Anatomy of a Scam: The Real Story Behind the Faye San Juan Fiasco

While watching the American Idol...

Faye: Mommy! mommy! I wanna be famous! Just like that girl Jasmine Trias.

Mom: (sighs) Just pretend you're an American Idol winner. If you fake it, you'll make it. Just like, uh... William Hung.

Faye: Ok mommy.
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Two days later...

Faye: Mommy! Mommy! Look at me. (dances she-bangs ala William Hung)

Mom: (slaps head) ...sorry to burst your bubble deary. But I think you're really not cut out to sing or dance.

Faye: But mommy! What do I tell the other kids I'm good at?

Mom: Well... for one, tell them you can mentally compute the cube root of any number.

Faye: But they havent taught us what a cube root is.

Mom: Exactly.

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At the church...

Mom: well Faye, show them.

Faye: Ok mommy.

Mom: Faye can mentally compute the square of the cube root of the quitiplic anegorbal of any number within seconds!

Pastor: Woah! (Keanu Reeves style in the Matrix)

Crowd: Woah! (Keanu Reeves style in The Devil's Advocate)

Mom: Just watch. Faye. What is the square of the cube root of the quitiplic anegorbal of 8,090,003,030,009.01?

Pastor: My God! Thats a tough one!

Congregation: Quitiplic Anegorbal!! Wwwwooooow...

Faye: (flashes toothy grin) Two hundred... Twelve!

Pastor: (jaw drops to the floor) Woooow!

Congregation: (jaws drop to the floor) Wooow!

Mom: See. She is indeed a national treasure. Do you believe our story now?

Pastor: Do I believe it??!! I'll publish it!

Congregation: Yeah!!! Publish it!!!!

Pastor: ...using the church funds! Hehehe Gotcha!

Congregation: ...damn.
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One week later... in an interview with Patricia Evangelista in their San Juan residence

Pat: Seriously. I tried checking out the International Math Contest for the American Idol Wannabes competition you mentioned. It cant seem to find it in the internet!

Mom: Well, like I said. We beat the Germans and Americans there. Of course they'd censor it. Damn bastards.

Pat: Uh... ok. But can you at least show me the trophy?

Mom: Oh, I left it at home.

Pat: (looks around) But we ARE at your home.

Mom: I mean, our uhh, other home. Right faye?

Faye: Yes mommy. Its with our Tito Boy in Recto.

Pat: Oh I see. Too bad then. Can I see it later?

Faye: Tito Boy said it will be ready by tomorrow.

Mom: Thats enough faye. Why dont you show pretty Patty a demonstration of your mathematical genius?

Pat: Wow! I really would like to see it.

Mom: Ok. Faye, What is the square of the cube root of the quitiplic anegorbal of 8,090,003,030,009.01?

Pat: Woah! (Keanu Reeves Style in Speed)

Faye: Seven Hundred... Sixteen!

Pat: Wow! She's good! No need for me to see that trophy.

Mom: See. I told you.

Pat: I see. So tell me again how you lost your passport in Australia?

Mom: Wouldn't you believe it? A couple of pinays offered to help us, then robbed us of our passports in broad daylight! You never know who would con you.

Pat: Yeah. Lucky for the rest of us, there are honest people like you.

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The truth unravels... Cathy and Faye's Gig is up

The Worldwide Web... Excerpts from various blogs:

Newspaper Journalist:
There is no International Math Contest for the American Idol Wannabes competition in Australia! She's Lying! It was held in Florida!

Sixth Grade Blogger:
They just taught us cube roots at school. Faye did my homework, and now I flunked math! That bitch is a phony!

Esteemed Anegorbalist:
The Square of the cube root of the quitiplic anegorbal of 8,090,003,030,009.01 is FIFTY Seven!!! She is lying!

Pat Evangelista's Blog:
I just found out they have no home in Recto and there is no Tito Boy registered in their geneaological chart! They lied to me!

The Fake Tito Boy's Blog:
I just found out they paid me a fake 500 peso bill for the fake trophy!! That bitch!

Keanu Reeves's Blog:
Woah!
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And thus, through the help of various bloggers around the country, the truth was finally exposed about the great fabricated lie that was Faye, the International Math Champion of the American Idol Wannabes....

Idiotic Moment of the Week:

Talked with a friend in YM this morning...

Friend: Hi! I'm in Seattle. You want a Halo2?
Me: May halo-halo ang Seattles Best?

Turns out she was in the US. And she was asking if I wanted the Halo II X-box title because it seemed like the hot commodity there.

Oh well. Pinoy talaga ako.

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In any case, I'm still thinking whether to get an Xbox or not...
Do I really want to give Bill gates another $150? (And even more to the friendly neighborhood pirates?)

Lets see.

Revisiting Friendster

Until recently, I had pretty much given up on Friendster (yes, despite this earlier post) because of the irritatingly slow message system and the number of unfamiliar faces sending messages or asking to be my friend out of the blue.

Of course, blogging too had a hand at my falling out with Friendster. Posts and comments were just way more interesting and dynamic than testimonials (plus i kinda got used to rejecting unflattering testimonials hehe), and the tagboard actually made for better messaging. Overall, if you want a window to a netizens soul, you go to the blog, not the friendster page.

But then again, theres a nifty feature that was added recently that shows you which of your friends has a birthday coming up.

Take Wilf for example (scroll down my Links site... its Wilf the NBA Addict/...something).

His birthday cake popped up last week in Friendster, so I expect ex-roomies/classmates/batchmates/girlfriends/blockmates and evil gay twins to just bombard his site with birthday greetings demanding the freely flowing alcoholic party we rightly deserve.

Would I have remembered his birthday without Friendster? Of course. But its more fun if more people remember.... so we could coerce the blowouts easier.

That in itself should be a reason to check out Friendster once in a while at least.

And oh yeah, Advanced/Belated Happy Birthday Wilf. Libre!!!! Hehe :D

In defense of the Typical Male: Chapter 2

Below is a YM I had sometime back (meaning some months ago, but i was too tamad to blog about it til recently)...

Soloflite: my friend was telling me how he ate 60 siomais in 30 minutes in Superbowl's eat all u can promo
Insane D: iew. UMAY.
Soloflite: he had it yesterday.. And we already pigged out last sat on it! 30 nga lang sumusoko na ako e... 4 hrs pa kami nandun
Insane D: you can never really be sure of what they put in dimsum
Soloflite: LOL!! Shrimp naman to e
Insane D: how much is it? eat all u can
Soloflite: 120 pesos. but only from 2-6pm. Sulit sobra!
Insane D: sulit nun a!
Soloflite: Yeah, i was doing an extra kilometer on my threadmill routine since we pigged out. But theres a limited selection lang. Pansit canton, 5 types dimsum, and around 3 desserts and unlimited iced tea
Insane D: ok, thats just gluttony na. Gluttonous i mean. Wow. thats crazy
Soloflite: yeah... im still shocked... He says hes planning another one tomorrow... he'll target 100 na!!
Insane D: hehehehehe
Soloflite: these friends of mine... tsk tsk..
Insane D: thats just insane. boys, tsk tsk... You'll never hear girls say anything like that
Soloflite: yeah. yet another stereotypical testosterone-induced situation, i guess.
Insane D: "O my god, like, i had, like 100 siomai kanina. We made kain at superbowl and its super mura!!
Insane D: Super eat all you can!"
Soloflite: LOL!! I wanted another siomai, but its getting to be kadiri na...
Soloflite: But yeah, point taken. Its the hormones i think...

Got me thinking. Besides the fact that girls never seem to talk about eating 100 siomais for lunch, theres something typically male about what we tend to talk about.

Girls would go through the timeless questions of "Am I fat?", "Does this blouse look good on me?" or "What do you think of my new hairdo?". while we guys wince and squirm in indecision whether its a Yes or No she wants to hear (when in fact, the reaction going thru our mind is "WTF??! I didnt notice anything different!"), the females would have an equally canned answer "Of course you're not fat", "You look absolutely gorgeous in that outfit" or "OMG! I love your hair!!!"

I admit I cant read what goes on behind the female mind, but I know this: Any answer that comes from the mouth within 2 milliseconds of hearing the question is either a babble of surprise or a deviously crafted white lie carefully prepared just for that occasion.

And males have their own versions of the White Lie (besides pickup lines. Pickup lines i'll probably have another chapter on.)

Bigger, better and more exciting testosterone-enhanced versions.

Its in the war stories we swap while having lunch, the adventures we brag about in the bar, or the little black books we talk about nonchalantly any chance we get. Its the "big fish that got away" or the "hot chick we dated last night". And when an alpha-male wannabe starts talking, the others try to top it off with their own story.

Weird, this subtle one-upsmanship that brings out the competitiveness in every guy. Take for example the "fun leagues" that people organize that somehow end up with the nastiest slugfests and dirtiest trash talks. Think about it. It starts out with people "playing for fun", but once the excitement catches on, everyone just uses every dirty trick in the book just to win.

We guys play to win, because we want the rights to brag about it.

This I believe is more evolutionary than hormonal.

Back in the days when all men had to do to shack up with a woman was to club her on the head and drag her by the hair to his place, the only other real necessity besides hunting was to protect his own territories.

Other animals mark their territories by pissing on them. Human alpha males, on the other hand, protected theirs by cornering every non-alpha male that tried to get into his private harem and smacking him on the head. Then describe in every gory detail (enhanced version of course) the horrors of what he did to the hapless bastard to the whole tribe/community. Word would spread that resident in the particular cave was a savage cold-blooded brute and the other males would avoid it like the plague. And yes, the females would find him strangely irresistable.

Needless to say, it was the Alpha males' genes that got passed on from generation to generation.

And the stories would get better through time. The knight rescuing the damsel of distress would talk about his valiant war stories before doing the moves.

Knight: "I actually got back from a quest where I beat up the town drunk... er Ogre. Yeah, an Oh-Grrrre. A Big mean ogre."

Damsel : "OMG! A real life ogre?! What was it like?"

Knight: "Yeah. The ogre was uh... Big, Fat and Ugly. And smelled like beer.. They're like onions you know. With uh, layers."

Damsel: "Oooohhh. What a brave, brave big strong, absolutely-sexy handsome man you are.... Oh look. Why are my clothes on the floor?" *Hug, kiss, lapdance*

And thus, more genes of the alpha-male-wannabes got passed on thru the generations. Of course, when people started to realize there really arent any Dragons or Ogres, the stories started changing as well.

In time, these became the popular stories of sailors (with their women in each port), war veterans (where they got shot at from all directions and killed off their millions of attackers with only a one-shot-rifle and their bayonet), merchants (with their cities of gold and beautiful exotic women) and even diplomats (theyre politicians. Nuff said), all trying to outdo the stories of the ones before them. And guess who got the girls? (and in turn passed more of their genes thru the generations?)

Thus, the Typical Males of today are highly evolved humans, who thru generations of weeding out the most cowardly and useless pickup lines, have this primal urge to up the ante in all their endeavours.

Not just to get a chance to pass on their genes to the next generation mind you (though it does work for that most of the time). In this age where billions of people now live and where there is basically almost no chance of losing the family line, it isnt a necessity anymore. But the blood of our ancestors call us to action nonetheless.

The Typical males will always say "I've seen worse" in the strongest of earthquakes or the most savage of hurricanes. They will say "I dated better" to his friend who just introduced him to Angelina Jolie or Maria Sharapova. And they will always say "He was lucky the sun was in my eye" whenever they got beat up by anyone who got pissed at all their bullshit.

So there.

Its in our blood. Its in our DNA. And Im even willing to bet that it might even be a protein in that sneaky Y chromosome that causes it.

So whether my friend really did get to eat a hundred siomais or just fifty in one sitting, I have no choice but to prove I can top it the next time we meet. Or at least have a better claim to fame.

Its a curse the Typical Male has to bear.