly match up to the enormous hype, but it in no way is the complete catastrophe the public anticipated. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but personally I think the album is shockingly solid. I too was expecting a total bomb but have to admit was utterly blown away by the genuine quality of the album. I’m not a music critic, so I won’t go into great detail of what I do and don’t like about the album (also because I’m sure none of you give a damn). All I can say is check it out for yourselves. Let me know what you think.

Well done Mr. Rose, well done.

So, all in all it was an excellent day. I’m feeling better, I got to experience a beautiful remote beach, and I wrote a wonderfully unnecessary paragraph on Guns N’ Roses that I am absolutely positive none of you give a flying shit about. That paragraph is possibly the Dizzy Reed of paragraphs.

Next week I told jimmy that I’d discuss the history and geography of Newfoundland with his creative writing students. Being a generally awful public speaker, this has “blog entry” written all over it. As a joke I was thinking of putting a bunch of complete bullshit in the presentation (ie. Newfoundland was originally a depot for Irish sex offenders). I have a few better ideas floating around but I’m all ears for suggestions.

Alright everybody, until next time.

Unlimited Sonnix

Ok.

Something has been bugging me for a while now. I have to get it off my chest. Here goes:

For some reason, everyone (at least 70% of everyone anyway) stares at my shoes. Uh huh. My shoes.

When I first got here I started noticing people would look down as I walked by. At first I assumed it was because they were shy. Maybe people over here were just uncomfortable with eye contact. Maybe they were just uncomfortable looking at me. I didn’t put much thought into it.

As time went on I noticed that the people who avoided direct eye contact weren’t just looking down, they were actually looking down and towards me. The first few times I figured I stepped in dog shit so I’d look down too. Eventually I stopped looking for the dog shit I knew wasn’t there (Side note: This screwed me one time as I actually stepped in a heap of dog shit and walked around for who knows how long before I realized it). The good news was I wasn’t stepping in inordinate amounts of crap. The bad news: I was still no closer to solving my mystery.

After another week or so it dawned on me that maybe they were staring at my shoes. I’m the proud owner of a fairly shitty pair of no-name skate shoes that I bought at SportChek for about thirty bucks. They are entirely unremarkable. Maybe if they were some recognizable name brand or had some snazzy design it would have dawned on me sooner, but seeing as they are even shittier now than they were out of the box, this didn’t seem reasonable. I told Andrew the situation and, understandably, he thought I was nuts. A short stroll down Rizal St. was all it took to make him a believer. My dirty, smelly sneaks were celebrities.

Hideous.

I had an idea. I went to NCCC and picked up a new pair of shoes. I needed a new pair anyway as the first pair threatened to call Kids Help Phone if I didn’t ease up on the abuse (that’s terrible). Overall, the new pair is pretty much the same as the old pair. Same basic shape, same basic design, slightly different coloring. The new pair also have a snazzy green 55 stitched on the side, which I assume must be quite cool, because everyone still stares at my feet. I figured a Filipino shoe would fit in better than a foreign shoe, but it seems to stand out just as much. Maybe even more.

The flash conceals most of the grime.

The ladykillers.

I decided to write this post after an incident last night. I went to Jollibee, got some food, went upstairs, and walked to the side of the restaurant to sit down. Before I got to my seat some dude with two young children gave me a half-assed glance and then focused every bit of his concentration on my feet. He was mesmerized, probably by the 55’s. It is a deadly number. The two kids saw dad staring at my feet, decided they were missing out on some once in a lifetime opportunity, and followed suit. I uncomfortable slink over to the table and sit down, the family fixated on my every step.

“Unlimited?” says Dad.

“Huh?”

“Unlimited?” he repeats, pointing down.

Looking down, expecting dog shit for the first time in a while, I look back at him and shrug. I don’t know what he’s getting on with. He points directly at my shoe so I pull my leg out from under the table and look at it with him.

“Ahhhhh, Sonnix” he decides.

Before I can say huh again I look at the tongue of the shoe and, of course, the name brand is Sonnix. I guess I picked a winner with my second pair. Sonnix is probably some huge Filipino brand. And maybe everyone is so enthralled with my other shoes because they kind of look like Sonnix or Unlimited shoes. I guess I just have impeccable taste. Yeah, definitely. So in the end I guess I figured out why people are always staring at my feet. I have exquisite taste in footwear. If my next blog entry is “So I got the shit beat clean out of me for my shitty sneakers" at least you'll have some background info.

"Give me those fucking Sonnix"
Last time I'll use him for a while. I swear.

Fifteen Dirty Little Buggers

I woke up early today to a strange site: A clear and sunny sky. Maybe Mother Nature isn’t such a heartless bitch after all. I was so excited that in my haste to get a quick shower I forgot to bring in the towel and ended up drying myself in my dirty shorts. Nice eh? Whatever, drying my face with filth couldn’t come close to ruining this day. I was in such a good mood that I even gave Meth Cat a wink and “the guns”. After he gave me the finger I bounced downstairs, opened the door, and went outside.

I had you all wrong baby.

Filthy picture care of "Classy" Pat Connolly. He knows allllll the good sites. Sorry ladies, he's taken.

“What a gorgeous day. I have a reeeeal good feeling about today. Yup, today’s going to be a great...*pause*...*sigh*...those little fuckers...”

They slashed my tires. A mob of degenerate children slashed my goddamn bike tires. I didn’t mention it in my previous post, but while fixing up my bike the other day I was surrounded by about fifteen children. They kept asking me questions, poking me (one slapped my ass), begging for money, cursing at me in Tagalog, and generally being little nuisances. In other words, being kids. After I finished pumping the tires and greasing the chain I thanked them for their “help” (“I’m sure glad you guys were around to hold the bike while I greased the chain. I didn’t trust that kickstand”) and went inside to clean up. They probably started messing up my bike the minute I left. My poor bike...

So, today I went to the bike shop and asked how much some new tubes and a gun would cost. The tubes are 80 pesos each, the labour is 30 pesos (15 per tube), and the gun was out of stock.

Grand Total: 190 pesos

Estimated Emotional Damage: All the pesos

I’m only messing around. It’s really not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I learned a cheap lesson the fairly easy way. They could just as easily have cut the brakes or messed with the chain. Now I know to lock my bike up around back. However, if I do happen to catch them fucking with my bike again I’m going to be out even more money than this time because I’ll have to replace the shoes I lose ramming my foot up their asses.

Today wasn’t all bad. I found a little roadside store on my way home, “Mountain Pickers” I think, that sell fresh fruit. They even peel it and slice it into pieces for you. I got a whole fresh pineapple for about 80 cents! No funny story there; just great value.

Oh, Dave, if you’re reading this, I picked you up two very (in my humble opinion) kick-ass gifts that I hope you’ll enjoy. I’m going to send them out soon. No sense in waiting for me to get home. It’ll probably take a while to get to you, so they can be Christmas, Birthday, Valentine’s Day (rawr), or Easter gifts accordingly. You can make out my gift to 71 Reynoso Street, Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, Philippines. The zip-code is 5300. The shipping might be a few hundred dollars, depending on its size (i.e. big), so make the gift worth the shipping. Better use rush delivery too. That might be a few hundred more but I’m worth it.

Huh? How did that get there?

That's all for now.

No Snappy Title

It’s been raining for almost 24 hours straight now. If my iPod weather report is to believed, this will continue for the next 7 days, at which point a Filipino Noah will float by and rescue me and the meth-head cat from the roof on Aniceto’s Pension. Honest, it says that right there on the screen.

"Listen, i know you're new here, so I'll cut you some slack. You give me your wallet and I don't claw off your fucking face. Ka-peesh? Oh, and your blog sucks."

It’s a pity too; I bought a bike some time ago and used it quite a bit when the weather could be reasoned with. I’ve given up on going to the roof garden and shouting profanities at clouds. Mother Nature is clearly irrational, and I won’t stoop to Her level anymore ... whore. I went to NCCC yesterday to buy a bicycle pump and some grease for my chain (Turns out if you leave a bicycle outside 24/7 the chain gets a bit rusty. Heh, who knew?). I was originally just going to pretend the rust wasn’t there, but after biking 15 feet and hearing what can only be described as bicycle profanity, as well as nearly falling flat on my face from the jerky skipping of the chain over the gears, I decided to cut my bike some slack and treat her right. After all, what’s a couple of bucks for the comfort of knowing my bike won’t disintegrate into a cloud of red dust? People say you can’t put a price on safety. That’s bullshit. Peace of mind costs 115.75 pesos.

The reason I bring this up at all is because I had an epic plan today. My bike was to be fixed and I was to use it. My renewed sense of bike-fancy came from a ride I took two days ago. It was excellent. I went down Manallo St. as far as I could go, and then continued down Manallo Extension and Random Dirt Rd. until I figured I was lost enough. I zigged and zagged through countless side streets until I got my bearings again and began the journey home. As I said, it was excellent. My plan was to blow this excursion out of the water by travelling out the San Pedro highway until I barfed. Then I’d turn around and come back, burnt, dehydrated, and satisfied. I love to explore, and I’ve only seen much of that area through the shoulders of other multicab passengers, so a more hands-on tour would be exciting. Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to be a bit of an asshole today...and next week...and most of the last two weeks. Bitch.

If it stops raining for an hour tomorrow Jimmy is going to teach me how to ride his motorbike. I’m really looking forward to this. It doesn’t look very hard but since I’ve never tried to ride a motorbike before, let alone a semi-automatic, cautious optimism is on the menu. Riding on top of the bus to Sabang was a laugh. I don’t think being dragged under a bus to Sabang will have the same thrill. Baby steps.

Oh, before I forget, I added a few new gizmos to the right side of the blog. There’s a clock displaying the time in Newfoundland and the Philippines for those of you who always NEED to know. Also, I’ve added a gadget that allows you to officially follow my blog. I don’t really know what’s required in order to make reading this page “official”, but if you are required to sign up for any shit, or think you might get assaulted with penis-enlargement spam, then don’t bother. However, if you want to sign up, or are the risk-taking type (live a little already) then I’d love to see who’s reading it. I’ve actually been quite shocked after learning of some of the people who have been following it.

So there you have it, another potentially entertaining entry. Remember, check out “Follow this Blog” on the right side of the page. You’d make my day. There might even be a bigger penis in it for you.

Fever of Unknown Origin and Other Diseases of Infectious Origin!! ORDER NOW!

It’s been awhile since my last blog entry (I don’t really count the Ice-Cream video as a legit entry, although it is fairly spectacular in its own right). Before I began writing I told myself that the blog shouldn’t turn into a “got a wash, ate some food, took a piss” affair and, to date, I think I have remained loyal to myself. I try not to bore you (and myself) with the insignificant minutia of day-to-day life in PPC, and as such, I haven’t really had much of anything to report lately. Yep, it’s been a slow couple of weeks. With Jimmy and Andrew both attending conferences in Manila, things really ground to a halt over here. It’s a sad state of affairs when two people constitute 100% of your social life. On the positive side, I got to talk to the young girls working at ChowKing an awful lot. We really built up some strong relationships. They say, “Hello Sir Andrew” and I say, “I’m Matthew” and they say, “Sorry Sir Matthew” and I order noodles, and they say, “I receive 200 pesos”, and I get my change, and they say, “Thank you Sir”.

It’s beautiful.

I bumped into my new best friends at Jollibee one afternoon just as I was sitting down to eat and they were getting up to leave. We noticed each other from across the room at which point I smiled and did one of those strange but appropriate “open-eyed quick eyebrow raises” that implicitly mean “How’s she cuttin’”, or something to that effect anyway. They responded with dual smiles and a single “Hello Sir Matthew!”

See? Totally BFF’s.

Anyway, I’m getting precariously close to discussing daily minutia, so I’ll continue on with the real point of this entry: my hospital visit. For the past few weeks I’ve been feeling like a piece of shit. My stomach has been giving me all sorts of grief in all sorts of interesting ways. I figured it might just be the radical change in diet I’ve experienced and my body needed a bit of time to adjust, especially to the ridiculous amount of rice I’ve been eating. Before the Philippines, rice was reserved to remaining on the plate after I ate all the foods I liked, occasionally to be poked at if I was still hungry after eating the delicious portions of the meal. These days, rice plays a key role in keeping me alive. Seriously, if rice doesn’t come as a side with the meal you can bet your ass that something in the meal contains rice. All that gluten can’t be good for a relatively gluten-free system. Just to be safe I decided to go to a doctor.

On Friday, Andrew and I got up and took the multicab to the Adventist Hospital on the San Pedro Highway. After filling out a short form we took a seat and waited to be admitted to the doctor. I have to say, I was pretty impressed with the hospital overall. It was very clean and quiet and not crowded at all. Best of all, we were both in and out in less than an hour, but I’m getting ahead of myself. My name was called and I was seen by Dr. Raquel Hisoler-Aloquin, family medicine and infectious disease specialist. Wait......what?! Yes. I was seen by an infectious disease specialist.

Besides the fact that I was a little freaked out about seeing an infectious disease expert, the visit went pretty good. The doctor explained that Typhoid could be the source of my stomach problems, but it wasn’t very likely. She suggested that I get some blood- and pee-work done to be sure, so I obliged. I walked across the hall to the lab, gave some blood, and went to provide another donation. I’m such a philanthropist. After I gave my all I left and the nurse told me to come back in two hours for the lab results. Yes, you read that correctly. Back home you’re lucky if you get results back in two weeks, so hearing “two hours” blew my mind. Long story short, results didn’t show anything out of the ordinary. She told me to eat more fruit and veggies, drink plenty of water, take multivitamins, and stay off the rice for a while. As I left she thanked me for coming, shook my hand, and gave me a calendar....

I could spend all day telling you why the calendar is awesome, but it’s much easier to show you. So here you go:

Finally, a reliable physician to look at my raging schistosomiasis.

Back when I first arrived in PPC I wrote a small blog entry about some of my favourite things. To end this entry I’m going to add two more things to the list. I’m sure they aren’t specific to this city, or even the Philippines, but they are both awesome.

More Things I Likes:

1. Bizarre Foreigners

No matter where you go there are going to be weirdos. That’s a fact. The weirdos in PPC are of a special breed. Most are rice old retired weirdos who have come to enjoy the “good life”. That is to say, the young women. Almost every foreigner I see is a wrinkled old coot with one or more young women following him around. I was strolling down the road the other day when I passed an old Australian dude with half a dozen women surrounding him. He muttered something to me in a ridiculously thick accent, so I really couldn’t pick out what he was saying, but I’m sure it was fairly indecent. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t respect or applaud these foreigners. I actually think they are dirty old mummies. But, I do have to laugh at (and maybe even respect a teeny bit) their audacity. It must take a huge set of balls to walk around in a silly-ass golf uniform, complete with Hawaiian shirt/checkered pants combo, with three twentysomethings hanging off your arm at 80. Then again, if you’re 80 and can somehow connive your way into this kind of situation, who am I to judge?

2. Strange Products

I touched on this subject before. I absolutely love going to NCCC and browsing the aisles. Every time I go I find something new to make me giggle. Yesterday I went shopping to pick up a few packages of noodles and some bananas, but ended up buying a ton of absolutely unnecessary items. Squiz cola is my personal favourite; the secret ingredient is squiz, which is probably disgusting. Other weird products include Cup Keyk brand cupcakes (now with more nut toppings!), Burger King flavoured French fry snacks, and the very fishy Fish Flakes. There are very few western products to choose from. Mostly hair care products, beverages, and cereals. While perusing the cola shelf I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw a can of 7-up. Fido-fucking-Dido was on the can. I’m seriously considering leaving my clothes in the Philippines and filling up a suitcase with all these awesome food finds. T-shirts with Bob Ross or Optimus Prime on the front I can get home. Fido Dido on a can of 7-up? I can only get that shit in my dreams, 1992, and the Philippines.

Oh, right, I bought a powder blue T-shirt with Bob Ross on the front with “Childhood Hero” emblazoned under his beautiful face. Unfortunately, Lian’s Laundry turned it into a belly top. At least, if I ever try out for Menudo I’ll have a sexy costume.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Bob Ross.

Many Thanks and Ice-Creams

I was hesitant to publish the last post. Like I said, I didn’t want to appear ungrateful of this amazing opportunity and experience I’ve been given. Seconds after pushing “Publish” I was thinking of deleting it. Now I’m glad I didn’t.

I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to craft out a helpful response. Some of you posted comments on my blog wall; others messaged me on MSN or wrote e-mails. All the responses were very helpful and I really appreciate the advice and guidance given in each one. The fact that you guys took the time to try to make me feel better means a lot. Thank you.

In other news, I found a jingle that rivals the NCCC tune in infectiousness. The “Initial Exposure to Shit-Eating Grin” ratio is astonishing. I’ll crunch the numbers and get back to you. In the meantime I was able to covertly videotape the perpetrator in action. Yes, I caught the evil genius in the midst of a “sale” (A sale in the sense that the “customer” becomes a shambling currency conduit). The second you say to yourself, “What’s that noise?” you’re fucked. Not hungry? No money? Lactose intolerant? Too damn bad. You’re getting ice-cream.

Maybe I’m over hyping this. Maybe not. Judge for yourselves. Also, ignore the giggling idiot behind the camera. A side effect of the auditory drugging no doubt.

Cover the children's ears!!