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My lovely friends took me to dinner last night at Benjarong at the Dusit Hotel. Excellent Thai restaurant, and there was no coup attempt on the premises. Some notes on that non-event:

1. If you’re launching a coup d’etat, make sure to check the weather report the day before.
2. My favorite part of the ANC coverage was towards the end, when the ringleaders had given up. Ces Drilon was in the 7th floor of The Pen, and she reported that Senator (You voted for him) Trillanes and General Lim (who if memory serves me right has been a major brain behind every coup attempt since the Aquino administration. . .and is still in a position to plot more!) were weeping…”hindi dahil sa sitwasyon kundi dahil sa tear gas” (not from the emotion of the situation but from the tear gas).
3. During his interview on ANC, the Press Secretary said “at this point in time” ten times. Jay-Lo counted. How Radio Veritas circa 1986.
4. Tina: “Trillanes: mutineer, senator, cookbook author, and wannabe glorious martyr.”
5. Another favorite moment: When the police arrived to serve the warrant of arrest, the way was barricaded so they just pressed the warrant against the glass.
6. The coup attempt was covered heavily on CNN and the BBC. Now we’re really going to be taken seriously.
7. Tinigil nila kasi ayaw da nilang dumanak ng dugo. Kung ayaw nilang dumanak ng dugo, bakit nila ginawa? Gago. (The coup plotters gave up because they said they didn’t want bloodshed. Duh, if they didn’t want bloodshed, they shouldn’t have started it. Idiots.)
8. Everyone says they’re ready to die for their country, but no one actually makes good on the threat. Come on, you promised.

The old triple whammy. Earthquake followed by typhoon followed by coup attempt. Do you know of any other countries where coup attempts are staged from luxury hotels? No doubt many are planned in hotels, but their soldiers are in the field not in the coffee shop. True, the Peninsula has very good halo-halo and arroz caldo. I have a dinner scheduled in that area, so I asked my friends if we were still on for 7pm. Their replies:

The Cynic: Dapat tuloy. Bunch of kids.
The Romantic: Yes, of course. Hopefully she’ll be out by then.
The Pragmatic (even when depressed): If the traffic is bad, I could walk there.
The Been There, Done That: Yes.

Here is a video of Bob from Ohio riding a razor in the Greenbelt area while wearing an Igorot bahag. (I fixed the link.) What do you think?
A. That’s amazing! No traffic on the corner of De la Rosa Street?!
B. It’s a metaphor for the clash of civilizations, the collision of the traditional and the modern as expressed by Bob’s barely-covered ass.
C. Ano ba yan, may mga tao talagang walang magawa. What the hell, some people have too much time on their hands.
D. Kulang sa pansin ang lalaking yan. Ibigay mo sa kin ang number niya at papansinin ko siya. That guy clearly needs attention. Give me his number, I’ll give him attention.
E. Yucch, exhibitionist! Someone has to give him a lecture on proper decorum and etiquette. These foreigners think they can just come here and display their decadent ways, it’s a disgrace.
F. Same as E, plus Give me his number, he has to be taught a lesson.
G. Kainggit, I wish I had no issues about my body.
H. (Your personal reaction here.)

Guga in airports, originally uploaded by Koosama.

This is for Ige, who recently spent 24 hours in an airport terminal—fortunately not on this list—trying to get on a flight to Manila. Foreign Policy lists the five worst airports on earth (NAIA’s not one of them! Yay!):

Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport, Dakar, Senegal. “There is only squalor, an unnerving sense of confinement, and to some extent danger.” —Patrick Smith, Salon.com, May 25, 2007. Standing room only. To think the Concorde used to fly there.

Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, India. “Of all the regional capital airports this one takes the cake … a piece of crap … bring the bug spray.” —Anonymous commenter, The Budget Traveller’s Guide to Sleeping in Airports, Dec 11, 2005. Aggressive beggars and used syringes on the terminal floor.

Mineralnye Vody Airport, Mineralnye Vody, Russia. “Mineralnye Vody airport is a lower circle of hell.” —The Economist, Dec. 19, 2006. Snow, ice, and feral cats inside the terminal, plus a guy selling swords and daggers as souvenirs.

Baghdad International Airport, Baghdad, Iraq. “Before jumping out of your seat to complain to the pilot, consider the good news: You’ve just avoided being shot down by a missile.” —Alan T. Duffin, Air & Space magazine, Oct./Nov. 2006. Stomach-churning corkscrew landings. It IS a war zone.

Charles de Gaulle International Airport, Paris, France. “Charles de Gaulle is a disgrace … it’s like a third-world airport.” —Michel-Yves Labbé, president of French travel company Directours, Aug. 14, 2007. Grimy, confusing, overpriced, and the staff is rude. (It’s actually not that bad, but it’s in Paris! It should be better.)

I suddenly remembered how I made a miscalculation in my travel arrangements and ended up spending the night at the airport in Trieste, trying to get some sleep on a cold metal bench while policemen had what sounded like a violent argument that may have been a regular card game. Where’s my notebook from 2006?

So much for my feline early warning devices: my cats slept through the earthquake. I was sitting at my desk when the floor began to shake—the tremor didn’t last long, but it was intense. My cats went on napping—Saffy right on my desk, Mat on the couch, Koosi on top of a bookshelf. It was as if nothing had happened. Friends who live in tall buildings said they could hear the structures groaning. Scary. When was the last big earthquake, ’99? The one followed by the blackout caused by jellyfish? Ten minutes before it happened my ginger cat Koosi started howling like a horror-movie sound effect, and then an invisible giant was shoving the furniture around.

Dispatches from Nantes, originally uploaded by 160507.

Raymond texted from the Nantes film festival, where Endo is in competition. The first screening was yesterday at 10.45 am. It was sold out. The audience loved it. The leads Jason Abalos and Ina Feleo were applauded on the street.

In photo, from left: Jason (Chin up, please lose bonnet), Ina (Lovely but big earrings swallowed up by scarf), writer-director Jade Castro (Let me get Chuvaness for a second and say that is not a Prada trenchcoat. Come on, humor your stylist). More dispatches later.