28. The Chronicles of Orgullo: The Bacon, The Bitch & The Barcode

O R G U L L O

M U N D O

January 30, 2006 -- Kung Hei Fat Choi! It's the Chinese New Year and we're celebrating the Year of the Fire Dog. Will it be a lucky year for you this year, or are the stars aligned to give you a difficult time? Word of caution: horoscopes are just meant to guide its followers, not dictate their lives. We hope you continue to have a blessed year, whatever calendar you use.

The Chronicles of Orgullo

This year, we welcome you all to the new site of Orgullo Mundo. You can visit this page and check the previous issues of our online magazine to reminisce. Yes, this is another milestone in Orgulloland. Hopefully this would be expanded and we'd have a few more mini-sections like book reviews, CD reviews, word of the week, etc. Orgullo Mundo is evolving, pretty much in a way that Napster changed the music industry. And to start our forthcoming projects, some of the said sections are going to make their debut this issue.

The Bacon

We had mentioned putting this in a previous issue which featured food and restaurants, and now we're glad to report that Heaven 'N' Eggs can live up to its building reputation as a decent alternative to satisfy your cravings, no offense to the restaurant called Cravings (which is another haven of good food, but that's another column). There are already several branches of Heaven 'N' Eggs in the city, including the one on Tomas Morato Ave., in Eastwood, and at Glorietta. The restaurant chain's first branch has been operational since April 2005, and there are many high-profile regulars who frequent the place (including Ruffa Mae Quinto, who allegedly went inside the Glorietta branch and demanded to be immediately served ahead of the customers who came in first). Don and Allan visited the Tomas Morato branch this month and they tried out several mid-priced selection in the menu, like the (accept our apologies for forgetting their official names) continental breakfast meal with bacon and eggs (where you have a choice on having rice, bread or mashed potato), and club sandwich and fries, and calamares with wasabi dip. Don also tried the pancake syrup, which comes in four flavors: maple, peach, pineapple, and coconut. Each serving was more than enough for a healthy appetite, but the side dish (like french fries) were a bit skimpy. Nevertheless, the whole experience was gratifying enough for the tummy. Just be prepared to bring enough cash to try some more offerings on the menu. There are still a few mishaps in this heavenly place. The tables and walls were nowhere glistening with angelic cleanliness, and the food could take a little while before it gets served. The music also was too bland for anyone's taste. We're not saying that they should play heavy rock or upbeat R&B all the time, but even Norah Jones would fall asleep while listening to their playlist. However, considering that the place is quiet enough to talk with your company, it's a nice place to hang out in and make a decent conversation. Overall, this would be a nice addition to your list of favorite eating out retreats. What do you say, Orgullo?

The Bitch

We don't want to offend anybody, but this is one of the more intriguing and enduring questions that Spanish-speaking people get from the non-Spanish-speaking bunch: Just how many ways can we say bitch in Spanish? As advocates of the language, allow us to give a response to all those inquiries. Based on the Oxford Spanish Dictionary, bitch is perra in Spanish, which is a female dog. It can be used as an adjective to describe a nasty woman, so we say mujer maligna o la bruja, meaning a witch. But if we want to get a little more creative, we can describe a person un mal bicho. El bicho originally meant a small animal or rare insect, but can be freely applied to bitchy human beings. Take great pleasure in using that phrase if you want to brush off somebody as a mean son of a bitch. Now, if it's simply a son of a bitch, we can apply the term el cabrón, which is technically a billy goat, but can also mean bastard. Another applicable term would be el cagachín, which is a slang for son of a bitch, with a denotative definition of swine. An additional colloquial term that we would introduce to you (and we say colloquial because it doesn't appear in the El Mundo Diccionarios or Oxford Spanish Dictionary) is la tipeja, or a female human with malicious and sly behavior. It can also be utitlized as an adjective to describe a nasty piece of work. La pájara is another slang word for that kind of woman that we hate, and is figuratively used as a substitute for a scheming bitch. A very useful verb phrase is tener mal café, meaning to bitch about, to be nasty, to be a bastard or to harbor evil intentions.

The Barcode

Fully-Booked carries an adequate selection of books on Spanish grammar and usage. Most of the terms that we mention for previous section The Bitch came from the The Big Red Book of Spanish Idioms. Published by McGraw Hill in 2004, the book contains a fairly recent collection of colloquial and common terms in the Spanish language that could not be found in any regular bilingual Spanish-English dictionary. The book is designed for speakers with a good grasp of the language (intermediate to advanced level) who would most likely encounter some phrases that connote a different meaning. This book is very useful if you're reviewing a Spanish film, watching TVE, reading a complicated text or novel, or conversing with a native Hispanic speaker. Written and compiled by Peter Weibul, who included an interesting introduction to his book on why he came up with this collection, the title boasts of 387 pages filled with around 12,000 Spanish and English expressions, which you can even cross-reference! It retails at PhP 777.00 (Gateway Mall branch), and Allan believes it is a great find. There are other great and useful Spanish titles available in Metro Manila, and we'd be sure to review those books and feature them in future columns. In fact, Allan has bought another book that was already mentioned in our Issue #19. (That book would be in a forthcoming issue.)

Well, it's been a pleasure seeing you all again this week. Our job here is done. Be sure to check us out next time here at Orgullo Mundo. ¡'ta luego!

Coming Soon: La Tortura.