If you ask me what scares me the most, I would tell you that it would be the day when that plane to Canada takes off from ground and would not look back. In what would probably be the most painful experience of love I will have to date, it is set to happen within three weeks. I've tried to act nonchalant and place practicality at the forefront of every discussion me and him have over it, but that does not mean it would not take me four hours before I could start working each day, or three whole hours before I could force myself to sleep each night. When I think about it, I am consumed by all things dark and ugly -- and I can only be strong enough to take every hard blow.

One thing I hate about writing a feature story on an establishment is having to interview its owner. Now I know this little bit is imperative to actually know what I am going to write about, but with the technology we have right now, can't everything just be channeled through the Internet or the phone?

Really. I find it so tedious, bordering on hypocrisy, to be friendly-friends with these people whom I haven't even met before and act as if I'm all interested in what they have to say. It's a pain in the jaw because I have to do a lot of talking and nodding and smiling and pretend writing, and my mind has to be fully alert, or else I would be asking the same effing questions like a friggin pinwheel! Often I get caught with my mind wandering, especially when I rivet back to reality and see that the person I was talking to had finished his mini-speech five minutes ago -- and that all the while I had been nodding and saying 'u-huh' for no reason! I blanked out, obviously. Which happens more often than me drinking a glass of water -- and I drink a glass of water almost every hour.

So you see how it goes. I meet new people, then forget about them immediately after. Or, at least, until the article comes out. You see, there are no real relationships in this world. Only fleeting acquaintances. So mercy me, if it can be helped, I'd rather not go through it.

How can you not love the French? They're absolutely brilliant, BRILLIANT people! Sana may ganito sa Pilipinas. Brash Young comes close but it's not even THAT underground. I want action! Give it to me!

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Police in Paris have discovered a fully equipped cinema-cum-restaurant in a large and previously uncharted cavern underneath the capital's chic 16th arrondissement.

Officers admit they are at a loss to know who built or used one of Paris's most intriguing recent discoveries.

"We have no idea whatsoever," a police spokesman said. "There were two swastikas painted on the ceiling, but also celtic crosses and several stars of David, so we don't think it's extremists. Some
sect or secret society, maybe. There are any number of possibilities."

Members of the force's sports squad, responsible - among other tasks - for policing the 170 miles of tunnels, caves, galleries and catacombs that underlie large parts of Paris, stumbled on the complex while on a training exercise beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.

After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access. Behind that, a tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, "clearly designed to frighten people off," the spokesman said.

Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs". There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers. None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said.

A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. "There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous," the spokesman said. "The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there."

Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not," it said, "try to find us."

The miles of tunnels and catacombs underlying Paris are essentially former quarries, dating from Roman times, from which much of the stone was dug to build the city. Today, visitors can take guided tours around a tightly restricted section, Les Catacombes, where the remains of up to six million Parisians were transferred from overcrowded cemeteries in the late 1700s. But since 1955, for security reasons, it has been an offence to "penetrate into or circulate within" the rest of the network.

There exist, however, several secretive bands of so-called cataphiles, who gain access to the tunnels mainly after dark, through drains and ventilation shafts, and hold what in the popular imagination have become drunken orgies but are, by all accounts, innocent underground picnics. The recent discovery of three newly enlarged tunnels underneath the capital's high-security La Santé prison was put down to the activities of one such group, and another, identifying itself as the Perforating Mexicans, last night told French radio the subterranean cinema was its
work.

Patrick Alk, a photographer who has published a book on the urban underground exploration movement and claims to be close to the group, told RTL radio the cavern's discovery was "a shame, but not the end of the world".

There were "a dozen more where that one came from," he said. "You guys have no idea what's down there."

Thanks to www.prodigyremixed.com, I was able to download bootleg mixes of the Prodigy's latest album, Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned. The site hosts mixes to all the songs included in the original album, and you can even download the entire thing in a zip file! Now am I a lucky daughter of my mother, or what??! Not quite, though. I successfully ripped off two songs, which took the entire day to download, what with the heavy volume, and when I tried to rip some more the next day, the owners of the site decided to take them out. Well, unless you have Bit Torrent (which they don't allow here in the office).

Therefore, I'm screwed. But not as screwed as those who found out about the site AFTER the songs were taken out. I got two cool babies with me. That should be enough for the meantime. Besides, Prodigy is too great a group to rip off the Net. Show some respect and buy the original. It will be out next month. *wink*

Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's your so-so day job. You name a hundred reasons in your head and proceed to make an official list. Then, you realize, yes, it IS official. Your life is blander than last night's plain congee dinner.

Wondering is a good exercise of thought, you say. And so you ask questions that are too many to answer and too fast to remember. They are not there. There are only colors dancing in your imagination, and the Pope is as gay as gay gets. Knowing this, you wait. You do not know what it is all about, but you click the Refresh button twice a minute to find out. Nearly a day has passed and there is no sign of anything resembling activity. And, again, it hits you. Your life is more blue than your seatmate's Ocean Drive shirt.

Where you are really does not matter. Sometimes, the destination is even not as important anymore. You strive to continue to live and, in living, you strive to remember to breathe. And in breathing, you seek what is not there and eat off what you think exists. You are confused and your hands develop a mind of their own and they start tapping a half-forgotten song on your knee. Your head bobs to the beat. The world around seems like a cotton-candy ball perching gracefully on top of a vanilla sundae. It's too bad you're wearing black. For the third time, the wondering ceases temporarily. Your life is mix of shards and Superglue has been banned forever.