1. Monteverde Cloud Reserve,  2. Butterfly Farm,  3. Dominica Water Reserve

My Jacko Head is awesome, if I do say so myself!

This is a pretty odd combination of people: Jenny, Becks, and B. 

Just don’t ask us about our personal lives: Jennifer Lopez, David Beckham and Beyonce appeared together in Madrid today to promote a new Pepsi ad campaign.

Little black book: Sorry to mention Paris Hilton‘s name twice in one day, but I can’t believe she had numbers for Christina Aguilera, Ashley Olsen, Ashlee Simpson, Andy Roddick, Vin Diesel, Elijah Blue (Cher‘s son) and Seth Green in her cell phone. This Gawker post has some dirt that this AP story didn’t include.

Everybody’s doing it: Even Matthew McConaughey is starting a blog. Unfortunately, it will merely follow his adventures promoting Sahara, not his escapades with girlfriend Penelope Cruz.

Still not gay: Desperate Housewives star Marcia Cross is featured in the new issue of the Advocate? but it’s not to “come out,” as gossip sites recently reported. Instead, she discusses how the rumors forced her “to come out as ‘straight.’”  Looking forward to watching Desperate Housewives again.

I’m lovin’ it: What happens when a guy pretends to be a bathroom attendant at the Times Square McDonald’s? Lucky for us, the prankster installed a hidden camera to capture the action.

They’ve got skills: I’ve been meaning to link to the new Postal Service video for a few days, but I keep getting distracted ? as you might have heard, it was directed by Napoleon Dynamite‘s Jared Hess, so it includes no shortage of wood paneling, pastels and prepackaged food products. Go here and click on We Will Become Silhouettes to see it.

Confessions of a castaway: Since the last two weeks have been nothing but reruns, I was happy to get a small Lost fix from this interview with Daniel Dae Kim, who plays Jin on the show. “I’m flattered that Jin is seen as a ‘hottie,’ because traditionally Asian-American males aren’t seen that way,” he says. “There have been a lot of negative images out there, but very few we can happily claim ownership of. I think Jin could be one of those few. It’s one of the reasons I’m so proud of this show.”

Want more clues?: TVShowsonDVD.com has posted press releases for the upcoming Lost and Desperate Housewives DVDs. Both sets include never-before-seen footage, commentary and features. Lost arrives Sept. 6; Housewives has a Sept. 20 release date. (I advise you to go ahead and save both titles on your Netflix queues.)

All the Cohen you can handle: While I love The O.C., I couldn’t make it through this 2,689-word commentary about the show. But maybe you can. Good luck.

More director dish: Gus Van Sant may direct a big-screen version of The Time Traveler’s Wife, based on Audrey Niffenegger‘s best-selling novel. Here’s a taste of the book, if you haven’t cracked it yet. Van Sant’s Last Days, loosely based on life and death of Kurt Cobain, hits theaters later this year.

O.C. on The O.C.: This TV column says tomorrow night’s episode of The O.C. will poke fun at itself ? namely, the criticism that its second season has, well, sucked. A sample of the exchange:

Seth: “You know, I gotta say, this year? Not as good as last.”

Ryan: “You think?”

Seth: “I do. I mean, look, we all tried some new things, and that was fun. Yard guys, illegitimate daughters, less fighting, more live music.”

It ends with Ryan telling Seth he “can’t keep living in last year.” Maybe not, but couldn’t we have been spared The Bait Shop and a lame lesbian subplot?

Lotsa Lohan: If anyone’s in the mood to read a long Lindsay Lohan interview, here you go. Lessons she’s learned: “It’s like a big high school ? that’s what Los Angeles is, and now New York too and Miami and even New Orleans,” she says. “Everyone that’s out, you know them from being at parties and being on red carpets and being at events, and everyone is friends.” And, clearly, her high school experience was nothing like mine.  Nor mine.

Lost and found: Whatever happened to Corin Nemec, former star of Parker Lewis Can’t Lose? He’s starring in a movie for the Sci Fi Channel called, er, Mansquito. “A guy fighting a giant mosquito-man seems absolutely ridiculous to the average individual,” he tells TVGuide.com. “But when it’s captured realistically, it becomes very believable.” Really? We’ll have to find out for ourselves Sunday at 9 p.m. ET.  Just last week, I was trying to figure out the name of that 80′s show I used to watch.

Before he broke on through: Here’s a link to the video everyone’s been talking about this week. It depicts a young, clean-cut, pre-Doors Jim Morrison in a promotional film for Florida State University.

Hatin’ on J. Lo: PETA is so steamed by Jennifer Lopez‘s fur-wearing habits that it has created a Web site against her. I won’t link directly to the site here, and I suggest sensitive types avoid it altogether. The language is far more graphic than anything you’ll hear on Rebirth, that’s for sure.  (The website is www.jlodown.com.)

Duff dissed: Hilary Duff probably wasn’t popular at Harvard before she started taking online classes through the university’s Extension School. Now, students really seem to hate her. Witness this snarky editorial from the student newspaper, which calls her a “loser and a chicken.” The piece prompted an angry letter from the former president of the Harvard Extension Student Association. Duff has yet to respond.

New Weezer: The band’s new album, Make Believe, will be out in May, according to weezer.com. Some photos from a recent video shoot have also been posted online, though no U.S. tour dates have been announced.

Things I’ve learned/observed about Manuel Antonio/Quepos so far:

• Prostitution is legal here, so on a Friday or Saturday night in one Manuel Antonio, there’ll be 200 prosititutes and 75 male prostitutes hanging around.
• Manuel Antonio has around 10-12 gay resorts.  As one of the locals said, "You go in, get naked, and have sex for a week."
• Girls around here get pregnant young.  One of the waitresses at a bar was 19 and alread had a 6 year old and a 1 year old.  That’s typical.  There’s even a special school for pregnant mothers.
• There are a lot of white people on the beach with REALLY bad burns.  (I know you’re only here for a week and want to go back with a tan, but come on… put on some sunblock.)
• You can rent a house here for $200 a month.
• There are a lot of college students on Spring Break right now.  Last I heard, a round trip ticket from Colorado was $285!
• This place is so built up.  Hotels/resorts near Manuel Antonio are at least $75 a night.  Upon arriving at the beach, it reminded me of a smaller scale Pataya, Thailand.  It’s not as bad, of course, but chairs and umbrellas were $8.
• The local school here is called "Korea School."  The Korean government pays for schools in return for no tariffs on Korean cars.  U.S. cars pay an 80% tariff.  There are quite a few Korean cars here.

Yesterday we went to The Butterfly Farm, and paid $15 for a so-so tour.  The butterflies were beutiful, but $8 or $10 would have been more reasonable.  Ten minutes into the bird zoo, Ras exclaimed, "This is SO much better than the f*cking butterfly farm, and half the price!"

Now, we’re waiting for a bus that will take us to Monteverde, where we’ll have a tour of the cloud reserve.

Pictures I uploaded today:  The Butterfly Farm, Vocan Poas, and snorkeling/underwater pictures.

It was so impressive to see the greenish body of water, and steam constantly rising from the sides.  The Poas Volcano National Park draws the largest number of visitors from any park in the country.

Info from Moon Travel guidebooks about the volcano:

Few volcanoes allow you to drive all the way to the rim.  Poas does- well, at least to within 300 meters, from where a short stroll puts you at the very edge of one of the world’s largest active craters (1.5 km wide).  The viewing terrace gives a bird’s-eye view not only 320 meters down into the hellish bowels of the volcano, with its greenish sulfuric pool, but also magnificently down over the northern lowlands.

Over the millennia, the volcano has vented its anger through three craters.  Two now slumber under a blanket of vegetation; one even cradles a lake.  But the main crater bubbles persistently with active fumaroles (n. A hole in a volcanic area from which hot smoke and gases escape) and a simmering lake.  The sulfuric pool frequently changes hues and emits a geyser up to 200 meters into the steam-laden air.  The water level of the lake has gone down about 15 meters during the past decade, one of several indications of a possible impending eruption.  In the 1950s a small eruption pushed up a new cone on the crater floor; the one is now 200 feet high and still puffing.

Ras’ latest update, with my comments in blue.

we’ve finally arrived in san jose. last massive, redundant, repetetive email, we were still in bocas del toro, panama. it was a nice place, but during the 4 days there, we only had one day of sun. didn’t really help the snorkeling cause much at all. while there, most everyone i met told me that the whole of the carribean coast was covered in dismal, grey clouds, and that i wouldn’t see sun until i returned to the pacific coast. a disgruntled, ex-hippie fisherman surfer dude, complained to me that the beaches were nice, had a lot of palms, and was full of rastas getting high all the time.

well, when we got to puerto viejo, we had sun and tons of rastas, and yes, they were high. ("Want some grass?  Want some weed?  Something to smoke?"  Funny how nobody ever asked me.)  i could go on about the niceness of the water, the tranquil beaches, lounging around on the beaches, reading on the beaches, second hand (at times first hand) smoking, but why bother those in the cold with the apt and colorful descriptions of something bordering on really, really nice?

instead, we stayed at a place called Rockin’ J’s. this was billed as a hostel, but the guy had a different approach to it. there were 3 sides, and the 4th lead to the beach and ocean not 20 meters away.  it was a large, cement wall which had a serpent ringing the top of it. on one side of the entry was the head, the other, the tail. on top of that, there was a wrought iron, spiny, dragony thing in order to keep would-be wall climbers out – or perhaps in, i never asked. Somebody told us that there was guard that patrolled the grounds at night.  the place had a few dorm beds, but the more interesting things were the rows and rows of giant hammocks, the lines of tents, and the big, blue outdoor lockers. For $6 each, we stayed in a tent that had a mattress, sheets, and pillows.  Our backpacks were left in huge storage lockers on the grounds.  the owner had taken the idea of hostel/camping/commune and shaped it into one economical creature. quite novel, and a pretty good concept.  During meals, Ras and I brainstormed ways we would make the place even better for backpackers.

anyway, 2 days there, then just up the coast to cahuita for another couple days of snorkeling and beaching. supposedly the cahuita national marine park has one of the largest (largest?) reefs in the carribean. Actually, it’s the largest living coral reef in Costa Rica (though very small compared to the huge Barrier Reef off Belize, for example).  the water was a little murky, but we got to see colorful fish, and actually got to snap a couple pictures of them. i’ve finally gotten my (damn expensive) marine pack for my camera, so now i can start taking underwater digital pictures along the way.

after we went snorkeling all morning, we decided to hike back to the entrance of the park. not really a hike, it was more of an hour and a half, winding stroll through the jungle. at one point we passed under a group of 8 monkeys, who, at first, soutthida was convinced were "pooping on us!". i didn’t feel anything hard, nor runny, so i just laughed. then she proclaimed "it’s raining. oh my god, they’re peeing on us!!!" it was damn funny, with or without the first or second hand smoke – though that does help, of course. Seriously, I feel mist coming down on a sunny day.  I look up and see monkey up in the trees.  Put 1 and 1 together, and I figure they were peeing! either way, i came out of the jungle as dry as when i went in. 

we had planned on heading to tortuguero next, but…. the leatherbacks (turtles) don’t come til june or so, and the green turtles don’t start until next month. Otherwise, we could have gone at night and seen turtles swim up from the sea, and lay their eggs in the sand… just like on National Geographic.  instead of our boat journey yesterday, we came to san jose so that soutthida could buy her ticket home. after a couple hours (seemed like days) with different travel agents, she got a ticket to portland with an overnight in L.A. so she can see her family – however breif the 12 hours will seem.  $400 from San Joses to Portland.  I called United Airlines directly, and it was $675 for a one way ticket.  Agents said prices are high for March because of the Easter holiday starting March 24th or 25th.

last night, we got kicked out of a taxi because i told him to turn the meter on. he took us a couple blocks, then stopped and booted us out. told us to take another cab. the thing is, he had just dropped of a fare, and reset the meter, then after we were excused from his car, he reset it again. suspect, i tell you, suspect.  We took a taxi because everyone says San Jose is dangerous at night.  There was an old hippie dude we met in Panama that recalled his story of getting mugged while walking to his hostel a couple of blocks away.  His advice was, "Never walk in San Jose at night".  From travellers, government brochures, and guide books, they all say be careful in San Jose at night.

from here, we’re still trying to figure out where to go – to the mountains first or to the pacific. soutthida’s down to just under 3 weeks, so we’ve got to start jamming things into a short time.  I’m flying home March 21… running out of money.

that’s the long and short of it for now. keep warm.