A really embarassing meeting minute.

Beautiful people gathering in groups is how evolution tells you it doesnt need your help. A group of ugly people gatherin in a group is how evolution tells you "you didn't get your looks randomly - check your family out."

Random One-Liners

Work is never a picnic. Unless you happen to be a picnic organizer or something.

As the supervisor and the manager started bearing down on Mr. De La Cruz on that meeting, my mind could only think of one thing : "Wow, two heads are better than Juan."

If ever a charity fund for the well-to-do is created and people suddenly ask me what to call it, without a second thought I'd reply "Change for the better."

It's true you just can't change a person. I mean, where will you get the diapers?

I really don't see why at this day and age people still have to live on the streets. I mean, god, don't we have sidewalks for that?

A few years ago many of us were wondering what it'd be like to be a celebrity, with a camera following us all the time. Now thanks to Google Earth, we now know there's not much difference.

No Straw Day

Yesterday was a No Straw Day. A day when straws aren't used.

Yeah, I had that facial expression too.

So there I was at the McDonalds counter buying grilled chicken sandwich when I noticed all the straw dispensers were *gasp* empty. I thought stuff like that only happened in the Philippines and in Nigeria (not that I've been there, but yeah I just assumed). I didn't see it as anything symbolical so I asked for a straw and the manager gave me one - at about that time I saw a lot of curious glances from the other people dining. I shrugged it off and then sat down on one of the vacant spots. Only then did I notice on the tray placemat the ad that says:

"In an effort to save the environment, McDonald's has designated every second and fourth Monday of the month as No Straw Day." Apparently it's been like this for almost three months now (last time I was here was in June so I probably missed the start by a few weeks).

Now, I don't really have a problem with people trying to preserve the environment but how exactly is not using straws going to help?

I just can't imagine a world where straws will one day fill every single corner of the world. I don't think we're just using straws to sip that much. And if we did, I'd I doubt it'd really be doing as much damage like greenhouse gases and all other aknowledgely scary stuff environmentally routinely fling at us. But straws? Maaan, one time we were made to make animals figures using only straws in art class. I thought they were beautiful and not threatening.

Straws are cool. If garbage had races, this move by McDonald's would be racist.

Please don't be racist, Mr. McDonawd :(

On the other hand, trying to save the environment for future generations is something that's still questionable. I mean, when was the last time somebody from the future tried to save you? They're from the future, they gotta have something there that can help problems of the past like white hair and pimples. I guess they're too busy enjoying the shit we preserved for them to time travel to give us a helping hand. Selfish bastards.

A straw helped a man breath on this episode of ER I saw once. They used it to pierce his throat like Zetso and he didn't die because of it. Straws, despite the discrimination still help out every now and then.

Straws win. I'll be using straws on my softdrinks, thank you.

Achtung, Nerds

Greift ther Abt zum Glas, greifen die Mönche zum Krug.

I'll be visiting Hong Kong for two weeks starting tomorrow. Kindly redirect all outgoing death threat messages, packages containing anthrax, severed race horse heads, and chainletters to the address made available through my external affairs office. If it's urgent, send it to Jonrald Felipe instead. No, goddamnit. I don't know who he is. Just send it to him - he'll figure it out.

Oh yeah, the joke part. Okay.

If ever you're asked what to name your kid, never name him Food, because hey, you don't want to ever have to explain why the parents of his friends say "Never play with Food."

Be careful what you wish for.

There was a time when I thought making people smile was enough. At that time I thought if I could just make people laugh I would be able to save souls. I wished for the power to think and say things that would make people's bellies ache with wanton laughter. I prayed long and hard to have that, more than anything in the world. That time has long since come and gone.

There was a time when I thought I could make people laugh. At that time I thought if I put my heart into it, I'd really find everybody's funny bone and have them laughing at things I say. At great expense I worked to become humorous, and to do that I'd cast all natural perception of seriousness aside. Call it the comedian's gambit. That time has long since come and gone.

There was a time I began to feel good about myself. Everywhere I went people smiled. Comedy was a light bulb that illuminated not the room, but the people inside it. And it felt good at that time. It felt good that I was being able to do what I wanted to do, to fulfill what I had intended. Light up the world; set the world on fire. But that too, came to pass.

Everything came to pass.

Laughter as I learned could never save souls. More than anything it's a drug, and one that's rarely lasting a solution to any problem. The best medicine, but a medicine for the moment. If ever it made just things worse.

Being funny, as I learned, would change people. It transformed everything it touched -for better or worse. To see the world from a different view you would distance yourself from the crowd you please. And for that, clowns are the loneliest creatures in this world, always laughed at, never laughed with. A pound of humanity for a pound of humor. For with all the seriousness gone, all that's left would be the heaviness of wit. That much at least, I learned.

And the light? It's just that - light. As soon as the source is gone, all radiance is gone. It was, like many good things, temporal. And then soon, the center would soon drown in its brightness - leaving nothing but empty reminiscence. Isn't that how stars die? Consumed by their own glow? I guess it applies for everything in this world.

For every tragedy, send in the clowns.

For every clown, send in the tragedies.

Be careful what you wish for.

Still More Quotes tl;dr

Okay, I'm a bit busy today with work and prose so I'll just recompile again quotes I've made for the past two weeks. Don't forget to cite sources if you're gonna boot some of these. (Yes, you.)

Memories? Memories are bound to be forgotten. That's just how the mind works. Times, places, names, faces - they're all bound to disappear. But feelings? Feelings will always remain, because the heart is one that seldom remembers but never forgets.

It's not that love is one confusing road in a sense that there are no signboards to read. Oh, there are signs - but they're all written in Korean, or in Arabic, if you happen to be Korean.

Even if memories are forgotten, there will always be feelings that'll keep you reminded, if not of every detail, at least of the essences that count the most.

I didn't play all Rockman games but I'm pretty confident, until last night, there was no Hashman in Rockman 3.

I'm a bedwetter, true. But one with an attitude. I only wet in other people's beds.

Behind every great woman is a great behind?

Behind every great man is a woman. Turn around and check. If there's nobody there, well, we can't all be winners.

There was a time when love was free, sex was wild and all guilty pleasures, unsure. I think that was last night, but I was too tanked to remember anything.

Understanding is a scent all women go crazy for.

Jesus might have a point, hanging out with all those corrupt officials might have fringe benefits.

Carpenters and Fic Writers

If carpenters would go about building houses the way fanfic writers went about writing their fics, you'd have to live in a house with a door, a wall or two and half a flooring set. Every now and then the carpenter will come in, place a tile or two and wordlessly leave and you're supposed to praise him for it - otherwise he'd probably disappear or worse, start building another house while completely forgetting about your own, unfinished house. Meanwhile you'd be sitting in that house, with all the hopes that the carpenter would someday return and finish the house.

Now, if carpenters would go about building houses the way lemon fanfic writers went about writing their fics, it'd probably be the same, except you'd have to pay for a ridiculous amount more due to excessive usage of nails, screws - and you'd have to put up with the incessant banging that will occur throughout the time of the house's construction. The only advantage you'd probably get is you'll have better sleep during hot nights because it's got a lot of one thing an ordinary house normally doesn't have - fanservice.

If carpenters would go about building houses the way internet poets went about doing poetry, all houses would take less than thirty minutes to make and they'd all be complete. Downside? The door would be placed on the roof, the floor would be made of glass, and some rooms wouldn't have an entrance. Occasionally other carpenters will pass by and marvel at your abode without ever entering it. After reality sets in, you take a seat on a six legged chair in front of a spherical table and realize - none of it makes any f*cking sense at all.

Finally if plagiarizers where to be emulated, we'd have houses done in less than thirty minutes, complete with full amenities and at dirt-cheap prices. And it's all good. One day though, you'll come home wanting to use the toilet and you'd see another guy using it - holding a deed of sale for the house you never owned.

Resident Evil

Have you heard of the lastest installment of Resident Evil? They set it in Africa. I think at this point, it's pretty safe to assume that Resident Evil is the most racist thing on consoles today. The last resident evil was about a group of spanish-speaking occult members in Europe but whenever I think about it, the guys there looked like angry mexicans from Tijuana. Next thing you know the zombies will be asking for jobs in the village Home Depot. Que paso. Que paso. Trabaho? Yes?

After the guys down south, RE goes black. Literally. Set in an African refugee camp of sorts, the zombies you'll be fighting this time around are Africans. Yeah, right, as if these guys need any virus to turn apeshit angry and start eating righteous Americans walking around them! This kinda raises moral issues since usually zombies are out there chasing after humans because they're programmed to do that. But dare you shot a starving man in the face for wanting to eat anything (including you) in order to not starve to death? Add to that the fact that cannibalism is an existing cultural practice in that place and you'd have serious issues.

If we're to follow the trend, the next Resident Evil will probably be going some place Asian - like Thailand or some neighboring country. The zombies will be Asian and the guy doing the shooting will still be white. There's probably going to be a lot of rice and Hondas in that installment and somebody like Jasmine Trias will probably stand as boss or something.

If that happens, maybe I'll play the game - if only to laugh at the hooker zombies.

Lunar: Dragon Song Review

Now you might be saying as early as now, I'm just using the word "review" as an excuse to bash another product I passed by once for a few minutes to kingdom come. You're wrong. I'm currently playing the game with a lot of hours invested with full intention to write an objective review. Id est, if I'm bashing, I don't need any excuses.

Expectations:

Now I've never really played the original Lunar games for the Sega CD but I was fortunate enough to play the remakes for the PSX back in 1998. The original Lunar is still one of the few benchmark games by which newer games are measured. Featuring AI for automated battles to avoid the grind of leveling up, a tactical location-based fighting system years ahead of its time, CD-quality voice and music tracks, animated sequences - Lunar The Silver Star Story was one helluva game. Its sequel, The Eternal Blue, failed to break the mold of its predecessor, but it nonetheless lived up to the original game. Then, here comes Dragon Song. It's been 9 years since the last game, so my reaction when I got the game was just HOLY SHIT.

Many hours into the game, I conclude that I may have overestimated a bit. A more apt reaction would have been without the HOLY part.

Story:

The story occurs 1000 years before the original Lunar game. To the developers, 1000 years before a game means they can pretty much change every single detail from the world and still say it's the same shit. Apart from Althena, the Vile Tribe and the dragons, Dragon Song has nothing that will connect it to the previous games. It's kinda like saying Sarao and Ferrari are one and the same because they both have horse emblems.

However, if you played the original and play long enough, you'll notice something is in fact common between the two games. Dragon Song's plot is Silver Star's Story repackaged - minus the colorful characters, minus the plot twists, minus about 3/4s of the involved characters, minus the coherence of the original story. Seriously. As a matter of fact, I'd like to sum up the story right now in one sentence:

Kid tries to become dragonmaster to destroy evil dude who kidnaps his love interest because she's a goddess in disguise with the help of his friends - and succeeds.

If you think the original story was pretty straightforward, Dragon Song's story is about the equivalent of premature ejaculation.

To make things worse, UbiSoft, translators of the game has turned what little dialogs there is in the game to a badly edited term paper, with retarded lines like "We have to go to Cathedral of Althena" and "You must become a dragon master and have the mental prowess of a titan." News flash, Ubisoft, we don't look up to the titans for mental prowess. Last time I heard, Zeus tricked them into getting stuck in another dimension.

Characters:

The characters of this game is about as lovable as the occasional rugby boy you pass by on your way home. One a lighter note, the protagonist might very well be the first console RPG character modeled after the players who he'll be representing - dull and with no real skills whatsoever. (8 hours in the game and you still cant use a single MP)

With very sparse dialogs throughout the game, the characters are badly underdeveloped, with some characters such as the swordsman introduced and taken away from the game in less than 30 minutes of gameplay (and he's supposed to be a "main character"). This halfbaking of introductions lead to the development of characters with the personality depth of a muppet.

One other character, the archer was recruited with this sort of dialogue (approximated):

Protagonist: I don't know you. You saved me once. My girl, who you've never really met got kidnapped by a guy who could turn you inside out with just the tip of his penis. You now have to bring me to his castle by battling through hordes of enemies whose sole purpose in life is to end yours just because I say so. Now.

Archer: Sure.

If we were to use dialogs as indicators for personalities, we'd think all the characters in this game are catatonic. In the RPG reunion party, these guys would be the people characters from RPG games would avoid talking to.

And then there's just the overall character design. The protagonist uses kung-fu to fight, with damage 3x that of somebody who's using a huge sword. Am I the only one who finds problem with that? To really show that balance isn't something the developers had in mind, another character uses an umbrella to fight, with damage 1/6 that of the protagonist. An Umbrella. Wow. Why not send somebody who throws sanitary napkin instead?

Sprites are also badly done. The best example is probably the Archer girl who assumes a kung-fu stance whenever she fights. Nobody probably told the sprite artists beforehand that she uses a fucking CROSSBOW.

Gameplay:

If gameplay is the heart of every RPG, this game would've died of cardiac arrest a long time ago. For a game released 9 years after its predecessor, the gameplay actually feels like a step back - back to Atari. To make things short, I have the following notes about the gameplay:

- Every dungeon has a secret item that you can get if you beat all the enemies within an amount of time. The items are usually critical to the next boss fight. So what happens is half of the time you're playing, you're trying to "catch 'em all" while the vast majority of your enemies will try run away from you. Am I the only one who think that's the most retarded dungeon gameplay ever?

- And while we're at the topic of chasing, running around in this game drains HP. Remember your momma telling you not to run right after eating because you might get sick? This is probably the RPG equivalent of it. Running around will actually KILL you (yes, even in towns). The only option is to walk, making every second of moving around feel like wading through knee-deep shit.

- Even the mapping of the dungeons are insane. Sometimes, something as small as a pebble will prevent you from crossing a very wide passage. Serious case of smallshitscarephobia, perhaps?

- AI was the strength of the previous Lunar games. Now, the developers decided to go a step further by automating EVERYTHING, including choosing targets. You can't aim. You now have the mind boggling tactics-driven gameplay akin to Snakes and Ladders. (Protip: You can't call taking the steering wheel out of a car as revolutionary if you don't give the driver something else to use to turn the vehicle.)

- You blow at the mic to escape. Nice creative usage of the DS interface there. Cowardice is rewarded in this game by making you look shit stupid.

- When fighting enemies, you have the choice of earning experience points or items that can be sold for money. You can't have both at the same time. This means twice the grind for higher stats and higher items.

- Your main source of money is doing jobs. By doing jobs I mean collecting item sets as required by your job. By sets I mean, assembling sometimes hundreds of rare item drops from at least a dozen different monsters for a measly thousand bucks, while the really good equipment costs several thousand to purchase.

- And if ever you are able to buy the really expensive equipment which are vital for combat in the later rounds, they have the chance to BREAK without any reason, rendering you without either a weapon or an armor or both. And you cant repair it. 5,000 for Shoes? They're gone after one unlucky "weapon break". Walking around weaponless in a dungeon is like going partying in Africa without a condom. The only workaround is to save after every fight which is very inconvenient and well, retarded.

Conclusion:

I loved the first two Lunar games, man. I really did. And this game is part of the family so I tried hard to love it. Really hard.Publish Post The many hours I spent finishing this game is proof of it. But I guess even love can only do so much. This game sucks right down to the core. I'm surprised it was able to bag a 6.1 rating in IGN.

Many years from now, teachers lecturing how to make RPGs will be using Dragon Song as an example of what will happen if you really screw up a prefectly good RPG franchise.

The only way for you to enjoy this game is to do what the developers did while making this game - get a big bag of weed and try to get as high as possible without killing yourself.

Ultimate Consolation

So here's the situation. A friend of yours got caught by a policeman for beating the red light (or his wife), or is heartbroken, or maybe his dog died, or maybe he got hit by a truck and lived (barely) to tell about it. You're sitting in front of him face to face (or what's left of it) and you gotta say words of wisdom and encouragement. But what do you say that doesn't offend him, and make you sound hypocritical at the same time? Toughie huh?

Here's what you do. Put your hands on his shoulder, look at him in the eye and then whip out a stick of gum. Speak the truest words ever spoken:

Times like this you need Juicy Fruit Gum. Softer. Juicier. Mas Mali-nahm-nahm.

WikiQuote Entry

I now have a WikiQuote page of my own.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User:Redkinoko

Majority of the quotes found on this site are also mirrored there.

Midgets are Cool

(16:26:39) Chikret: I seriously need to revamp CES' plot
(16:27:10) Jet: add midgets!
(16:27:20) Chikret: =))
(16:27:23) Jet: *sigh let me dream*
(16:27:29) Chikret: that's your answer for everything isn't it?
(16:27:57) Jet: not really everything. I do believe we can't use midgets
(16:27:57) Jet: more efficently than nuclear energy to get electricity
(16:28:14) Chikret: =))
(16:28:22) Jet: but i really think they deserve more attention than theyre getting
(16:29:08) Chikret: XD
(16:29:09) Jet: maybe someday i can change the way the world sees midgets
(16:29:09) Jet: and i'd be hailed as the father of the golden age of midgetry (sp)
(16:29:17) Chikret: =))
(16:29:32) Chikret: Stockholm syndrome ba yan?
(16:29:43) Chikret: j/k*
(16:29:56) Jet: ouch
(16:29:59) Jet: T___________T
(16:30:11) Chikret: bakit naman? :/
(16:31:19) Jet: i was NOT abducted by midgets when i was younger
(16:31:46) Jet: well maybe, im not sure, but yeah,
(16:31:46) Jet: i was NOT abducted by aliens when I was younger!
(16:31:50) Chikret: :))

Chikret* name withheld.

So yeah.

Rolling Star - Yui

Work in progress with more mistakes present than an abortion clinic after the prom.

Big Brother Africa

So I was watching Big Brother Africa the other day. Have you heard the voice of Big Brother there? Three words: Voice of Doom. Let's just say if Aladdin went inside, he'd think he'd be in the Cave of Wonders again. Our own Big Brother aint got shit on the African BB. Every time he speaks, I half expect the house to collapse like a temple upon uttering words like "HOUSEMATES, YOU HAVE INCURRED THE WRATH OF KATAMETAFUTERMET! PREPARE FOR YOUR DOOM!"

Anyway it's kind of weird seeing so many black people and just one white housemate. It's almost the opposite of a typical white American movie, where there's always just one black dude in the entire movie and he's always slated to die after a couple of whiteys bite the chip. I take it that white girl won't last very long inside the house (by the way, does she represent relief workers in Africa?)

Watching the actual show kinda shattered many preconceptions I had about the show. I was thinking Big Brother Africa would be really different, like nobody really gets evicted, they just die of AIDS after a while. With 20% of AIDS incidence in the continent, you might as well count 5 housemates, one of them has AIDS and by the time elimination begins, a large majority would have been infected as well and the audience would just have to wait who dies when. (and you'd think how. just watch the first episode and see breast fondling 15 min after entering the house.)

And then there's the food. My preconception was that Africans are still largely into hunting, and to foster this, they'd have no kitchen in the house. Every night, Big Brother will just leave an animal in the back yard and turn the cameras off for 15 minutes. The housemates kinda just have to free for all. Whatever happens happens. Well that never happened. Actually, it was almost quite the opposite.

Big Brother's first directive in the show was to "promote" a healthy lifestyle by banning meat from inside the house. 15 Africans inside a house and you don't give them meat.

ARE YOU RETARDED?

Africa is the only continent where cannibalism is still freely practiced. And you're depriving them of MEAT? Am I the only one thinking there's something seriously wrong in that picture? That craving for meat aint gonna go anywhere.

I'd rather not see man-meat casserole feasts on my TV. No thanks. Suddenly having to put up with goofs with really bland jokes in our own version of Big Brother doesn't look so bad.

Relatively anyway.

Ship of Sleep and Regret

Status: work in progress. I havent played XG for such a long time, I've forgotten how the song actually sounds like. :D

Here are the other songs I'm currently working on:
- Rolling Star - Yui (i'll upload a video later this week)
- Bratja - FMA OST
- First Love - Utada Hikaru

Papa's Love Meat Shop

I spent the past two days in Caylabne Resort in Cavite. Wonderful place, but I'm not really one to spoil the fun by telling you what's to see there. I did take pictures though. This is one of the two completely unrelated pictures that I was able to shoot.

This is a shop we passed by somewhere in Dasma. I'm not sure if its intended but the shop name was just too suggestive if read in a different manner. Or maybe it's just me thinking "Papa's Love Meat" is a raunchy title for some incestuous japanese adult video.

Here are some possible slogans I could think of for the shop (not that they'll be asking me for these anytime soon)

"You can't beat papa's love meat."

"Home of papa's love sausages."

"100% Papa goodness."

Okay, I'd rather you think of others. I bet it's not that hard.

-----------------

The other picture I shot was that of Paula Peralejo's signature that could be found on one of the posters in the resort. I'm no fan of hers but I noticed her signature was a bit weird.



If you see this picture and you're still wondering why it's weird, edit the pic usin MS.Paint and then use Image->Flip->Horizontal.

Now I sleep, because damn, I'm tired.

Local Funny

What's the funniest joke that you've seen on local television?

Mine has to be one from Kool Ka Lang! a sitcom in GMA. This episode aired around 1999 I think. The episode was about Raymart Santiago falling in love with a white lady. (at least as I remember it). Anyway, after Joey Marquez learned about the situation, they start talking about it. The conversation went something like this:

Joey: Ha!? Nainlove ka sa ghost!?
Raymart: Oo, pero hindi ko alam na ghost siya.

Afterwhich, Dagul, the resident midget comes into the scene.

Dagul scratches his head and shares his own experience.

Dagul: Ah oo, nangyari na rin sakin yan.
Dagul: Nainlab na rin ako na ganyan nangyari.
Joey and Raymart: HA?! Talaga!? Anong nangyari?
Dagul: Sinagot naman nya ako. Muntikan pa nga kami magkaanak eh.
Raymart: Ha eh pano kayo magkakaanak ng ghost?!
Dagul: Ah, ghost ba? Akala ko goat!

I remember laughing for at least half an hour, even after the show's ended. Bestiality reference got past the MTRCB to deliver one of the funniest jokes I've heard on local TV.

Midgets are cool.

Procrastination.

I started studying one year ahead of a lot my peers. By the time I was six, I was already in grade one. I graduated high school right after turning sixteen. Months before graduating college, I was already looking for a job. By the time I got my last course card, I was already preparing to start work. I haven't even gotten my diploma yet. By the time I attended my graduation, I was already working. I wasn't the type that would wait around.

Time's being wasted. Always.

And the other students? They waited to turn seven before starting primary schooling. They lounged around weeks before and after college graduation. I started my career one year ahead. If not, a couple of weeks ahead.

One might say that a year, a week, or two would be insignificant after a while and that twenty years on, it would be near meaningless. Actually it's the opposite. That head start, that time I used earlier than others, it only gets bigger and bigger with every passing day.

Because time is not a linear function. With the dimension of consequent possibilities added, it becomes an ever increasing space. Yesterday always has a bigger impact than today when it comes to dictating the future. Like a ripple effect, the earlier you start something, mark an epoch, the larger area it covers as the wave accelerates.

Procrastination is a sin of infinite possible losses, initiative, the absolute opposite.

Job Opening :)

No bullshit. This job is real. Click here for the actual site. Now's your chance to get some action, nerds. Also if you get hired, a discount card for referring you is fine too.

Hideo Kojima's Stolen Ideas

So I heard the new Metal Gear's going to be a lot more mature than its predecessors (as if they're not mature enough). One of the rumoured changes in the game would be the replacement of the traditional "box of stealth", usually a comical looking carton, with barrels. That's right, barrels, as seen in this video.



Well I think that's not exactly an original idea, and Kojima should at least cite sources when pulling stuff like that from other existing ideas. I think he got the idea from the Philippines. Why, you ask?

It's Snake in a barrel. Barrel goes off, snake comes out. Surprise! Now where have we heard of that before? Oh yeah. This guy here:
I wonder if there's room in FOXHOUND for a wooden man with a huge slugger? Sure beats Raiden's character any day.

p.s. special thanks to Magician in Jeans for the idea.

ParaSkating

So I was out ice skating last friday night with a couple of friends when I suddenly had this idea.

Why don't we have paraskating as a sport? We already have parasurfing that lets you surf using a kite/sail as forward thrust. We have paragliding which is pretty much gliding but with a parachute. Why not attach a kite/parachute to a skater?

The whole thing is actually simpler than it sounds. All you have to have is a big kite, a string to control the kite and really strong wind. You use this kite to propel you fuckfast forward. Boom that's a whole new sport right there. Also if you can build large enough kites, maybe you can tie a car to your waist and solve the fossil fuel problem at the same time!

Two birds, one stone mother*bleep*er~!

I'd have to admit though, the system ain't perfect. You have to make sure the kite is blown in a direction that doesn't throw you out of the rink if you're using ice skates. And that the rink should be open air. Stopping might be a challenge too. Okay, so that's making things hard.

So why not just use inline skates?


I'll try sending these specs to the national patent office. I'm sure it'll make them go "BY SAMSON AND DELILAH, WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THIS BEFORE?" If the sport becomes mainstream, I'll sell the patent to Lucio Tan and then I'm going to be freaking rich. After that I won't have to put up shitty ads on this website. Also I can get my own domain name.

Now if only I can arrange my thoughts in such a way so it actually makes sense...

Corn Friday Proverbs

Proverbs for Corny Friday. :)

If there's a wheel, there's still something to steal.

Two heads are better than one, unless you're working as an obstetrician.

The early bird should install a good antivirus.

If it rains at seven, it'll stop by eleven. But not necessarily on the same day.

Guns dont kill people. Getting big holes from bullets hitting them really really fast does.

Better late than never, if we're not talking about parachutes.

A drowning man is not troubled by rain. (Well, maybe not the 8cm tall man we've been hearing about.)

If health is wealth then what do you call money from insurance?

An apple a day keeps the doctor away. (if you throw really really well)

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Lead it to the water.

Birds of the same feather are conjoined twins.

Awesomeness

Dinoriders wasn't much of a show, but as a kid it had me wanting to ride a 40foot giant lizard with lots of metal piercings on him. It also made me wonder why nobody in the side of the good guys ever bothers to just break the goddamn glass on the frog-boss's helmet. It's just glass guys, a hammer could do the job better than a two-ton predecessor of the modern carabao.

Still, guns + domesticated animals the size of Oprah on a bad day = awesome.

Traditional Game Guide: Teks/Tex

Version (1.0)

Note: We'll make Tex the canon spelling for this game in this blog. Rules written here are only from the Parañaque style of playing and do not reflect all playing regions. This is by no means the final version. If you have anything to add, change, or mock, leave a comment. :)

Tex, or Teks is basically a cardgame that serves as an early introduction to gambling for kids. In this game, kids place their playing cards as bets against each other in a semi-complicated heads or tails game using the cards.

Equipment:
The only thing required to play this game are playing cards, preferrably as much as you have, if possible stored in SkyFlakes tin cans or plastic bags. Cards used for the game range from roughboard cutouts depicting Tagalog movies in comics format to amazingly accurate reproductions of SkyBox Marvel/DC cards. Important factor is that the players should be using the same series of cards for fair gameplay (or something like that)

Players:
Number of players is 2-3 people. You can play this game alone, but everybody will agree, doing so will be pretty fucking retarded. Nobody plays pokers alone. That's why we have solitaire. Also, masturbation. Anyway, in the event only 2 players are available, a pananggulo card is added, to be given by any of the players (more of this later).

Premise:
While the cards played for the game are always different,the logic of the game is pretty much the same always. The game is divided into rounds. Each round has two phases: Bet phase (tayaan), Game phase (tirahan). For every round, there will be a winner of the game phase and whoever wins the game phase, he takes charge of the next game phase (card handling etc).

Every player will have a card called a "pamato". This card will serve as representative of his entry into the game. Usually a pamato is chosen by some ad hoc force that dictates that some cards are luckier than other cards. Panday #1 of the "Filipino movies" series is said to be one of the luckiest cards ever (though it wasn't lucky enough to warrant FPJ who was depicted in that card to win Presidency. Also, he's dead.) A player can have more than one pamato but he can only have one at play at a time, which he can switch by saying "palit pato".

Bet Phase details:

Counting in Teks is slightly different from how we count in school. In teks, cards are counted in twos. Here's a basic rundown of the count system.

1 card - Cha
2 cards - I-sa
3 cards - I-sa Cha
4 cards - Da-la-wa
5 cards - Da-la-wa Cha

When counting cards, the count is chanted while leafing through the cards with the thumb. (e.g. "I-sa, da-la-wa, tat-lo cha~!) Using this count system, a player sets a bet. The betmaker is sometimes the losing one, sometimes whoever lost the previous round. The betting is actually more of arbitrary, so whoever feels like it can just set the bet. As long as everybody is agreeing, it's all good.

A player can always protest the amount of cards being played. As a rule of thumb, no bet can be larger than the stash of the player with the smallest number of cards.

When the bets get bigger however, it would be retarded to still use the dual count system. (Dalwandaan-Dalwampu't-Pito Cha sounds fucking stupid and it'll take forever to count). This is where "dangkalan" sets in.

In Dangkalan, bets are made by stacking cards against one another to ensure they are equal. Cardcounts usually miss by one or two but when you're dealing with hundreds, those really dont matter much anyway.

protip: Dangkalan is a very quick way to lose (or gain) a lot of fucking cards (and street cred)

Game Phase details:

Winner of the last round will throw the cards in the air. After landing, the cards are either smooth side up (cha) or smooth side down (chob). The owner of the card that's in a different positon wins. In the case nobody is different, cards are recast. For the case of two players, if the pananggulo (third card nobody is using) is the odd one out, cards are recast.

"Tira" is the term used to describe the way the cards are cast. Every "pamato" has a theoretical "tira" that will increase its chances of winning. Don't ask about the logic of that, it just works that way. Also there are some "pananggulo" that almost always appears opposite of certain "pamato". These cards are combo cards, which players should be wary of when selecting pananggulo.

There are different types of "tira". The only commonality of them is that the cards should be spinning at least half the time they are airborne. Here are some of the variations:

Click - a very short and weak throw that lands the cards no higher than a child's waist and no further than half a feet away from the thrower.

Haba - a strong throw that lands the cards more than a feet away from the thrower with a vertical projectile path height no higher than the caster's height.

Taas - a strong throw that lands the cards no further then half a feet away from the thrower but is designed to make the cards fly much higher than the caster' height.

Click-Haba - a moderately strong throw that lowers the vertical projectile height of the tirang haba.

Taas Haba - you probably get what I mean by now

Classic - Cards are thrown the way Two-face of batman would a coin. Pretty cool, but overall, fucking pointless.

Plasta - when a tira goes wrong, cards dont spin. They just go randomly in the air. That also means the caster fucked up. Players can call this a bad shot and the cards can be recast if moot is achieved.

"Pektus" can also be added to a "tira". A pektus will cause the cards to spin in a different direction. Practitioners insist control of this can increase chances of winning.

At the end of the game phase, a winner will be declared and he will get all the best for that round. Next round, the winner will be the one to cast cards.

End Game:

The rounds are usually played over and over. Game ends when a player quits by saying "ayawan na", runs the fuck away, or loses all of his cards (also known as the state of "Tubol"). At the end of the game, it is only courteous for the victor to either give away "balato" (think of it as partial gifts to whoever significant is watching, or to the losing parties) or a "paagaw". A paagaw is when a player throws away part of the winnings for the spectators to scramble on.


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Other Terms:

Palagong pepot - the phenomenon of starting out with just one card and ending up with a truckload of cards after a series of amazingly lucky games.

Shoot - term when placing a bet that means you're placing a bet equal to whatever the opponent has remaining.

Shoot pati pato - term when placing a bet that means you're placing a bet equal to whatever the opponent has remaining, plus the card included in the throwing roster. Usually pamato's are valued, so including them in bets add pressure to the gameplay.

Shoot pati pato, pananggulo, at nanay mo - Same as above, but in most cases, the mother of the opponent will not be included in the bet, and is mentioned for the sake of fucking around with the opponent.

Bakas(pronounced Baa-kas)/Ansi/Asi - Request by a non-player to add some of his cards to the bet (usually smaller than the actual bet) and then get part of the winnings in case he wins. I believe the formal gambling term for this is "riding".

"Shoot-chumiyayob-amen", "cha-chub! ak-kEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!" - chants usually said by a player to increase his chances of winning. I think they're supposed to invoke favor of the god of teks. If ever there is one, he's very lazy because nothing ever happens.

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Term requests:

Ive forgotten what you call dilapidated cards. They're usually banned from games as they are hard to throw and look hella ugly. Does anybody remember the term?