NO PAELLA, POR FAVOR: (Part 1) Street performers at Puerta del Sol, Madrid

(Joined Intrepid Travel's 'Highlights of Southern Spain' tour during Sept.-Oct. 2013, and here are the highlights of the highlights. Hehe ;-D)

First day in Madrid. After unloading my bags in our hotel, Hotel Moderno (which wasn't modern at all!), i went out for an exploratory walk.

Literally ten paces away from the hotel entrance was Puerta del Sol ("Door of the Sun").  This bustling square is located in the center of Madrid, and is considered the symbolic heart of Spain, being kilometro cero (Km. 0) of the network of Spanish roads. As such, it is the scene of New Year's Eve countdown celebrations, AND anti-government rallies and protests. 

Ah, here's the de rigueur  statue of Charles III. 

 And here's the symbol of Madrid, which was ubiquitous - it seemed like very lamp post and trash can in the city had it! What is the bear chomping on? I would have guessed cauliflower, but a walking tour guide subsequently informed me it was, in fact,  a strawberry tree ("madrone").

Puerta del Sol bustles with people at all hours of the day and night, by virtue of the nearby subway station, and numerous restaurants and shops in the area. It is also the starting point of local walking tour groups. There are many street performers as well, ranging from a magician doing Houdini-like tricks; mimes standing still, waiting for the tourist to take a photo besides them for spare change; etc.

This pair, in particular, arrested my attention.  This exotically-turbaned duo sit still for hours, with the guy (shown below giving us the thumbs up sign) holding a wooden pole, with presumably a small seat, for the woman on top to sit on.

I wondered, how do they keep still for so long? There must be a trick somewhere. But after a few minutes of observation, it really looks like the simplest explanation is the right one - they simply can do it.  (His right arm must be like Popeye's, underneath his shirt. Haha!)

  

They do look like they're about to levitate at any moment, no? 

WHEN THINGS GO TO POT, THERE'S ALWAYS THE LOO

(This is the start [and possibly the end] of a series of posts regarding my recent trip to Amsterdam-Paris-London. Yes, dear reader, i have been slacking off big time)


Rushing to catch a connecting flight in the gigantic Schipol airport, with barely enough time to wolf down a cold sandwich and soda lunch before boarding, does not do much to put one in a good mood.

But while making a quick stop a the toilet before my flight, look at what i saw:





See it? No? Here's a close-up look below:





Yup, i could hardly believe my eyes either. The Dutch (the very same people who buy and smoke marijuana legally in 'coffeeshops', and make the Red Light District in Amsterdam a tourist spot for tour groups and families) have engraved a "fly" right on the porcelain bowl.

Apparently, there are scientific studies that show that: a) Men like to imagine themselves hitting on flies whilst they pee; and b) Putting a fly as a fixed target improves aim, and reduces the amount of pee that lands on everywhere else except into the bowl.

Simple, cheap and elegant solution, eh? Environment-friendly, to boot. Not to mention fun. :D Pretty fantastic, i'd say.

Whoever thought this one up, there must be something good in the pot they're smoking.


(Photos above are from www.urinal.net)

INNOVATIVE DAY CARE CENTER SERVES ICE-COLD BEER

How's this for a clever marketing come-on by Zanzibar bar-resto, located across the street from the renown (and always crowded) Sans Rival bakeshop in downtown Dumaguete?





I'd say they had me at 'hello'. :D


(Many thanks to Meg Koh for the photo, taken with her multi-million peso SLR camera)

GIANT BURGERSPACESHIP INVADES THE GENTLE PEOPLE!!!

Thanks to the long weekend, i went to the City of Gentle People (yes, it's Dumaguete) with the Happy Gang. Will NOT be blogging much about the trip....hey, it was a vacation!?! :D

The locals were indeed very gracious people, and we all had a jolly time eating and taking photos and driving our guide crazy with our oddball requests, and more eating and drinking....and some whining about how boats tend to sink (courtesy of yours truly), and yet more eating.

Here's a rather disturbing development though.





If you look at the photo below closely enough, the giant burger-cum-alien spaceship has moved and is about to drop itself directly onto the customer!





Oh dear. Paging NASA!!!

"Slices Meat in Vain" make for Wlong Engrrish

Well, during one of my trips last November to China, we were ushered to eat in a buffet restaurant that had some puzzling descriptions of the food.

Here's one of them:





Can anyone explain what the caption means?

Special price awaits the person with the best guess! :D

COBRATOX cream with snake venom
(Bonus Post, Saigon-Siem Reap-Hanoi-Halong vacation)


I guess i had ended my series on Vietnam and Cambodia too soon. Given my love for weird, oddball stuff, i couldn't resist posting about this new discovery below.

While browsing at one of the numerous souvenir shops at the Cu Chi Tunnels, my interest was piqued by this product:





Yes, you had read the box correctly, "Cream with Snake Venom". It is intended to provide relief for arthritis, rheumatism and similar ailments.

While other creams / ointments / liniments such as Bengay (from USA), Salonpas (from Japan), White Flower (from HK), Counterpain (from Thailand), Omega (from Phils.) and Tiger Balm (from Singapore) are basically combinations of Menthol / Methyl Salicylate (Oil of Wintergreen) / Camphor with other essential oils, Cobratox does them all one better with its unique ingredient.

It says right there on the side of the box, "Dried venom of cobra 0.0005 g".

Cobratox is produced by the formal-sounding Center for Rearing, Planting, Researching & Manufacturing Pharmaceutical Products of Military Zone IX.

I don't know about you, but what comes to my mind is a bunch of grim-faced men wearing combat fatigues slitting open the throats of writhing cobras and extracting their venom before stitching their insides back again before putting them on these big glass jars filled with water, which men are supposed to buy to increase their stamina in making . . . ahh, "Boom Boom". [A Vietnamese euphemism for . . . but let's not go there, shall we? ;D]

It was kinda cheap at 20,000 VND (around US$1.15) for a 20 gram tube, so i figured there was nothing much to lose if it didn't prove effective in relieving the pain from my tennis elbow.





The accompanying piece of paper inside the box wasn't of much help (see above pic), being in Vietnamese, but there are simple instructions to "apply to painful area with massage 2 times daily" on the box.

I am not so sure about the science behind using dried cobra venom as a painkiller ingredient; i have this vague notion that cobra venom kills you by paralyzing you, so i guess tiny quantities will just deaden your nerves a bit (thereby providing pain relief), no? :D

So, the 500,000 VND question is, is Cobratox more effective than Bengay, Tiger Balm and the like?

I've used it for a week so far, and here is how Cobratox performs based on the ff. criteria:

Heat - packs a bit of a wallop in giving that warm, burning feeling to temporarily relieve joint pain

Odor - neutral, meaning no discernable "snaky" smell, haha :D Would be nice if it had some sort of scent.

Feel - non-greasy, easy to rub into the skin. Not slimy, thank God!

Bottomline, it performs about the same as other pain relief ointments, so perhaps the REAL reason to use Cobratox is to be able to stretch the truth a bit and brag to your gymmates / sports teammates / etc. as such:

"My doctor has prescribed alternative therapy for my tennis elbow. We are applying dried cobra venom on it, which will eliminate the pain, AND as a side effect, increase my agility and quickness on the courts, AND increase my stamina to make Boom Boom. Unfortunately, the ointment is highly toxic and highly limited, so it is not available to the public."

BOHOLANO CACAO FARMER OUT TO USE THE TARSIER FOR HIS OWN NEFARIOUS ENDS
(Bohol vacation, Conclusion)





Most visitors to Bohol go to the Chocolate Hills Complex, ooh and ahh over these unique formations (there are 1,268 of them, in case you're counting), crack a few jokes about their resemblance to female mammaries and take 'trick digicam shots showing them jumping over the hills, etc.


Most are unaware that there is another side to the Chocolate Hills. I found this out quite by accident myself. Having mentioned casually to our tour guide, whom we shall call Gulliver (for that is his name), about the extremely delicious cups of hot local chocolate i had been drinking at breakfast for the last couple of days, he quickly realized he was in the presence of a fellow chocoholic.

"Did you know that cacao trees are grown at the base of the Hills in the municipality of Sagbayan?" he queried. "That's where the cocoa beans that go into our local chocolate come from."

"Really? I didn't know that at all!" i replied enthusiastically. "So REAL chocolate comes from the Chocolate Hills? How cool is that!! Do you think we could visit the farmers' plantation?"



Thus, the day after saw me and Gulliver taking a 2-hour van ride to Sagbayan, where he had arranged for an interview with Mang Bokbok, one of the 80 or so farmers active in the cultivation of the cacao tree in Bohol.

Mang Bokbok turned out to be a wiry, quiet man in his late fifties, with a weather-beaten face from too much sun exposure. He gave us a brief overview of the cultivation of the cacao tree, and the harvest, processing and production into chocolate. At present, they were growing trees at some 200 out of the 1,200+ Chocolate Hills, all in the remote parts of the municipality, so as not to spoil tourists' camera shots.

According to Mang Bokbok, the rich, fertile soil, coupled with the shade provided by the Hills, were ideal conditions for the cacao tree to flourish and bear much fruit.

Rather skeptical, i asked him, "How come the government has not promoted Bohol chocolate at all? Or your plantations as tourist spots?"

Mang Bokbok frowned slightly, and he launched into a furious tirade. Gulliver took some time to translate his words. Turned out there was a dispute between two opposite factions of the cacao farmers. It went like this:

The Bohol International Industrial Klan (BIIK), being composed of farmers whose sons and daughters were disinclined to carry on with the business, was lobbying for their farmlands to be converted into housing subdivisions.

Meanwhile, the Bohol Underground Land Owners Klan (BULOK), of which Mang Bokbok was the president, believed it was only a matter of time before the world would discover the fantastic qualities of Boholano chocolate. So, they wanted the government to give tax incentives and subsidies to their production, to make it more competitive.

With the two groups warring with each other, the Department of Tourism (DOT) was wary of promoting their cacao plantations as 'eco-nature' destinations.

Besides, to get to their location would require at least 2 hours of driving through dusty, unpaved and winding roads, not necessarily any tourist's cup of hot choco (pun intended).

Mang Bokbok had no love lost for the local government. He described the mayor as "corrupt", who hadn't yet fulfilled his campaign promise to provide the farmers with a new, automated roasting machine for their beans.



The sun was setting, and Gulliver and i were preparing to get back to Panglao.

As we thanked Mang Bokbok for his time, he slyly smiled, and confided the "secret" project he was working on right now. He had heard of the "Alamid coffee", reputedly the most expensive coffee in the world.

This is what made it unique: It is made from the beans found in the droppings (yes, we also know it as 'feces', 'poop' or 'shit') of the Philippine Civet, a cat-like nocturnal mammal closely similar to the mongoose.

The civets eat coffee berries, but the beans inside are swallowed and passed out whole (undigested) by the animal. These beans are gathered from droppings found at the farm. Then, these are filtered, dried under the sun for several days and then roasted for 7 hours.

This inspired a brain wave in Mang Bokbok. He then set about obtaining (through dubious means, i must say) three dozen tarsiers from the sanctuary in Corella, and had been force feeding cacao beans on these poor creatures. Since the tarsiers' diet was composed of crickets and other insects, they were unable to process the beans properly, and said beans go through their digestive tracts undigested.

Further, to ramp up production quickly, Mang Bokbok had installed bright compact fluourescent lights inside his tarsiers' cages, thus depriving them of sleep and raising their stress levels. This had the effect of increasing their poop production threefold.

Quite ingenious, and devious, at the same time.

I asked, "Err....how does the chocolate from the tarsiers' shit taste like?"

Mang Bokbok closed his eyes, and started waxing rhapsodically about the intense, full-bodied aroma and creamy, vanilla-like flavour with a hint of lemony after-taste of the chocolate produced from the tarsiers' droppings. He even offered us a taste, which Gulliver and i quickly declined.

Apparently, he had no qualms about exploiting an endangered animal like the tarsier at all.

"The government is shit. The DOT is full of shit," he opined. With a bemused half-smile on his lined, weary face, he added, "So why not make money from the tarsiers' shit?"



[This story is a product of my imagination, and is pure nonsense]

THE FINANCIAL METRICS OF RE-GIFTING

Having decided to play the Christmas Grinch this year, I have been searching through my closets and drawers for stuff to re-gift to the poor souls who managed to make my severely-downsized gift list.

Let me just point out once and for all that, contrary to popular opinion, people who re-gift are not cheap, lazy couch potatoes who are, well, too cheap and lazy to remember their loved ones at this time of the year and schlep over to the mall to buy the necessary gifts.

Au contraire, mon ami. We re-gifters (also known as RGs) are actually doing the world a huge, huge favor! Why? Just think of all the carbon emissions we are NOT emitting, by not driving our cars and burning fuel as our engines idle for 20 minutes while queuing at the mall parking entrance and driving around looking for that ever-elusive parking spot.

And don't get me started on all that wasteful packaging that comes with purchasing gifts. Why shirts have to be wrapped in fine Japanese paper, then into plastic and then into a carton shopping bag is beyond me.

If anything, it is the fault of those people who give us weird / inappropriate / unusable gifts ("Unwanted Gifts", or UGs) in the first place, that we RGs are forced to RG!!! :-D Gaddemit!!

Anyway, to get to the point, i've thought of some metrics to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of one's RG efforts:

1. Average Mental Regifting Period (AMRP)

= No. of days between the time you receive an UG, and the time you think of someone who would make a good victim, errr, recipient of the regifted unwanted gift (i.e. RUG).

For ex., if you receive a faux Seiko wallet from your creepy Uncle Leo on Dec. 12th and realized on Dec. 22nd that it would be an ideal gift for your lazy golf pro Cosmo, then your AMRP is ten (10) days.

Our rule of thumb is as follows:

 > 60 days    - Idiot
50 - 59 days - Dunce
40 - 49 days - Charlatan
30 - 39 days - Dimwit
20 - 29 days - You're rather thoughtful
10 - 19 days - You're quick
    2 - 9 days - You're a mean old cheapo
  < 1 day       - Your surname isn't Scrooge, by any chance? 

2. Average Unwanted Gift Turnover (AUGT)

= 360
______________________________________________

No. of days between receipt of UG and actual re-gifting of the UG

This measures how efficiently you actually RG UGs, rather than stashing them in your closet and forgetting them till next Christmas.

Say that you get a ceramic white frog from your annoying nephew George on Dec. 9th and regifted it to your big-haired secretary Elaine via the office Kris Kringle on Dec. 24th, then your AUGT is 24. Pretty good!



3. Unwanted Gift Recipient Christmas Thrill Rating (UGRCTR)

= Recipient's satisfaction with the RUG (out of 10 points) _____________________________________________

Re-gifter's expected satisfaction from Recipient (out of 10 points)

Ergo, if your overweight postman Newman goes ballistic over the coffee mug you RG'd him (i.e. 3 out of 10), yet you actually thought he would enjoy drinking his daily cappuccino using it (i.e. 9 of 10), then the UGRCTR is a paltry 0.33.

On a chirpier note, if Newman absolutely prances around with glee with the  dog repellant you gave him (RG'd via your demanding boss Mr. Pitt), the corresponding UGRCTR would likely be 10 / 10 = 1.

Our aim is for this ratio to be equal to 1, meaning the recipient liked your gift as much as you had expected. In the event that the UGRCTR is greater than 1 (i.e. the recipient's delight goes beyond your wildest expectations), both RG and recipient are enjoined to hold hands and sing (all together now), "Fa la la la la, La la la la . . . ."

Merry Christmas, everyone!

 
(Thanks to "Cartoonful" for the tree photo)

OC OVER WC
(Snapshots from Beijing, Part Two)


The thing with Beijing's cold weather (it was something like 4 - 13 degrees Celsius while we were there) is that it induces you to look for a toilet at every stop and take a leak.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but it seems only people from the Philippines refer to toilets as "comfort rooms" or "CRs". Asking locals where the CR is will get you nowhere; but mention "toilet" or "water closet" (i.e. WC), and you'll most likely get pointed in the right direction.

Now, if you thought only Michelin awards stars to restaurants, or only hotels proclaim themselves as having "five-star" luxury amenities, etc., well, think again.

The amiable folks at the Beijing Tourist Administration (BTA) have apparently been tasked with rating the toilets at various tourist spots. Check out these toilets at the Forbidden City:









Which begs the following questions:

How exactly are these star ratings determined? Is the criteria for traditional "hole-on-the-ground"-style toilets and Western-style toilets the same?

What happens if a particular toilet doesn't maintain the standards set by the BTA , and loses its stars? Do they close it down, and send the sanitary workers to the countryside for re-training and self-criticism?

How does a particular toilet obtain a five -star rating? For that matter, what makes the difference between a three-star and a four-star rating?

In the spirit of fun, and with due apologies to the dear comrades at BTA, yours truly decided to invent the following standard rating system:


FIVE stars - Gleaming floor tiles; bathroom fixtures are either Grohe or Kohler brand; hand dryer works perfectly, providing warm relief to your cold hands. Fragrant smell emanates from citrus air freshener.

Unfortunately, NO ONE has ever sighted any WC under the BTA's jurisdiction with features such as the above, as these can only be found at the Beijing Shangrila and the like.

FOUR stars - Urinals have automatic sensors; with soap and paper towel dispensers. Bright lighting, wide mirrors; and nice floor tiles. Taciturn attendant mops the floor every 20 minutes, while smoking a cigarette.

THREE stars - neutral smell; drab grey walls; the tissue paper actually doesn't hurt your ass. Taciturn attendant hands out paper towels grudgingly, after you wash hands using floral-scented liquid soap, and waits expectantly for a tip.

TWO stars - slightly less smelly, with Western-style toilet; and liquid soap is available. The tissue paper is as coarse as sand paper, though.

ONE star - basic stinky, smelly Chinese-style toilet, with no handlebars to help you get up. Also has poor reproductions of Impressionist paintings posted above the urinals. Oh, bring your own tissue paper.


At any rate, we men can learn an important lesson from this sign posted above the urinal of an unrated no-star toilet, found at one of our tour stops:

THE STREET SELLER FROM XINJIANG
(Scenes from Shanghai, Part 3)


I spent some time walking along the Bund, Shanghai's historic waterfront lined with colonial-era buildings. In recent years, it has become gentrified, in the sense that fine dining European cuisine restaurants, high-end (read: very expensive) spas, designer luxury goods stores and "in" nightspots/bars have sprouted inside the buildings.

The weather was cool and slightly windy, and the architecture was really grand. I spotted this:





This vendor, i realized, came from the remote province of Xinjiang. And how did i deduce this?

Elementary, my dear Watson. Just last night, i had dinner with my friend (and business competitor) JPL, his wife and their local friends (Looi and quite-charming Mary), at a Xinjiang cuisine restaurant. Not only was the food quite good (special mention: their lamb kebabs were simply out of this world!), we were also regaled by native song-and-dance numbers from the restaurant staff, all dressed in traditional Xinjiang attire.

According to Wikipedia:

"Xinjiang (Uyghur: شىنجاڭ, Postal map spelling: Sinkiang) is an autonomous region (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) of China. It is a large, sparsely populated area which takes up about one sixth of the country's territory. Xinjiang borders the Tibet Autonomous Region to the south and Qinghai and Gansu provinces to the southeast, Mongolia to the east, Russia to the north, and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and the Pakistan- and India-controlled parts of Kashmir to the west.

Xinjiang is home to several Muslim Turkic groups including the Uyghurs and the Kazakhs. Other PRC minority ethnic groups include Hui Chinese, the Kyrgyz, the Mongols, the Russians, the Xibes, the Tajik, the Uzbek, the Tatars, and the Manchus."

So, while this guy is technically Chinese and can speak Mandarin, with his relatively fair skin, hair and eyes, he can be easily mistaken for an Eastern European.

Here's a closer look on his merchandise. As far as i could tell, it's basically glazed nuts with dried fruit attractively arranged in patterns on top, and looks very much like a cake.






Once you signal your interest to buy, he cuts a standard portion with a knife and puts it in a clear plastic wrapper.

I asked his permission to take photos, which was stubbornly refused. Drat! Finally, i offered to pay him one yuan for one photo. He silently assented, and demanded i pay up first before proceeding further. Finally, with the crisp note in his hands, i fired away. Okay, okay, so i took more than one shot, but who's counting? :-D

There are quite a few of these street sellers from Xinjiang, spaced a few hundred meters apart from each other. Here's a photo of the almost-entirely-unsold-yet cake of one of his colleagues:





Quite pretty, isn't it? And they all don't have the exact same designs!

STREET SIGNS
(Scenes from Shanghai, Part 2)


Had a free Friday afternoon, and spent some time walking along Nanjing Dong Lu, Shanghai's premier shopping street. Designer boutiques, old-fashioned department stores, not to mention stores selling all sorts of odd-looking dried foodstuffs, line this pedestrian-only street.

I was amazed by the sheer number of people milling about. It seemed like 5 million out of China's 1 billion citizens were here, at any given time!

Anyway, i chanced upon this clothing store:





Hmm. . .i don't think the makers of Crocodile would be amused, no? Unless there's been a newly-discovered reptilian specie who just happens to be a close cousin.

At the far end of Nanjing Road, quite near the historic Peace Hotel (which, incidentally, is undergoing a much-needed renovation), guess what i saw?





Hah!? :-d I knew it! These Shanghainese folks weren't as stuffy and bland as they would let us think!

The merchandise inside was quite tame, though. Which, come to think of it, wasn't a bad thing at all. We wouldn't want the locals to become over-amorous and start propagating like crazy, and faster than you can say "Nanjing Dong Lu", China's population would reach 2 billion already, do we?

NOT-QUITE FLAWLESS CHINGLISH
(Scenes from Shanghai, Part 1)


Spent a few days in Shanghai last month for work-related reasons. I know i should not even start whining about how difficult it is to get around, etc., since the locals' grasp of English is rudimentary, at best.

So i won't. But i managed to capture some signs, which are purportedly in English and whose meaning escape me at the moment. Here goes:





(Above) Saw this at one of the booths in the exhibition i visited.

I'm not sure if the writer has a wonderful child-like sense of discovery, or if he has wanderlust. Or both?






(Above) Check out this sign posted inside the elevator of the hotel i stayed in, plugging their coffee shop.

So, i hope the plastic sculpture doesn't fall on you while you enjoy the cup of coffee . . . in the atrium, or in the city center? Or the atrium is in the city center?


Anyway, check this site for more not-quite flawless Chinglish!

GIPPLE, ANYONE?
(Part 1, Bangkok series)


Went with my friend R.T. recently to the City of Angels, me mainly for work and him for some R & R. (Yeah, he actually has memorized the full name of Bangkok; which, i believe, consists of something like 24 words or so)

Anyway, I was at the hotel lobby, sitting at the lounge area while waiting for a business associate to arrive for our meeting. With nothing much to do but wait, i glanced out of the window. . . and saw this:




Funny name, no?

Well, it turns out that the Thais pronounce it as one syllable, "puke", just like when it means "vomit". So, no, there is no double entendre meant here. Sayang [pitiful, isn't it?]

At any rate, it reminded me of that Seinfeld episode, "The Junior Mint", wherein Jerry couldn't remember the name of the woman he was dating. All he could recall was that her name rhymed with a certain female body part. In the end, she caught on and confronted him, and he was left to make wild guesses.

Mulva? Gipple, anyone?

WEIRDO ON THE LOOSE CAPTURED AND LOCKED UP AT ARKHAM ASYLUM


"Each player of this game starts with 6 weird things about himself or herself. People who get tagged need to write a blog entry of their own as well as state the rule clearly. In the end, you need to tag 6 people as well and list their names. Don't forget to let them know they've been tagged!"


Ack! I have just been tagged by my Corregidor travel writing & photography classmate J-O-H! Hmm...wonder why she tagged me?? ;-D

Anyway, here goes:

1. I don't like eating melons, but like melon shakes. And i prefer Buko Joe bottled coconut juice over the just-opened-with-a-bolo real coconut.

2. I used to think Bill Gates was the Anti-Christ, what with Microsoft's crappy yet pervasive software lording over most of the world's PCs. Now that he's devoted full-time to his foundation, i'm convinced more than ever that he is indeed the Anti-Christ!

3. I read newspapers section by section, and put them all back such that the paper looks all tidy and unread.

4. Same with my books, i don't fold the pages or jot down notes on the margins, and make sure the spine of the book doesn't have "stretch marks"....mainly so i can give them as gifts AFTER i read them! Hehe :-D

5. I don't wear (much less own) a wrist watch, on the theory that its weight would make my left arm longer than my right one.

6. I have this tendency to ask other people intensely personal questions, about their age, weight, marital status, gender preference (!), etc., often prefacing my query with "If you don't mind me asking. . . ."

Hah! As if i care whether they mind or not. . .i want answers!! ;-d


Jacs, JenCC, Carlos, Tophman, and Lei, you've all been tagged!