On December 11, 2016 I got married to the loveliest lady and my best friend of all time, Janet Alaan.
It was a fun ceremony that I wish the entire world could have been there to witness. Since that would be impossible without petroleum jelly and a shoehorn, the next best thing would be for me to post some pictures here and give a brief overview on the event. There are some similarities to the basic wedding format most people are used to but in the Philippine wedding some things are uniquely their own.
It starts with the groom walking down the aisle first to take his place in front of the alter.
Then here comes the bride accompanied by her own father.
While the two of us are at the alter, the pastor says some stuff about marriage.
Then we sit down while the pastor says more stuff about marriage.
Then we stand up again while he says more stuff about marriage. That's always fun.
The bride and groom are once again seated so that the family and the pastor can bestow blessings upon them both.
They further emphasize that blessing by throwing flowers at us. There's some in my hair and on my sleeve in this picture.
Next, the witness sign their names on the marriage license.
Then the bride and groom add their much needed signatures to the license.
Family photos are taken immediately afterwards of course.
There's a funny story about this picture. The little boy you see there thought I was Captain America. His aunt tried to correct him saying "No no! He's from Canada." But that little boy wouldn't hear it. To him I was Captain America. Okay!
Then it's the bride and groom's first dance together.
We danced to this song by the way.
While we're dancing, members of the family come up to us and pin money to our clothes. My wife has since gathered up that money and put it into a bank account. That's very smart of her.
Next the bride and groom do some schtick with the wedding cake. Before the ceremony I had no idea we were supposed to feed it to each other. Needless to say, I messed this part up. DOH!
Then we do this thing where we lock arms and drink a glass of wine while the bride's teenage cousin photobombs us. It's a sacred tradition that goes back before Magellan even.
Then speeches are given. The bride's father(pictured) and mother and aunt all gave their speeches. Then the groom and the bride got our opportunity to speak as well.
And finally the entire ceremony ends with a hearty feast.
The main component of the meal is the lechen baboy or 'roast pig'. In the Philippines, a celebration is not complete without it.
Yeah! Then there was this little asshole. I and my bride to be were just relaxing in front of our hotel enjoying our little electronic devices when this turkey starts getting all up in our faces. If he's the hotel's manager then he really sucks at his job. But if he's just some random turkey then he has no business being there and needs to go someplace where he'll be appreciated (like in a big plate stuffed with loads of soggy bread. I know I shouldn't encourage cyberbullying or dog piling in any way but I don't care. Everybody go find this creature's social media accounts and make his life hell. Do it now.
And that was my wedding in the Philippines. I'm sure fun was had by all who could attend. Even though my Canadian family was unable to attend, I'm glad that I can give them all a great Christmas present: a new daughter-in-law/sister-in-law/aunt as well as a new grand daughter/niece/cousin!
The passed few months I've been pre-occupied. I've been working on a Youtube video that I hoped would be done by now. However it's been taking me much longer than I thought it would. Having a full time job taking up most of my time doesn't help either. Plus there is now an event that will cause a further delay in the completion of my project: pretty soon I'll be flying to the Philippines to marry this lovely lady.
I have dropped a few subtle hints about what that Youtube video will contain in recent blog posts, such as:
Besides all of that, my upcoming video will also contain a bit of this:
This is what I think the video's thumbnail would look like. If you find this attractive or not, let me know.
I'm hoping to have this video done before the year is over. I'll of course inform anyone interested when it is up and ready for viewing. See y'all then.
On my sister blog, I talked about my recent experience attending the Black Pussy concert. Click on that link to read about it there. There is one footnote of a thing thing I left out of that experience that I'd like to share here.
These are the doodles I made on napkins while waiting for the band to perform. Since I had some time to kill I thought I'd do some planning for an upcoming project of mine.
When the concert was done, I bought a T-shirt and left. As soon as I walked out the door, I remembered that I had left those bar doodles behind. I contemplated for a few seconds whether I should leave them behind or go back for them. I decided on the latter. When I re-entered the bar I found that one waitress was taking a picture of them with her iPhone. She enjoyed them a great deal, so I signed one of them and gave it to her. I hope she's happy with it. We didn't exchange and contact information or social media handles or anything like that, but I did recall her having plans of posting these doodles on Facebook. So, if anyone of you has seen these doodles on someone's social media page or thread or snap or whatever, just know that those were done by me.
It's always fun to spread joy through people's lives either through drawing, music, or any other artistic medium. I'm glad everyone had fun that night.
Yep! Sorry, lady ma'am. It's true. I am officially off the market and unavailable.
Yes yes I know. It's truly breaking your heart but it's got to be this way. There can only be one woman in my life and......
Whoa whoa whoa!!! Ladies!!! Calm yourselves!!! My goodness I never meant to cause so much grief. But you have to understand that I........
Rihanna? Really? You're distraught about this too. I had no idea you had these feelings about me. I'm flattered and touched by this but at the same time I have to.........
Philippines acting superstar Angel Locsin???? You too??? Ladies, please! Simmer it down. I need to get on with this post.
Yes, cupid's arrow has struck both me and the lady of my dreams right into our hearts. I just got back from a trip to the Philippines where the two of us got the paperwork started for our marriage to happen. My bride-to-be is a lovely and amazing filippina named Janet Alaan.
She and I have found happiness in each other's company because we...........
Oh hey, what now? Come on, dude. Janet is betrothed to me and thus no longer available to you. You need to get over this.....
Quit your blubbering, Mr. Dawson's Creek guy. I know Janet is gorgeous and amazing and so would be a great partner for any man. I happen to be the man she has chosen so you need to.....
Guys! Guys! Guys! You need to get a grip! Maybe try to approach some of the crying ladies at the top. They could use some comforting right now.
Okay, Adam Levine. You stay right there and have a good cry about this. Janet and I will be over here appreciating each other's bodies and souls.
Janet and have known each other for a few years mostly through the internet. But, last November I took a trip to the Philippines to visit her in person. It turns out we hit it off better than either one of us could possibly imagine. We share a similar sense of humour too which is always a plus.
(A little side note to any and all Hells Angels reading this post. At some point on this recent trip to visit, I earned the red wings. I won't be indelicate and give any details into how that happened but I assure you it did happen. So, Angels, if I ever decide to join your little gang, you'll know which jacket to pull out of your wardrobe dept. for me).
Besides a deep love for each other, we also share an equally deep love and affection for her little girl.
Her name is Raianne and is a very smart 7 year old. Normally on this blog I only feature artwork that I have drawn. Well this time I'm going to showcase some wok that Raianne made for me as a gift.
It's a little card she made for me. It wasn't my birthday at all, but I enjoyed the sentiment.
Inside the card has some nice artwork too. At the bottom left is a depiction of me, her mom, herself, and the little sister she hopes we make for her someday.
OOP! I lied. I will be posting artwork of mine in this post after all.
While I was there, I made a hastily-constructed drawing of one of my Censor Monkeys. The American Monkey to be exact. She then took the time to fully colour it. She even added the little box that says who the monkey is and what his censorship agenda is.
This part right here.
Well, that was my most recent trip to the Philippines. Like I said earlier, Janet is absolutely wonderful. The rest of her family is also very friendly and have graciously accepted me into their circle. I'm hoping this union lasts for at least 10 million years passed forever.
Now I'll end this post with something mushy. Every couple has a song. This is our song. I sang it into the karaoke machine at her Aunt's birthday party and it was a beautiful moment. So here is that same song embedded below. Whether your a fan of early 80's Chicago or not, feel free to enjoy the song.
Well, it's a vapid one-dimensional pile of fluff that has absolutely nothing that holds my interest. Of course, that's merely my opinion. From an objective point of view, it's a show that exists and has a sizeable fanbase since it's debut in Japan in 1997. The show's immense popularity has even spawned an app called Pokemon Go that is right now a huge phenomenon sweeping the world. I know my bro-in-law and both his sons (my nephews) enjoy it very much.
So is there a big problem with this franchise? Meet the dipshit who thinks there's a problem. His name is Jonathan McIntosh.
His work is familiar to anyone who's ever found themselves sitting through the insipid ramblings of Anita Sarkeesian as she blames all of society's ills on video game cleavage. He was one of the people behind the scenes on her Youtube videos who helped make that happen. I do believe that he's the human puffball that coined the phrase "toxic masculinity" as well.
He has since departed her empire for who knows and who cares what reasons in order to embark on his own video series dissecting popular culture from his own myopic perspective. He recently went on Twitter to offer his analysis that anyone with a functioning brain can see came straight from his (possibly abused) ass:
BWAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!! Dog fighting??? Oh ok! We're all Michael Vick now because of Pokemon. What a fucking idiot! Back in January I made a post about another real-life Censor Monkey. This McIntosh is not criminally heinous like that one but he is equally a pain in the ass nonetheless. Basically, his Twitter rant constitutes the rhetoric of two of the Censor Monkeys: the Horrible Mother Monkey for making it seem like the show is bad for kids and the Psychologist Monkey for implying that it could have a negative psychological effect somehow. But of course what he's really saying is "I can't handle it so nobody else should be able to either" which is typical of his ilk.
I'll give another reason why this asshat is stupid and wrong. It has to do with the making of the Bugs Bunny cartoon Bully For Bugs.
It all started one fine day in the early 1950's when animation director extraordinaire Chuck Jones (to the left) was killing some time by practicing his doodling which he did quite often. While pondering what to draw, he remembered that he'd never tried to capture the hulking mass of a bull's muscular structure. So, he felt this was an opportunity to do just that. After he had drawn several bulls (some better than others according to his opinion I'm sure) the producer and head boss of the Warner Bros. animation studio Ed Selzer (to the right) was walking by and looked over Chuck's shoulder to see what the doodles were. When he saw that they were bulls he sharply bellowed "NO! I don't want any cartoons about bull fights. Bull fights are NOT funny!" This rang a bell inside Mr. Jones' head. He had no intention of making a bull fight cartoon before that. But, Mr. Selzer had a nice long track record of being wrong so far (and there were many more incidents to come in the future). For instance, Selzer did not want them to pair Tweety with Sylvester. He then looked the fool when their first cartoon together won Looney Tunes' first Oscar. He also thought that nobody would laugh at or even appreciate a Pepe Le Pew cartoon. But, in Selzer fashion, he had to eat those words when the third Pepe Le Pew cartoon won an Oscar. He also objected to the name of the first Roadrunner & Wile E. Coyote cartoon Fast and Furry-ous stating that "furious is spelled wrong".
So, since he'd been wrong about so many other things, Chuck knew he had to be wrong about bull fight cartoons as well. So right away Chuck got together with his main writer Mike Maltese, told him what had just happened, and the two of them got to work coming up with ideas about Bugs Bunny doing some bull fighting. To both of their delight, all the elements came together quite easily. The end result was the aforementioned Bully For Bugs. It didn't win an Oscar or any other accolades, but it always makes pretty much everyone's top 10 list of Bugs Bunny's filmography.
I brought all of this up because McIntosh's sentiments about Pokemon seem eerily similar to Selzer's opinion of bull fight cartoons. Because of this uncanny parallel, I would like to suggest we all do to Jonathan McIntosh what Chuck Jones, Mike Maltese, and everyone else at the WB studio did to Eddie Selzer. We should ignore and even defy whatever authority JM thinks he has pretty much to the point where we're doing the exact opposite of what he says. If he's got a crybaby problem with all of these Pokemon creatures fighting each other, then I implore all who are using this Pokemon Go app to collect all of the creatures you can and have them all fight in what could look like the biggest drag-em-out, glove dropping, bench clearing, tooth finding, hockey brawl the world has ever seen.
Oh and definitely feel free to enjoy the fruits of Chuck's and Mike's labours Bully For Bugs embedded below.
