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Episode 3: Last Days at the Huremana Cafe with writer Alfred Krip Yuson.

Huremana is the name of a cafe he owned in the early 70s with 19 friends from college. Huremana is what someone’s lola called weed, as in “Hoy, naghu-huremana na naman kayo diyan.”

The podcast was recorded at Krip’s house last month. The entire recording is over two hours long. I cut it down into two half-hour segments.

In the intro I talk about “life without whisky”. Correction: Mr Yuson is not living without whisky. He took a break some years ago, but he and whisky are back together.

Thanks to Nexus Technologies for supporting our podcast!

You can get our podcast on Podbean
https://therealjessicarulestheuniverse.podbean.com/

Noel went to see Bradley Cooper’s new movie A Star Is Born with high expectations because he has to defend the legacy of Barbra Streisand. I went to see it with low expectations because I am suspicious of movies that get rave reviews. What did we think?

This was supposed to be the third episode, but I decided to get it out while the movie is in theatres.

My guest Noel Orosa, one of my favorite humans, is a regional creative director at an ad agency in Singapore. We recorded this podcast at his hotel room in Manila while waiting for his room service order of pancit canton and adobo.

Thanks to Nexus Technologies for supporting our podcast! I’m getting the hang of recording anywhere, but this time I was too far from the microphone. That’ll be fixed next time.

You can get our podcast on Podbean
https://therealjessicarulestheuniverse.podbean.com/

Our podcast is baaaack!

My guests and I talk about books, movies, travel, and in this episode, cats. We love cats. I live with three former street cats. This city is full of stray cats who depend on the kindness of people.

When Serendra mall complex in BGC announced that they would fine their shop tenants and residents Php10,000 if they fed the many stray cats in that area, two questions came up.

First, why would I set foot in that place, then?

And more importantly, how do we deal with the huge population of stray cats—and dogs—in this city? What is the serious, long-term, sustainable solution? The sad truth is that we cannot adopt every stray cat and dog out there—the math is not on our side. What then? How do we keep homeless cats and dogs from being rounded up and taken to the city pound, where they will almost certainly be killed?

My guest is Anna Cabrera, Executive Director of the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS). If you have questions for Anna and PAWS, post them in Comments, or send my cats a message on Instagram, @jessicazafrascats.

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Thanks to Nexus Technologies for supporting the return of our podcast! Our next episodes should be available on iTunes. (The next episodes will be better, I promise, I learned Garage Band five minutes ago.)

Thanks, too, to Nella Sarabia for lending us a quiet spot in her optical shop to record our conversation.

In May 2014, a U.S. Special Operations team in a Black Hawk helicopter landed in the hills of Afghanistan. Waiting for them were more than a dozen Taliban fighters and a tall American, who looked pale and out of sorts: Bowe Bergdahl. Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier, had been a prisoner of the Taliban for nearly five years, and now he was going home.

President Obama announced Bergdahl’s return in the Rose Garden, with the soldier’s parents at his side. Bergdahl’s hometown of Hailey, Idaho, planned a big celebration to welcome him back. But then, within days—within hours of his rescue, in fact—public reaction to his return flipped. People started saying Bergdahl shouldn’t be celebrated. Some of the soldiers from his unit called him a deserter, a traitor. They said he had deliberately walked off their small outpost in eastern Afghanistan and into hostile territory.

Hailey canceled its celebration. The army launched an investigation. Finally, in March, the military charged Bergdahl with two crimes, one of which carries the possibility of a life sentence. Through all of this, Bergdahl has been quiet. He hasn’t spoken to the press or done any interviews on TV. He’s been like a ghost at the center of a raucous fight.

Now, in Season Two, we get to hear what he has to say.

For this season, Sarah Koenig teams up with filmmaker Mark Boal and Page 1 to find out why one idiosyncratic guy decided to walk away, into Afghanistan, and how the consequences of that decision have spun out wider and wider. It’s a story that has played out in unexpected ways from the start. And it’s a story that’s still going on.

Get Serial.

This is how out of touch we are with pop culture: We saw that A Second Chance had opened in theatres, cried, “Nikolaj Coster-Waldau!” and made plans to see it. When we got to the cinema we guessed by the long queues and excited viewers that it was not the Danish cop drama directed by Susanne Bier.

As everyone knows, A Second Chance is the sequel to the blockbuster romantic drama One More Chance, which makes it One More One More Chance. Though technically, “one more chance” is already “a second chance”. Still, A Second Chance is a savvy choice for title because it leaves room for an infinite number of sequels.

To make up for not seeing A Second Chance the minute it opened, we will watch it tomorrow and then do a podcast with guests Juana Change and Moira Lang.

Joker, a 6-month-old Scottish Fold from Francis Bonnevie’s cattery, participated in All About Cats, a show sanctioned by The International Cat Association, at Resorts World Manila last week.

How do you get a cat to drink more water?

What can you do to dissuade the cat from sharpening his claws on the most expensive piece of furniture in the house? (Because cats, being possessed of impeccable taste, know how to identify the one item in the household whose destruction would cause you the most pain.)

What’s a human to do in the midst of a feline territorial war?

Is your cat really attempting to kill you? Why, why, why, when you are her humble servant?

What is Joker telling The Cat Whisperer?

We spoke to The Cat Whisperer Mieshelle Nagelschneider, who was in town last week for the All About Cats show at Resorts World Manila. She gave us some practical advice that made us smack our foreheads and cry, “Why didn’t we think of that!”

Listen to our podcast with The Cat Whisperer. The podcast is available for streaming, downloading, or subscription on iTunes.

Joker and his 3-month-old cousin, Lambert.

Thanks to the Public Relations team of Resorts World Manila for arranging the interview.