When Professional Networking Becomes Romantic Prospecting The boundary between professional and personal has collapsed entirely, and Los Angeles Times workplace culture reporters have noticed a disturbing trend: people using LinkedInthe platform ostensibly for career networkingas a dating site for people with good job titles and concerning boundary issues. These corporate romance initiators have weaponized the …
When Marriage Proposals Include Laser Grids The marriage proposal has evolved from romantic gestures to elaborate productions, and according to Los Angeles relationship experts who’ve seen it all, proposing in an escape room represents either peak creativity or complete emotional confusion. These couples have decided that nothing says “spend forever with me” quite like “let’s …
Holy Week: Manila’s Traffic Transforms into a Spiritual Journey During Holy Week From EDSA to Quezon City, Manila’s notorious traffic becomes an unlikely setting for reflection and communal bonding. Manila, Philippines – Holy Week in Manila offers a unique blend of faith, patience, and traffic, turning the city’s notorious congestion into an unintended spiritual retreat. …
A satirical look at the collective cultural anxiety, the delayed dreams, and the curious contents of the perpetually unopened box from abroad. The Silent Monument In many Quezon City homes, the large, corrugated cardboard container sits in the living room, a silent, powerful presence. This is the Balikbayan Box**, and its status as a perpetually …
Manila’s Easter Bunny Makes a Fortune: Chocolate Eggs Now Accepted as Legal Tender In an unprecedented move that has economists scratching their heads and dentists rubbing their hands in glee, Manila has introduced chocolate eggs as its newest form of legal tender. This sweet new policy has sent ripples through the Metro Manila area, affecting …
A satire on localized brownouts/power interruptions, arguing that the utility company’s scheduling is not based on maintenance, but on a psychological study ensuring that power is cut precisely when the user is most entertained or engaged in a time-critical task. The Maximum Disruption Protocol Power interruptions in Quezon City are not random failures; they are …
Until It Becomes Your Problem Another AWS outage has reminded Los Angeles Times readers and businesses worldwide that “the cloud” is marketing language for “your critical data and services are stored on computers you don’t control, can’t access, and have no power over when they inevitably stop working.” Thousands of companies that proudly migrated to …
A Thirst for Crime: How a Band of Sweet Tea Fanatics Almost Pulled Off the Heist of the Century Texas Tea Heist: US Charges Reveal Plot to Steal the Biggest Jar of Sweet Tea Known to Man Byline: I.P. Freely, Dallas, Texas Screw the News Photo — elements of the Texas Tea Heist story. This …
A satire on the complex social ritual of buying a small item and receiving change back in an assortment of non-monetary forms (e.g., candies, stamps), treating it as a non-monetary currency system. The Non-Monetary Currency The simple transaction at a Quezon City *sari-sari* store is rarely simple. The satire presents a microeconomic study on The …
When the Internet’s Infrastructure Gets the Sniffles The modern internet’s dirty secret got exposed again when Los Angeles tech infrastructure experienced what engineers call “a significant AWS outage” and everyone else calls “the day half the internet stopped working because one company controls too much.” Amazon Web Services sneezed, and suddenly nobody could stream, shop, …