I was stuck in traffic, my temper slowly rising when a colorful jeepney stopped right by our car. I looked out my window and was welcomed with this view. Jeepney art! I guess the jeepney was somehow reminding me to take it easy by transporting me to the beach.

Meet Mr. Bean.

He’s one of my favorite choices from Breadtalk, the bakery chain that sells designer bread.

Mr. Bean is white bread with red bean filling. He makes for a good snack! Best taken with coffee.

This has to be the funniest newsbit I have ever heard in my life:

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine police chased down an unfit thief on Tuesday after he ran out of breath and asked his pursuers for a “time out.”

“He was panting and gasping for air when we caught up with him after a 500 meter sprint,” Erwin Buenceso, one of the arresting officers, told local radio station dzBB.

The robber asked for a “time out” using hand signals.

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(All photos, including those below, by Nykko Santos, who has put up his new online photo journal.)

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The middle of last week was highlighted by a day-long immersion trip at the municipality of Angono in the city of Rizal, the so-called art capital of the Philippines, where scattered were a motley assortment of unheralded visual artistry and heritage sites. We drove to the modish Thunderbird Resorts for a photo shoot, but were more taken by the hotel’s convenient proximity to what no one stuck in Manila might ever discover: a breathtaking view of the lake, beside which were quiet -almost mute- fishing villages; the Petroglyphs Site Museum, where in 1965, National Artist Carlos “Botong” Fransisco stumbled upon a cave with Neolithic (3000 BC) engravings and which is now considered by UNESCO as one of the most endangered sites in the world (very Indiana Jones, archaeologically speaking); and imaginative figure painter Nemesio Miranda’s folkloric Arthouse. Touring the artist’s atelier and visual gallery, we learned that the place was also a venue for workshops, competitions, and exhibits – legitimizing its moniker as the town’s “School for the Arts”. We dined in the evening at the Nemiranda Art Café Grill & Restaurant. And I had a beer to sedate the dilettante in me, to ward off any manifestations of disproportionate impulsive excitement. That night I wasn’t able to sleep.

Before the weekend, I struck a brief yet very agreeable E-mail correspondence with Manila’s ultimate cicerone, Carlos Celdran. I asked him where I could find the “best little boutique bookseller” in Manila -the La Solidaridad, that is- because I was planning on spending the whole of Saturday acquiring a few good titles I was never able to unearth in any Powerbooks branch or ‘leading bookstore’. He gladly gave me the directions.
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I hardly ever watch TV nowadays, and on the rare moments that I happen to watch, I am either reminded of why I stopped watching TV or left regretting what I was missing. Though most local shows leaves a foul taste in my mouth, the commercials are definite keepers. The most astounding was this commercial I just saw about breastfeeding.

“Ang gatas ng aso ay para sa tuta.

Hindi hayop ang anak mo!”