I’m not sure why I get invited to speak on the subject of How to Write Better (yes, all caps; and yes, it’s intentional; I know how to capitalize, you dolts!) Sure, I had a weekend column in Sunstar Cebu when I was 19 and a bi-monthly column for The TicTac (a General Santos City-based community paper) when I was 17, but that was only because Sunstar editor Noel Villaflor and GenSan-based brainiac Elmina Rayah Dizon found me cute (in the same way that bacteria is cute under controlled environments). The truth is, anyone who pays me to write is bound to get gypped. I do not write better than anyone. I do not write better, period. As a matter of fact, I do not believe people should write better because writing better than an aunt, seatmate, or cat
1. turns people into drama queens.
2. makes people really arrogant.
3. increases the odds that I would come across writing so difficult to read I grow tumors going from one paragraph to the next.
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Posted in Achinette-isms, The Part Where Achinette Theorizes |
Can you people stop worrying about Mendoza and the kung fu of the Hong Kong community for a minute, and answer a very important question? Are shrimps really just huge insects?
I have always maintained that shrimps are nothing more than insects, in the same way that a cockroach is. No, this isn’t bitterness over being unable to eat shrimps because I’m allergic to them. Look at shrimps, people! Do they look cute to you? Useful? Adorable? Harmless? More to the point, doesn’t this deepwater shrimp look like it could be a relative of the cockroach?

Photo credit: Colorado State University
If diners were to be served a freshly killed, piping hot cockroach, I’ve no doubt they would run straight from the restaurant to the nearest police station, retching and itching to file charges. Yet people pay atrocious prices for shrimp, despite the fact that it has the FIVE biological qualities of an insect, specifically: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in The Part Where Achinette Theorizes |
WARNING: Picture-heavy post.
There is this poem by Charles Bukowski that I like. I’m not sure why. It’s a sad little poem. Each time I read it, I feel hollow. But here, I shall share it with you (along with some photos of Magsaysay and fragments of something—not prose, not poem, not anything I could name—which I wrote before and never got to finish).
(1) sway with me, everything sad –

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Posted in 2010 in Photos |