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It looks ridiculous, but it’s the best combination we know for listening to music. The wee iPod Shuffle only has an on-off-shuffle button so we don’t spend the next hour searching among thousands of songs for one we want to hear. The Grado headphones are the greatest headphones we’ve ever stuck on our head: you can hear every detail—the sharp intake of breath from the back of the auditorium in a live recording, the drool sloshing around the saxophonist’s spit valve, stuff like that. They hug your head comfortably but never feel constricting, and they don’t slide off.

We’d leave the house wearing this headphone-player combination but we’d feel like pointing at ourself and laughing.

Hoy babae wag kang masyadong kenekeleg. Hende ganon kahaba ang bohok mo. Hende naman ekaw ang talagang gosto nela konde…ang esa’t esa! Oo day, nagmamahalan sela at esa ka lang malakeng hadlang sa kanelang pag-ebeg. Sabagay, puede ka namang mageng berd. Alam mo yong berd? Yong gelpren ng badeng para konyare istret siya. Hmmm. Sege, tanggapen mo na kong ganon ka-kyot ang mga lalakeng yan. Bayaan mong mamatay sa engget ang mga tao, basta pareho selang eyo.

Ekaw Res, baket ka tomatanggap ng mga pelekolang ganyan? Deba Best Actress ka kamakailan lang? Hende bagay sa yo yang mga McG-McG na yan, nagmomokha kang laos. Chres, Tom, text niyo ako hihihi.

We’ve been using Pilot sign pens since the 1990s, starting with the Pilot V5 (in black, green or purple). Newspaper editors swear by them. Ten years ago we tried the Pilot VBall Extra Fine (always black), and it’s been our absolute favorite writing instrument since. In the mid-noughties we heard that this line was being phased out and we went into a panic. Happily it is still available at our local bookstores. We always carry 3 or 4 of these pens at all times (Our excuse is, we scribble for living) and use one up every week or so. Whenever we lose one we kick ourselves.

Recently we realized something about our beloved Pilot VBall Extra Fine. Our discovery does not diminish our attachment to this excellent apparatus, but we do worry for our clothes. You see, this pen has the tendency to explode in airplanes. (Haha Pilots on planes.)

On at least six occasions, the last one a week ago, we’ve opened a Pilot VBall Extra Fine in an airline cabin in order to write notes, only to find ink all over our fingers. The ink leaks out of the nib. In each case, the pen was half-empty (You can see the ink level through the transparent tube) or half-full if you’re an optimist. We figure the leakage has something to do with cabin pressure.

Fortunately the exploded pens have not leaked onto our notes or clothes, although we now have a couple of bags with Rorschach blots on them. (Obviously it’s the lambs screaming, Clarice.) We are devoted to these pens and will keep on using them, but next time we get on a plane they’re going in a Zip-loc bag.

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Esoteric nerd knowledge from Miguel R: “Pilot techpoints explode in planes because of the pressure difference. So when you take the cap off, kaboom! One solution I’ve read about is to invert the pen so all the ink is in the bottom when you take off the cap.”

Please try this on your next plane ride and tell us if it solves the problem. In return we will give you…Pilot pens!!!

This is from the BAFTAs not the Oscars but we like the Cinderella moment. Here’s The Art of the Meryl Streep Acceptance Speech.

Our friend who has been reciting novenas for Meryl Streep’s second Best Actress Oscar since the turn of this century is too choked up to say anything, but we accept Meryl’s Academy Award for The Iron Lady on his behalf and hope the crate of champagne he bought for the party for the Oscar that didn’t come for The Devil Wears Prada, Doubt and Julie and Julia is still fizzy.

Here’s Michael’s speech.

No one knows that this award means the World to me. It has been a long journey since 2010, the very first time I read a one-line item in the L.A. Times: Meryl was playing Margaret Thatcher. It signifies so much Hope and Happy Times to come! I am So Grateful to all those who believed!

has just won the Oscar for Best Animated Short.

This year’s ceremony has been an occasion for a nice nap. Not that the ceremonies of the last decade have been riveting. And there are no surprises. That’s it then, what’s for lunch?

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Holy crap a surprise!

Meryl Streep has won Best Actress.

We’re awake, and just in time for the ending.

via BoingBoing

Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James, hardcover, Php995 at National Bookstores.

Pride and Prejudice may be an 18th century English novel about a vulgar woman desperately throwing her five daughters at the nearest eligible bachelor, but its spirited heroine, its unlikeable yet irresistible leading man, its totally believable characters and its witty observations on love, money and society are delightful in any age. It has spawned two genres: the romance novel (inc Regency romances, bodice-rippers and things with shirtless men on the cover) and chick-lit. There are countless spinoffs and “sequels” to the novel set in the 18th century and beyond. In recent years we’ve seen Miss Elizabeth Bennet battling zombies while enticing the arrogant, supercilious, extremely rich Mr Darcy by not enticing him. Therefore news that Lizzy, Darcy, and all the familiar characters from the beloved Jane Austen novel are back in a murder mystery should surprise no one. Of course they should be in a murder mystery, what is Pemberley if not a great big country house full of potential suspects?

Death Comes to Pemberley is an hommage to Pride and Prejudice from one of the great mystery writers of this century, P.D. James. It opens at the Darcies’ (Darcys?) sprawling estate six years after the double wedding of Lizzy and Mr Darcy and Jane Bennet and dopey but nice and also very rich Mr Bingley. Having successfully married off four of her five daughters (even if Lydia’s marriage to that disreputable Wickham took place under less kosher circumstances) Lizzy’s mother is content. As a bonus she’s intimidated by Darcy so she hardly ever visits her daughter. The Darcies and the Bingleys have children and are exceedingly happy.

Then, on the night before the annual ball at Pemberley—a windy, evil night just begging for a murder mystery—that ditzy slut Lydia turns up unannounced, shrieking that her husband has been murdered. It’s just like that silly bitch to ruin the big event for everyone and try to make it all about her.

Characters from other Austen novels are mentioned in passing, the intricacies of the British criminal justice system are explained, and we learn about Darcy’s ancestors, including the great-grandfather who abandoned the estate to live in the woods with his dog.

Of course we love it.