Nevergirl’s

Sophie is dead.

I try not to cry because what could be sillier than weeping over a laptop? The little girl stepped on her; she died, and now I hurt – physically hurt – over having to say goodbye to something I paid 21,000 pesos in cash for only five months ago. I could have used the cash to buy a ton of jansport, arrrrgh! Goodbye Sophie, my trusty little eepc.

Moral lesson: If you have a little girl at home, do not invest in anything pretty or fragile.

I’m not a fan of self-help books because I’ve always believed they’re 80% fluff and only 20% sense. Then, too, I resent being told what to do, so there’s really no point in shelling out money for a book that would only boss me around, is there? Clearly, I need self-help books like I need a spa cover!

Recently, however, I’ve discovered a new hobby: scouring Amazon.com for self-help manuals with titles that are neither here nor there. These titles leave me chuckling, and wanting to write the content myself – mentally, anyway. When it comes to writing, I’m 80% wild imaginings and 20% actual work. Still, these books should be a good buy, more so because their titles alone are worth their price in chuckles.

1. How to Become a Schizophrenic
For a book with such a whack title, this one is very, very insightful. The author uses the ideas of various experts, melds it with his own experiences, and creates a theory why and how he and countless others become schizophrenic.

2. How to Read a Book
First published in 1940, this book is that rarest of rare tomes – a bestseller, a living classic. The title might seem whack but the content is anything but. The authors discuss the various levels of reading and how you can achieve them: elementary reading, inspectional reading, systematic skimming, speed reading, abstraction – you name it, the book covers it.

3. How to Start Your Own Country
Is it possible to start your own country? Erwin Strauss answers yes, and then proceeds to explain how. Strauss details everything a future country owner should know – from national defense and diplomacy to the training of plumbers and the recruitment of settlers.

4. How to Rent a Negro
All blacks, says Damali Ayo, have at some point in their lives either been the rented or the renter. Ayo then proceeds to enumerate a range of social issues that illustrate her point from the way fair skin continues to be a universal barometer for beauty to police’s, co-workers’, and neighbor’s blatant racial profiling. As a bonus, Ayo includes a quiz readers can take to determine whether they’re renter or the rented.

5. How to Speak with the Dead: A Practical Handbook
Yes, this book outlines how and why people communicate with the dead. If you’re tempted to read this book, however, you should first buy You Know You’re a Few Apples Short of the Pie When You Feel Like Speaking to the Dead. But I’m not sure that how-to guide has been written.

These titles, they’re brilliant marketing tools. They leave me itching to go Ebay-bidding. That, or start the draft for How to Win the Lotto without Buying a Ticket.

How do you name your kids? Do you trawl through a dictionary? Google? Leave it to grandparents who believe themselves entitled to hock their antediluvian names off to an unsuspecting grandchild? Do you think back to all those co-workers you met at the retail jobs you held? Or do you call a family powwow and vote over which names sound the grandest, the most pompous?

No matter how you do it, be very, very careful what you name your child with. Eccentricity could cost parents child custody. In New Zealand, a nine-year-old was made a ward of court so she could change the name she had been socially handicapped with – Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii.

Said Judge Rob Murfitt, “The court is profoundly concerned about the very poor judgment which this child’s parents have shown in choosing this name. It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap, unnecessarily.”

For all Judge Murfitt’s sympathetic posteuring, however, courts could still not claim consistency over their decision to accept or trash names. For example, the following names which parents have picked out for their children were condemned as detrimental to a child’s well-being:

1. Yeah Detroit
2. Sex Fruit
3. Fish and Chips
4. Stallion
5. Keenan Got Lucy
6. Twisty Poi

The following names, on the other hand, are deemed admissible by the courts and could thus be foisted by parents onto their children:

1. Number 16 Bus Shelter
2. tragically, Violence
3. Midnight Chardonnay

I wonder if some people name their children while they’re on crack. The weirdness is not an isolated case, that’s for sure, what with Filipino parents casually scarring their children for life with names like Bonifacia, Hesusa, and Potenciano. Come to think of it, these names almost make Alex’s (Layne Nozomi Alexandrie) sound like garden variety.

My dream job is to write for a women’s magazine or work for an ad agency, churning out the most ingenious copies this side of the equator. There’s something immensely satisfying about seeing your work on paper or on a huge billboard by the freeway. With a women’s mag, one can be fun, fearless, and female. With an ad, one has to make each word count – an extremely difficult job for someone who goes overboard with her word count. Then, too, ads are as much about the image as they are about the words. This melding, this quirky coupling of picture and text fascinates me because either of the two could perfectly do the job on their own.

So, that’s what I do when I’m not writing, editing, running through figures, or drawing up contracts and reports – I trawl for clever ads.

I know, I know; it’s way too early for Valentines. Creativity, however, is no respecter of time frames or seasons. Here’s my top four Valentine ads.

1. A very clever copy from Axe (no surprise there; Axe always comes up with the most inventive copies)

2. This ad is from Straps, a lingerie store in India. Can anyone say Perfectly Shaped, India?

3. France’s official purveyor of pleasure, SexyAvenue.com, wishes you a Happy Valentines Day! There’s good to be had in stiffness, that’s for sure.

4. This one is my favorite. Brazil’s Dom Francisco plays on the “in bed” concept, using napkins and silverware. It’s cute rather than naughty, and makes you go “aaaw.”

Aren’t these ads amazing? Someday, I’m going to learn to write a damned good copy, and it’s going to be so good it would make me cry each time I look at it.