One of the concerns I’ve had is that while there’s a lot of stuff to talk about, most are already “addressable” in “micro-blogging” format (i.e. status updates, etc.) Only a few issues really get to “inspire” me to go in-depth recently.

I’ve been thinking if there was a sort of “brainless” way to put fairly interesting content that could entertain the readers. And noticed a few friends regularly posting answers to questions from a service called “Formspring.” I thought maybe I could use the service to serve as some catalyst whenever there’s nothing particularly interesting to talk about.

The concern now was how to present it that it wouldn’t end up being “blog-spamming.” Given the rate of “serious” posts I get to do recently, the last thing I want is for the blog to end up becoming a form-spring link site.

So here’s what I decided, every week, I’ll do one “formspring post” – and it’ll contain at least 5-10 questions ¹ Doesn’t matter if they’re mundane or deep I personally think will get a kick out of answering. I’ll even take some questions from friend’s accounts which I want to answer myself. Ultimately, It’ll be like one of those survey/memes I used to do in the past once in a while, but hopefully the content would be more interesting, as Formspring questions tend to be more targeted.

To get the ball rolling, I’m filching most of the questions I’ve read from Punzi – cuz he seems to be getting/answering pretty interesting questions hehehe.

Questions

1. What was your worst travel experience?

2. Rate PNoy’s 1st 100 days.. (1-10, 10 as the highest)

3. What is your most hated day?

4. Do you agree with the Philippine Medical Association’s decision that bans smoking for medical practitioners?

5. Which is better; read the book/novel before watching the movie – or vice versa?

6. If you were a Sesame Street character, would you be friends with Mr Snuffleupagus?

7. Excluding religious objections, are you for or against divorce?

8. Would you rather: a) Admit your feelings for someone and cause chaos for everyone or b) Keep it to yourself and keep the peace, except yourself, of course?

9. Pre-marital sex: for or against?

10. There’s a fine fine line between love and a waste of time. How do you define that line?

Answers

1. When I lost $2,000 at the airport before our trip even got underway.

2. 5
   I think he has messed up majorly in some stuff, but has pulled through in others. But he still seems to be a hypocrite in a lot of issues that matter.

3. Sundays
   Cuz it’s the only day where you cannot escape the thought of having to go back to work. That’s not to say that work sucks, ² my work has been pretty reasonable for the most part but the mere fact that having to “change gears” from fun to work-mode is always a not-so desirable experience for anyone.

4. No
   A person’s habits doesn’t necessarily reflect their competence. (e.g. Tiger Wood’s philandering doesn’t make him any less skilled as a golfer). Granted, smoking is health-related – which is undoubtedly the “area of expertise” doctors have, but my argument generally still holds.

   I guess the better analogy would be in the realm of morality: just because a person’s an atheist, that doesn’t mean he/she is any less capable of making proper moral decisions.

   At the end of the day, as long as the doctor can fix me, I could care less if they chose to kill themselves by smoking. 😉

5. Depends
   I’ve noticed that people tend to be too unfair to movie adaptations simply because they reach a certain level of “fanboyism” with the books/stories they love.

   The fact is it’s normally better to watch the movie first as to not have much expectations – then you’ll know if a movie was truly decent or not. Reading the book before watching the movie will almost certainly doom a user’s perception of the adaptation in most cases – as the original stories ³ Which aren’t limited by budgets and screen-time tend to be better than the screen adaptations 99.9% of the time.

   Having said that, it [still] “depends” because it’s psychologically easier to be motivated to watch an adaptation after reading the book than the other way around. In other words, it’s much more reasonable to prefer seeing the visual version of a story you already read, rather than going through [what’s essentially] a “retelling” of a story you already watched on the screen. Does that make sense?

6. Yes – Always wondered what it would be like to have a friend that was always stoned. hehehe

7. For – As long as the right is not abused. ⁴ In the same way you shouldn’t be irresponsible with sex if abortion was made legal

8. Everyone who knows me knows I’ve been living out the answer all my life 😉 A – and I wouldn’t have it any other way
   At the end of the day, humans want to be happy, and as much as you want to be able to keep everyone happy as well, you can’t please everyone. Now I don’t know about you, but if it’s already established that you can’t please everyone, why in the hell would you choose to include yourself in that list?

   Chances are you won’t be living with “those” people forever, but you will be with yourself – so it’s ludicrous to choose to live in a constantly failed state – when you can bite the bullet, cut your losses, ⁵ however painful it may be and be happy in the long run.

   Even if the relationship doesn’t work out, it’s still better to go for it, because “what ifs” can be more stressful than failed relationships that have proper closure.

9. For
   Let’s admit that for normal humans, sex is just as important in a relationship as the rest of its facets. And we all know the reality that there is such a thing as “sexual compatibility.” Its always good to know that you’re sexually compatible with the person you will eventually spend the rest of your life with – rather than be let down due to “unexpected revelations” when the big night comes.

   As for the concern of the relationship being of physically-centered vs. person-oriented. Without meaning to offend, but this, I dare say, is usually an issue only for those who never played the field. “Playing the field” doesn’t necessarily mean being a player – but simply being open to relationships and willing to try them (and everything they entail) without hang-ups/reservations.

   For those who do play the field, it is a fact that it’s actually pretty easy to find a “personality match” ⁶ which essentially addresses the person-orientedness concern if you go out with enough people. Easy enough that you can actually afford to limit your scope to only the pretty ones – same goes for sexual compatibility. This is where the saying “there’s a lot of fish in the ocean” is pretty accurate.

   Virginity is overrated. If a woman isn’t a virgin, that doesn’t make her any less of a woman in my eyes. It’s just a label at best. But not being sexually compatible with your “mate,” that’s something you’ll feel for the rest of your life if you get it wrong.

10. There is no such line.
    Anything that has something to do with love is never a waste of time. This is not me being idealistic or hopelessly romantic. I just believe that all experiences you have make you who you are – and experiences involving love (even the unsuccessful ones) are probably the most important ones a human being could ever have.

    They’re not “wastes of time” because you [should] learn from them… and if you haven’t, it’s not because the opportunities were a waste – but because you’ve wasted the opportunity to learn.