Company Farewell Letter

Sa Aking Mga Kakosa,

Ngayon na ang huling araw ko sa , ang kumpanya na kahit walang answering machine at palaging napapagkamalang callcenter at internet cafe, laging masaya pa rin. Bilang pamamaalam, at dahil na rin medyo matagal pa bago magsimula ang standby suport namin, kwentots muna.

(panuto: huminga ng malalim, mahaba ito)


Tanda ko pa nun nagsimula ako, duda talaga ako sa pangalan ng kumpanya. Wala kasi sa internet, tapos mali-mali pa yung pangalan tuwing sasabihin sakin nung recruiter. Sa Hotel din yung interview. Walang opisina. Sabi ko, hindi kaya Yakuza to? Buti na lang si *-san yung naginterview. Hindi sya mukhang yakuza (yakult mascot, pwede pa). Okay na sana, kaso andun din si Sir * na mas mukha pang hapon kesa kay Sato-San.

Hindi naman pala sila Yakuza, nalaman ko. Mabait sila at hindi nila ako balak ibenta bilang sex slave sa Japan. Sa bandang huli, nagkasundo din kami sa kontrata. Gusto nila ng Java Programmer at gusto ko ng libreng mabilis na internet. Aprub.

Tatlong taon na ang nakakaraan. Nagexpand na tayo. As in "expand" talaga. Yung 29 na waistline ko, 33 na ngayon, mas mabilis pa lumaki kesa sa sweldo natin (joke lang po ma'am).

Lumipat na rin tayo ng opisina. Wala na tayo sa conference room ng hotel na kape lang ang pwedeng gawin. Wala na rin yung 4 na sirang elevator ng Magsaysay at tuyot na tapsilog sa basement canteen. Yung Amerikanong multo, napalitan na ni Itang (sa mga nakakarelate, hayaan na lang natin yung ibang masorpresa).

Marami na rin dumating at umalis. Yung iba, dahan dahan ang pagalis, parang pag constipated ka. Yung iba naman, sobrang bilis, kulang na lang ipahanap natin sila sa Mata ng Bayan c/o Inday Badiday (sumalangit nawa) Asan na nga ba si Sir Zaldy? Wala pa rin ata nakakaalam, pero nagpaparamdam daw sya minsan. Lahat sila, di ko malilimutan.

Dun naman sa mga nandito pa, parang pamilya na kayo sakin (e.g. inuutangan, pinagsusumbungan, kainuman, at kapalitan ng mga links ng porn) Joke lang yung links sa porn. Bawal pa rin yun sa opisina (pwede na lang kung nakapremium account *kindat kindat*). Akala ko dati, dahil maliit ang kumpanya, mahirap makahanap ng mga kaibigan. Mas kaunti pala, mas madali makisama. Mas madali din magmemorize ng pangalan, except si Marhgil, na hanggang ngayon kinakailangan ko pa ispellcheck pag isusulat ko. Special talaga name mo 'pre. Syempre, special din kayong lahat. Parang halohalo: Sweet, cool, at puno ng leche(flan).

Madami rin akong natutunan dito. Yung betsin sa beer na pangromansa (salamat Kuya), yung mga lugar na kasabisabi ng religion teacher namin na di dapat pinapasok (pero okay naman pala paminsanminsan), uminom ng beer habang nagttrabaho, magtrabaho habang umiinom ng beer, magsign language pag di na maintindihan ang english mo - lahat yan dito ko lang natutunan. Salamat sa lahat ng yan, at marami pang iba na di ko na kayang banggitin dito (una dahil masyadong marami, pangalawa, dahil masyadong mahalay yung karamihan sa kanila)

Di pa naman huling pagkikita ito. Maliit lang ang mundo. Mas maliit pag may YM at Multiply. May txt hotline din ako kung wala kayo'y nalolongkot at makaosap. Text CHAT GWAPINGS JET POGI and send to 2333. Free ringtone logo for every 15 messages. Joke lang. 10 messages.

Marami pa ako gusto sabihin kaso may gagawin pa pala ako na status report. Yun na lang muna. Salamat sa pagbabasa kung hanggang ngayon bukas pa rin ito sa outlook mo.

Through the years, through all the good and bad
sa paglalasing, sa pagsiring, sa pagtakbong nakahubad (hindi ako yun dude)
Paalam at salamat po.


Lovelots,
Red Kinoko de Zobel de Ayala
Java Programmer/Analyst/Lineman/Spritista


Chinese Translation:

Nip nong ching chong ching chang, Chong koi la,
chichinichongkoi la, Infocafee Systems.
Dao ming si, kung pao wai Java Team!
(3 years on and I still can’t understand anything in your language. I tried hard. Really. Sorry.)



p.s.

J - Just
A - Always
P - Program
A - At
N - Night



L - Libre
K - Kasi
A - Ang
D - Dinner


p.p.s.
Kung may makita kayo na papasok bilang bahagi ng ACTS sa lunes na kamukha ko, hindi ako yun. Huwag nyo sya singilin ng mga utang ko na hindi ko nabayaran. Mabait yun, ilibre nyo sya para masaya. Peksman, wala kaming kinalaman sa isa't isa. Nagkataon lang pareho ang aming itsura, pangalan, tirahan telphone number, lakipan ng dalawang tansan at ihulog sa... teka. Yun lang pala.

It's Just A Ringtone, Don't Fuck It Up.

I'd like to think that the late 2000's is the time in our brief history as humans that ushered in the age of personalization. While people still follow trends like the stupid sheep mass media has raised them to be, they now like to feel they're not by having everything customized - from their Friendster Profiles, to their internet messenger fonts, to that combo meal you order at your fast food.

I'd say it's an improvement, really.

have it your way

With the introductions of choices, however, there will always be a huge chance somebody will screw up with the choices that they make. (For examples, see voting;not using brains while)

But that's not what this post is about. I want to raise a huge shoutout of stupid to the guys who manage to fuck up what seems to already be a common sense thing.

Ringtones.

Looking back, once upon a time, all phones were equal in terms of ringing. There was only the sound of the ringing - the bell ringer kind. Since you can't really customize that, you can't fuck it up.

Nowadays, it's different. Everybody has a phone with a different tone. Ring tones are as varied as the STDs you can find in Luneta at night, and most of them are just as vile.

But hey, it's freedom of expression, I dig. As long as you don't cycle through your tones while trapped in a closed environment with me around, I might not have to resort to axe murder.

If I hear that fucking Flo-Rida one more time...

Most people mess up to an annoying level. Then there are those who are just plain retarded.

Now let me ask this question. Who in his right track set of mind would think that having the sound of a siren blaring at full volume would be a good idea? WHO!?

It's not edgy. It's not cool. Sirens are reserved sounds for emergencies. Some dumb half-educated bitch texting you "GUD AM" doesn't qualify as an emergency. People who are on the road will react to the sound that's coming from your cellphone very seriously. If you're riding a jeep, you are endangering both yourself and the entire jeep. While I'm not really against socially-retarded people getting killed by their own merit, I don't like the idea of dying with anybody like that.

Ever thought of why people don't like yelling "bomb!" inside an airport? It's because false emergencies are frowned upon in any state or country (specially if they can understand the word magnanakaw), and in a lot of places, it's enough to earn you an anal probe just for spite.


There are a billion unique sounds being played in this world at this very moment. Of those things, only a handful are forbidden for use as ringtones. There are better ringtones out there, ones that won't let you fuck up the set civilized standards of our society. It's amazing how mouthbreathers still mess this decision making up.

If' youre going to make yourself unique, at the very least, try to avoid being uniquely retarded.

Morons.

The Two-Cow Model of The Current Financial Crisis

(subtitle: Credit Default Swapping for idiots)



You have two cows. You keep one cow for reserve and you lend one cow to a poor farmer and ask another farmer to vouch for the borrowing farmer. In case the borrowing farmer accidentally overmilks the cow and kills it, the vouching farmer will give you a cow. In exchange, the vouching farmer gets "insurance" milk for every week the borrowed cow is insured.

The vouching farmer does this kind of insurance business to a lot of cow owners. Which is good, because he can sustain the giving of cows to people who get their lent cows killed. Unforunately, because of the rising costs of cow maintenance, lots of cows die at the same time, and the vouching farmer has to give everybody who lent cows replacement cows. He then goes out of business.

Now you have just one cow, and another that is being used by a poor farmer, but is now no longer protected in case the cow dies off. But because the rising costs of cow maintenance affects everybody, the farmer who borrowed your cow gets your cow killed. Now you get no cow in return.
You have one cow left.

Now imagine that besides lending cows, you also vouch for other people's cows like the vouching farmer earlier. And all those cows you were vouching for died too. Now you have to give them cows, but all you have is one cow left and a few "insurance" milk which will spoil after a while.

Eventually you'll have no cows left.

In two-cow terms, you're fucked, and so is every farmer in your farmerland.

Suppose there's a central cow economics committee that doesn't like the farmland without any cows. Using a large number of "insurance" milk, they start giving free cows to the farmers who like lending their cows. The free cows aren't really free, and the farmers are going to pay for them eventually with whatever milk they can make with the new cows.

That's called a cow bailout.

Now suppose that even with this new cow introduction, nobody wants to borrow cows anymore. Farmers who live off vouching lenders won't get their "insurance" milk, and the borrowing farmers will remain without any cows, because they're afraid they'll just get their new cows killed.

Meanwhile, lots of cows lay in the fields with no real owners. The farmers just find other things to do (like find another job, get chickens instead, or just die from starvation) and the farmerland eventually shrinks.

That's called a cow recession.

After a while, people will start missing beef and milk, and the farmers will start needing cows again, more and more, until the point that they can't take care of the cows again and we get problems like this again.

So all in all, it's all in how you take care of your cows.

Carparks, Carwash

You just know that your car is in bad need of car cleaning when you enter the parkinglot of an SM mall and find every single carwash boy there looking at your car with a certain degree of covetousness one might also associate with sharks encircling a wounded swimmer. You can almost hear their thoughts going "I WANT to WASH that CAR." It's like they can "sense" your car from three floors down, and will trail you like prey.


By the time you're parking, you'd have been encircled by the carwash boys, all helping you park, it's almost like you have your personal varsity Parking cheering team. "Sige pa! Sige pa! Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey Atras!" Parking has never felt so competitive, I swear.

I admit though, I'm a very lazy car owner. I normally don't wash my car until it's literally begging to be washed. Like sometimes, I just see finger doodles on the window that say HUGASAN MO AKO. Who writes those things anyway? I never see people writing with their fingers but they appear like magic. If I were to take a guess, it'd be the Car Hygiene Ninjas. Why do they do it you say? Because they're ninjas and they can.

It gets worse though, sometimes the dirt becomes so thick, whoever writes those things, has to use a hammer and chisel to write the message out.

And I don't know about you, but everytime I go out and drive my car to the carwash, nature conspires to make sure that before I get home, I will pass by at least one place where it's raining really hard, thereby invalidating the purpose of my trip. I guess that's her way of saying "Your car may be clean, but youz still my bitch!"

Speaking of rain, you just cant have that without the window-cleaning boys in the streets. Talk about bad business models. Who would want their windows cleaned when nature is already doing that job for free?

Maybe I should start doing seminars on how those boys should save the rainwater they have and use them when it's actually no longer raining, like you know, those three times a year when we're not being soaked.

But that's for another article.

Chemical Manila - Part 4

I knew it.

The moment I saw Mr. Santos again, I knew I was right. They weren't dead after all. I heard gunshots and I panicked, that's what had happened. I almost forgot the dismal state he was in when I saw him by the window. Trivial. As long as he's here, we'll be fine.

Toffee's face lit up with joy as well, now convinced that he had indeed come for us. We couldn't see the two soldiers but we knew they were talking it out with him, possibly helping his injuries.

As I recall now, even at this point, I still did not know what was going on. I was still stuck in my fantasies, and perhaps, that was my greatest mistake of all.



Mr. Santos did not come for us at once. What was the delay? We became anxious inside the cell. Toffee wanted to run outside, but I tugged her hand. Stay here, I tacitly implied. That way, there'll be less trouble.

Then I heard an argument outside, then shouting.

No, it wasn't shouting. They were screams.

The same kind of screams I heard earlier, but without the gunshots.

I clutched Toffee's hand and prepared to run again without even thinking about it. I felt paranoid. One soldier ran towards the inside of the precinct then barred the door shut.

We weren't running away. Why would he lock the door?

The other soldier lunged at the window out of nowhere. His pale face pressing hard into the grills of the window. Loud banging came from the front door. I took a good look at the soldier. His eyes were bloodshot to the point of being blacked out. I will never forget the first time I saw those eyes. They were blood-dark, and instinctively sinister-looking. The soldier by the window gave a howl, while the one blocking the door was uttering what sounded like Our Father. His boots slid inch by inch on the cement flooring.

Then it dawned to me. He wasn't keeping us in.

The soldier was keeping "them" out.

I didn't know what drove me to do it at that time, but I let go of Toffee and helped push the door back. I saw fingers that probably belonged to Mr. Santos inch its way along the narrow opening of the door. The fingers then got pulled back after I slammed it close again.

"What's going on!" I remember shouting, "Why aren't we allowed to talk to our teacher?" The soldier grunted, he looked out of breath. "Take the pistol by the drawer at the table!", he instructed me in short bursts of shouting. I felt the force behind the door pushing us back. Toffee looked disgruntled behind me. "What's going on?" she frustratingly repeated my question.

"Do it!" the soldier cried. I gave the door one hard push then ran for the table he mentioned. The drawer opened up, but it was filled with papers. I had to throw away several layers of typewritten files before I saw a black handgun at the bottom. It was the first time I've ever held a gun in my life. What was the gun for?

"Shoot the door!" the soldier shouted at me. But how? But why? I felt a moment of questioning and slowly walked back to the door as though it was all fine. The door went half open and the face of Mr. Santos popped in.

No, I thought it wasn't him. Mr. Santos did not look so grotesque. His eyes were just as bloodshot and his mouth was foaming with saliva and blood. They splashed onto the cemented flooring. Toffee started screaming. I didn't know what to do anymore.

Mr. Santos howled.

"He's no longer human!" I heard the soldier scream. Shoot, damn you. Shoot. I took my aim and squeezed with my index finger. It wouldn't budge. My hands shook, just as my eyes caught Mr. Santos' eyes again.

"I can't pull the trigger!" I shouted back at the soldier. He could barely keep Mr. Santos out now. The other soldier was gone from the window as well, so he was probably by the door too. I was scared. "The safety!" I heard the soldier shout.

At that point, I felt the worst fright of my life.

So far.

The next events were a blur. I felt somebody grab the gun out of my hands. And before I could even take it back, it was gone. I heard something unlatch. Then I heard a gunshot that muffled my ears. I looked back at Mr. Santos, only to see the moment his forehead ruptured and explode like a watermelon. Several more shots followed. This time the shots went through the door, missing the soldier inside by inches. Splinters flew in all directions, a few of them landed on my skin.

I heard grunts outside, while the unmoving Mr. Santos slowly fell along the doorpane, his blood repainting the white finish with dark red. My body felt cold.

I looked behind me to see who took the shots and saw Toffee, with feral eyes one would associate with a killer on a rampage. She fell to her knees and dropped the gun.

Then finally, silence.

"I-I killed him," Toffee mumbled. Her eyes now dazed, and just as unbelieving as mine. The soldier fell to the floor like a ragdoll, exhausted but smiling. "Good shooting there, kid."

His casualness enraged me. Mr. Santos was right in front of us. Now our teacher is dead. I felt Toffee and I were once again left alone, with the stench of gunpowder and murder in the air.

"Why did we have to shoot him?!" I shouted at the soldier while clutching his camo uniform. "Why!?" The soldier shook his head. I noticed that there were tears welling in his eyes and and the earlier smile, now seemingly forced, was already giving away. "We didn't realize what was happening. I didn't know they would be able to go this far so fast."

Who's "they"? I interrogated the soldier. The soldier seemed bewildered, though somber. "You haven't heard the news?" he asked us. News? I haven't heard of any since the Pasig river news earlier. Toffee was in a silent, listening trance.

The soldier was about to speak, but he grunted from pain once more. His sleeve had stains of blood. "Looks like they got me too," he said with a struggling, disappointed voice. No, I thought he was weeping discretely. "I'd love to chitchat with you two but you got to go to the observatory now. I think the head there wants to talk with you two."

Toffee was delighted to hear this, momentarily forgetting what had happened. She clasped her hands and looked at me. I feigned a smile. The last moments of Mr. Santos proved to haunting, jarring for me.

"Let's go then," I offered the soldier a hand after I stood up. He shook his head and asked for the handgun back. "Property of the army," he said to me. I insisted. The wound must be treated. To late, he argued. Just give me the gun and then run. I shook my head, but Toffee unwittingly gave the gun.

"Come with us!" I remember shouting. It wasn't like I wanted him to be treated really. I just didn't want to walk out at night alone anymore. No, not after what has happened.

But he had the gun now.

His face twitched with pain. "I'll turn into one of them too if I take too long. So go." He sounded delirious, and I tried to approached him. But his face was fuming mad already. He pointed the gun at me, and I could've sworn I smelled the stench of gunpowder that came from it.

"Run or I'll shoot you myself."

I clenched my fist, darted for Toffee and then ran.

We ran once more. Away from that precinct where the body of a soldier lay flat just outside the door. We ran away from Mr. Santos. We ran away from the soldier. I cried along the way.

I cried when I heard one last gunshot from a distance.

Level Up Live 2008

Okay, so maybe this post is like 4 days late. I had better shit to do than to make snarky comments about this event, like, like, well pretty much anything actually - taking a shit included.

In case you're not familiar with the event, Level Up Live! is a yearly event held by gaming company Level Up! every year to hold tournaments for their online games, and to promote their new products. That's what its SUPPOSED to be for anyway.

A quick survey that asks why people go to the event yields the following:

- Look for sexy cosplayers to take pictures of (and secretly masturbate to the following night)

- Beat the bejesus out of that asshole member from the rival guild.

- See if that sexy high priestess partymate in the game is actually a bearded 40 year old man. (usually the case)

- Try to get laid* (and fail)

*(top result)

Bottomline is nobody ever comes to Level Up Live! for what it's actually for. You'll never hear anybody go "Maan, I can't wait to see those new games Level Up has lined up for us!" That'd be similar to hearing somebody saying "Maaan I can't wait to enter that dark alley to see if my ass will get raped!"

This is a lot like your usual anime convention, except there aren't as many cosplayers because most of them tend to get spooked out at the idea that the demographic for LU Live is usually 90% male. So I guess it's less a convention and more like an early christmas party in New Bilibid Prison, with the tough guys replaced by INTERNET TOUGH GUYS.

internet tough guys looking for their next target

For some reason, lots of people also like to wear black. Also, Level Up Live! is probably the only convention out there that boasts a distinctive smell - a smell of stomped out grass on a particularly hot morning. I'm not sure why, but every year it just smells like that.

Noticeably present in the event is the Food For the Gods corner, where you can find unique items like "Helluva expensive hotdogs" and other similar food items that even the Gods must be hating terribly because of their exaggerated prices. Meanwhile, the Jollibee near the place is making a killing because of the cheapskates who like to evade the extortion-grade prices of the food inside the convention area. They eventually ran out of food on the first day and began to ration out packets of ketchup, much to the dismay/delight of the hopeful customers (depends on whether or not you like ketchup).

To be fair, the commentators for the event have vastly improved from last year's "let's-see-what-this-thinger-called-a-mic-does" hosts, and I'm quite surprised they managed to go on without actually making any funny racial comments (I, on the other hand, just had to help myself.) That was very professional of them, and very me of me.

In a not so surprising turnout, the thong girl from a few years ago has found a replacement in the High Priestess of the USA team, who found herself being idolized by a sea of virgins during and after the competition, pretty much becoming the icon of the actual event. A few days after, noodz started circulating, to the disappointment of some her fans and the secretive delight of the rest.

Nerds.

My Office Is Better Than Your Office

One thing I'll definitely miss when we finally relocate our office somewhere within dreary Metro Manila. There aren't many offices with this kind of view. Take a look at that beauty.

Damn it. That construction crane is one sexy tool.

(more pages after jump)

Chemical Manila - Part 3

I woke up to the ringing of the alarm clock in my room. I waited for the ringing to stop as it always did after a minute or two, but it wouldn't. Waiting, I thought about the strangest dream that I had and how realistic it felt. I almost wanted to know how it ended, but it was a dream after all. It's like one of those dreams that you forget almost as soon as you wake up. Yeah, something like that.


I tried to open my eyes, but realized they were very heavy - too heavy to even open. I tried to move around, but my body felt dead tired, as though lead weight was attached to every inch of it. The ringing grew louder, and it made my head throb in pain.

I tried to squint my eyes hard and then open them. They did, and I saw bright light. I stared at the ceiling for some time. It was not the ceiling of my bedroom, nor was it that of my house. I tried to get up again, but my neck felt really painful. My world spun as I got up, and I promptly fell hard once again to wherever I was lying.

One thing I found out though, I was no longer home.

I heard Toffee's voice, though vaguely. She was shouting something, and I felt my body being shaken. At the time I thought, it was probably too early to wake up, and I was dreaming still. I closed my eyes and silently drowned myself in sleep.

In my dream I sat by the window of our classroom. All my classmates were there, doing all the rowdy go-abouts that they would do during breaks. I looked outside the window, the sky was filled with fast moving dark clouds.

"You shouldn't be daydreaming in class, Mr. Villamayor!" I heard a voice behind me. It was the voice of our homeroom teacher. I looked behind but did not see him. I turned towards the window and it was dark again. Mr. Santos walked alongside the window, no longer paying any attention to me.

I found myself calling for him. "Sir!" I remember calling out repeatedly. He didn't reply though, and his shirt looked ragged, almost burnt. I shouted and shouted.

And then I was back staring at the same ceiling as before again, at which point I gave up figuring out which was my dream and which was reality. I heard Toffee shout my name with delight. She gave me a hug. I realized I was in some sort of crude folding bed and she was sitting beside me. I gave her a pat in the back and tried to get up once more, slowly this time.

My surroundings became clearer as my blurred vision faded. I woke up inside what looked like a jail cell. The cell was inside a room no bigger than our classroom, with one door and a window facing the front of the place. There were various police-related pictures on the wall, which led me to believe we were in a precinct. There were a couple of soldiers talking outside while smoking, both of them with guns slung around their bodies.

Toffee looked harassed and her eyes were puffy but dry. I asked her what happened and she told me with a very hushed voice that it seemed that they military was guarding the area around the new Los Baños observatory. The soldiers had mistaken us for snoops and had thrown us in prison.

I still felt dizzy from whatever it was that knocked me down, but I thought at that time that it was probably a soldier who had snuck up on me. Toffee offered me half a pandesal, which I downed without any hesitation. One of the soldiers came back from the open door and took a look at us. He took out a radio and repeated Toffee's name, "She said her name's Jennifer Kristoff. Kristoff. Should I spell it out?"

I shook my head. I noticed Toffee's hands clutching mine tightly. I felt as though I was missing something important. Toffee bit her lip. "I told them I need to see my dad."

Maybe it was then that I confirmed a thing or two about how Toffee was acting. She was really just wanting to see her dad, and I understood her in a way. I thought of my mom and dad back in Manila too, and I felt that I missed them terribly.

The soldier with the radio sneered and open the padlock of the cell. I tried to get up, but I only was able to lift myself with Toffee's support. Just as we were about to get out, the other soldier came running in, talking fast about an injured man just outside. He rushed for the first aid and took a couple of bottles and bandages. The other soldier pushed us back into the cell but didn't shut the door.

We didn't move and tried to watch what was happening. From the window just beside the entrance, we saw something we thought we would never see again. At least not in our moments of waking.

A ragged man covered in blood was walking limply towards the door. His face became clearer as it was shone with the light from inside the room.

I saw Toffee's face become deathly pale, and when I looked again, I suddenly knew why.

It was Mr. Santos, coming out of my dreams and into my reality.

A Murder Mystery Puzzle Contest

Okay, if you're not from Ragnaboards, you can just ignore this post. If you happen to have taken Discrete Mathematics sometime in college, don't be an asshole. Let other people figure it out, unless you want the prize badly.

(continued)

The mechanics for the contest are simple. Below is a set of clues about a murder that involves the occupants of five consecutive houses. Using these clues, it is possible for you to deduce who was murdered and who is the murderer. If you think you know the answer, you can leave a post with your RB username, the answer to the puzzle, and a brief description on your methodology. First person with the correct answer and a reasonable description wins.

Prize for this is 50,000 jellopies in Ragnaboards. The contest is open until November 15.

Note that this is not a conventional murder mystery. I'm not interested in answers like "It's the guy who hates dogs because the poodle went missing blah blah blah". There is a very logical way to solve this problem and I want to see it answered without introducing speculative information. Here's a hint: All the information you will ever need is already in the clues.

That said, here are the clues:

1. - The Progammer plays bowling on Saturday.
2. - When facing the houses, the house with the blue roof is immediately to the right of the house with the grey roof.
3. - The man in the middle house plays golf twice a week.
4. - The woman in the house with the blue roof is a hockey player.
5. - The Biologist lives in the first house, near the cheesecake shop.
6. - The person who drives a Toyota lives next to the man with the Dalmatian.
7. - The person who lives in the house with the red roof drives a Honda
8. - The Biologist lives in the house next to the house with the green roof.
9. - The Architect's house has a Mazda parked in the driveway.
10. - The man who drives the Benz owns a Shitzhu.
11. - The Senator lives in the house with the brown roof.
12. - The house with the Honda in the driveway is next to the house next door to where the Doberman lives.
13. - The murderer's Poodle went missing on Sunday.
14. - The Judge hates dogs but loves cheesecake.
15. - The man who drives the BMW is a keen jogger and was seen running past the victim's house just after midnight on Wednesday.
16. - The victim used to enjoy playing lacrosse on Tuesday evenings.

Last hint: Draw five houses.

Good luck.

Internet Porn Is A Lie

I can't really recall the last time I went to Quezon and saw rich-breasted blonde girls walking around the place and are apparently looking for strapping young lads like me. As far as I know, the only people who are looking for strapping young lads there that I know of are the mountain-savvy communists.



I wonder if people who make these sites even bother to develop their system into something people would actually fall for. Like you know, maybe put ASIAN pictures for ASIAN locations. You'd think working for the "industry" for a long time will already make these people knowledgeable in demographics.

But then again, in the porn industry, ASIAN is not a race. It's a category. You know what I'm talking about. AMATEUR, HARDCORE, VOYEUR, BLACK, MATURE, GAY, LESBIAN, and then what? ASIAN. We're like walking fetishes or something. What the fuck right? I mean, why only ASIANS? Why not ESKIMOS? I bet they got really hot nose rubbin's over there.

Okay this is one of those days that I can't really be bothered with things like "sticking to the topic" and "making sense".

If anybody's asking, Chemical Manila is not real. I decided to just place the chapters here for the lack of a better place to post it in.

Chemical Manila - Part 2

Do you know that floating, unsure feeling right after something hits you hard and knocks the wind right out of you? That was how I felt moments after. Toffee, despite her broken condition, had convinced me to run away with her and try to get to the observatory where her dad was.

I felt her take charge of our situation, and thought it wise to follow her lead. She was too sure of what she was doing, and looking back, I missed the thought that maybe she was just seeking the comfort that her dad often brought her. I didn't really care; I'd nod to anything at that moment. I thought it was a good idea, and so I agreed. I grabbed my backpack that I had left at the empty outpost and then ran.

We ran.

Toffee and I ran into the forest as the sun went down, careful not to come across any more soldiers. At the time my head tried to keep up with what was going on. I never saw my classmates' final moments. Maybe it wasn't them. They weren't dead. They ran away too like us, and other people were the ones who got shot. Others who deserved to get shot. Communists? Yeah, that's probably it.

I stumbled upon a tree root as we struggled to climb uphill. It was getting dark and I started feeling the evening chill. Toffee pulled my left hand. "Don't think about it too much. We saw how our friends were killed," said Toffee with a stern face. She looked so strong at that moment, even magical to the point where she was able to somewhat guess how I was feeling.

"We'll sort everything out, if only we can get to the observatory," she said. To me though, I've already sorted it out using a story I pieced by myself. My friends were alive, and it was all a big mistake.

I'm not really sure whether or not Toffee knew how we got to the foot of the ashpalted road leading up to the observatory, but I thought it was one lucky break. Toffee sensed my disbelief and gave her explanation. "I used to hike with my dad here every summer, so it's like the back of my hand."

The back of a very dirty hand. Our trudgings into the forest had left our clothing very soiled and tattered in parts. I was happy to remember however that I did have my bag with me still, and that we could use it to get a change of clothing. I brought two shirts and two pairs of socks, which I embarassingly shared with Toffee. She got the Batista wrestling shirt, I settled for one of my plain shirts.

We stopped by at a nearby obscure grotto to the Virgin Mary and decided we can change there. I stepped away for a while as Toffee changed, and even had a passing thought that maybe I should have peeked when I had the chance, but she saved my life. And right now to me, she was my god. As a matter of respect, I kept my libido to myself. It was then that I started thinking, how she could have known why we would have had to hide. I did not want to cast doubt on her, but no part of my theory would fill that up.

"Say, Toffee," I said hesitantly at first, but I knew I wanted to hear her answer, "How did you know what was going to happen?" I heard the rustle of her clothing, only a few meters back, I blushed one more, but intently listened.

I didn't hear any answer, but I did hear sobbing. Terrified sobbing.

At that point I stopped thinking of manners and just darted towards her. She had already worn the shirt, her arms wrapped around herself as she lay kneeling in front of the Virgin Mary.

For the second time that day, I saw her crying. "I-I went to the outpost, and then overheard the rangers talking. They mentioned something about carriers, thirty one students and a teacher, and shoot on sight. I thought I - " her voice crackled, trailed off and broke into more tears.

I added what Toffee had just said in my growing list of things that did not make sense that day. In more normal days I would have passed it off as just her randomness, but the direness of the situation offered me no such luxury.

She calmed down after a few minutes, and we decided to start the long hike towards the observatory. I tried to keep my mind clear of any troubling thoughts, and imagined the long shower I just might be able to get when we reach the top.

My stomach grumbled as our breathing became harder. All the running and hiking had finally started taking toll, and I just remembered I haven't had any food since the sandwich I shared with Toffee many hours before. Toffee begged for a break, which we gladly did beneath one of the crude lightposts that occassionally broke the darkness of the zigzagging upward road.

I heaved a sigh and wiped the grime off my face. At that moment, I tried to count my blessings and thought it was nice to be alone already with Toffee, and despite all that hardship we had gone through, she was still as attractive to me as ever.

I beamed a smile at her.

The exhausted Toffee turned at me, but instead of a smile her face was warped with what seemed to be intense fright. I realized too late that she wasn't staring at me.

Behind me.

I turned around but felt something hit me hard in the back before I could even see anything. My body went limp and I've never felt so powerless in my life. I became woozy and tried to move, but something seized my entire body. I heard Toffee's muffled scream, distant but apparent. I could no longer see her.

Everything went black.

Chemical Manila - Part 1

It wasn't too hard to remember the day it all started. It was my birthday afterall, not to mention our senior class was finally going to our much hyped overnight field trip in Los Baños. My mind wandered at the thought of being with my long time friend and crush Toffee for an entire night, even though it was with my class. Yeah, it was a pretty good start for a typical Monday, or at least at the time, that was what I thought.

I remember waking up slightly later than usual. I remember begging my mom for money to take the taxi to catch up. I remember waiting desperately for a taxi to pass by in front of a subdivision. As luck would have it on a good day, a taxi did pass by a mere five minutes after. The radio was tuned to an AM news station inside the cab, and the familiar voice of Arnold Clavio was on the air.

That morning it started, and even then the people didn't know. Who could have? Yes, I remember how it started. It started with a miracle.




Manila woke up to a sight it never thought it would see in this day and age. That Monday morning, we saw Pasig River crystal clean. I heard it first from the news, too far as I was from the actual river. Reporters described it as though they were able to see the bottom once more, the garbage still present but the water was clear. Fish swam around, and the plants around it looked greener than ever. Hearing something like that felt like a dream, and as such, I regarded it like that.

Living in a world where every news is sensationalized, actual sensational news tend to get downplayed to some trivial news. It was probably just some cleanup, remarked the driver, and I completely agreed with him.

In no time, I got to the bus, where I was met with a lot of frowning faces, not excluding Mr. Santos, our adviser who remarked how long they've been waiting for me. There was nothing there remember, apart from the fervent excitment I could feel in the air, and the welcoming smile that I found in Toffee, who happily reserved a seat for me beside her.

"Let me guess," she said, while offering chips from an open can of onion pringles, "you got excited over the whole trip and forgot to sleep early."

I laughed because it was partially true. "Forgot?" I replied with a whisper, "it was more like I just couldn't even if I wanted to. It's not everyday I get to spent the whole day with you."

Between Toffee and me, we threw half-loaded jokes about our relationship at each other with abandon, and I didn't really know at that time about how sure I was with her, but everytime I joked about liking her, I almost wished she'd take it seriously for once. The frequency told me otherwise, they were all a bunch of seedless jokes.

The rest of the trip to Laguna, we spent counting cows and gawking at things we normally ignore when we travel on our own. Eighteen cows, I remember I counted before falling asleep beside Toffee who had fallen asleep even faster than I did. She didn't catch much sleep either that morning, I take it.

By the time we woke up, it was almost lunchtime. The bus dropped us off at the UP Los Banos Botanical Garden grounds and then left promptly. I waved it off with a smile on my face. If the bus could never return, I'd be more than happy. I'd be with Toffee forever, and it'd be the best birthday wish for me.

We spent the rest of the day doing things people usually do at the park - pretend to learn about things we never really cared much about, trees and all that jazz, and in the end just fooled around with our classmates, or for my case, with Toffee. Interestingly, there was no cellphone signal at the park, much to the dismay of the more technically inclined of our classmates. I didn't. At that time, my world revolved around my bestfriend, and she was all the civilization that I'll ever need.

Afternoon kicked in and we eventually had to pack up at the order of Mr. Santos. Four PM, I remembered we were supposed to meet with the bus so we could transfer to the jamboree site where we would strike camp for the night for stargazing. Toffee seemed more excited about it than me, but then again her father worked at the new UP Observatory outpost there, and since she very rarely saw her father as a consequence, there was a good chance he would be heading to our activity to help out. I was happy for her, and even talked about it while waiting for the bus.

"Are you sure he'll come along?" I asked her, while nudging her arm with my elbow. She nudged back. "Yeah, he told me himself this morning." Toffee looked excited, but that excitement wasn't for long.

An hour passed and at that time it seemed to me that my wish had come true. The bus never came back for us. This time though, I was no longer thinking of the whimsical. We were trapped for the night in the park. Toffee seemed calmer about it, but to me, there was no way I'd spend a night without any proper roof over my head, not when there's an open forest around me filled with so many things that can make me sick, or worse, kill me.

Looking back at it now, I was pretty carefree.

I remember walking away from the group at the entrance of the forest park to take a leak at the nearby forest ranger outpost a couple of hundred meters away. Toffee followed me, wondering if she would be able to contact her father using the outpost.

I took a leak, and saw an army truck arrive from the adjacent road just outside the small window in the half-open lavatory. I was half finished when Toffee ran inside the men's room, her face deathly pale, and just pulled my arm away. I felt warm urine splash my khakis and didn't like whatever she had just pulled.

What happened afterwards was a blur, but I remember Toffee's eyes distinctly. They were shot red, and flowing with tears I had never seen shed. I wanted to ask what her what it was that made her come to the restroom and cry at the same time but her hand slaped my mouth and covered it. I felt urgency, and thought no more.

I ran.

We dove for the bushes, and she kept my head low. My heart started beating really fast, and then slowed down at the moments of silence afterwards. The army truck had stopped and I thought everything was okay again.

That was about how naive as I would ever get about the direness of the situation that seemd to have involved my whole world but me. What happened next, I would never forget for the world.

I heard gunshots. A cacophony of them, and screams. I would never forget those screams, familiar screams from voices that once had screamed for joy, during the intrams, during the countless parties we've had at school. The voices were the same, but the same screams weren't. I heard bloodcurdling and pain. First a lot, then fewer, then just crying and groans, then silence.

There wasn't much that I could do at that time, I lay where I hid, and even forgot to breath when I should. I heard footsteps coming in and out of the outpost and then silence once more. Soon, I saw smoke billowing from the cemented area around the entrance of the park and just as quickly as it came, the army truck returned to the road where it came from.

I lost my lunch at the overpowering stench that I smelled. Toffee ran to the restroom. Tears welled from my eyes for reasons I could not begin to rationalize at that time, and I didn't even know it.

Just like that, my entire class was gone save for Toffee and me. At the mount of my shock, I managed to walk back and feed my curiousity. I saw nothing but burning remains of who could nobody else be but my classmates. I openly broke down and wept. Everything was destroyed, even their bags, piled as one burning heap.

I just couldn't explain any of it. I remember Toffee ran towards me and gave me a hug I had been wishing for in a very long time, but under those circumstances, I wouldn't have traded it for what had happened.

Yes,it wasn't too hard to remember the day it all started, because that day started with a small miracle, and closed with a chilling tragedy.

Top 5 Dick Moves You Can Do In An Anime Convention

Top 5 Dick Moves You Can Do In An Anime Convention

Dick Move (N.) - Any action which causes the doer to turn into a huge walking dick; To go against the social norm and cause unnecessary inconvenience to others; To perform a series of actions that ultimately lead the doer to become the object of hatred of those around him; Anything a natural dick would do.

That said, here are the 5 dick moves that can be seen in Anime Conventions.

#5 Misidentifying cosplayed characters, and sticking to it.

So you're an announcer for a con, and you're not really into the whole fad of going crazy over some weird looking cartoons from Japan called Ah-Neee-May. We understand that, but you're not standing on top of the stage just for kicks. If you were just a casual retard pulling people in for pictures, we can take it and let it slip. But you're getting paid to do what you're supposed to do. Because of this, it means you're a professional, and one good way to ensure that you're being professional and a dick at the same time is to not go over the list of the cosplay characters you're about to announce and just jumble shit up and mispronounce as many names as you can - because that's what absolute dicks would do.

If you manage to misplace characters at least twice in less than 10 names in a row, and read Naruto as Nahroooohtow, congratulations, you have successfully pulled a great dick move. I'm sure the people who labored hard for days on their cosplays to look like somebody, only to be called somebody completely unrelated will appreciate it - the same way they appreciate your corpse being dragged backstage.

#4 Walking to the anime dvd seller's booth and talking about piracy

You're looking at the amazing roster of titles in the DVD stand. You know these are pirated too, as with everybody who has a pulse and an internet connection. We're sure you're eager to tell everybody about how these are readily available in the internet for FREE. Nevermind that we already know that, and that we too may have the ability to do what you can do - push buttons and read english text. And I'm sure you're just as eager to explain the economics of never having to pay anything if you download or torrent instead, John Adams. We'd love to hear that too, except we're browsing at these titles specifically because we don't want to go through the hassle, and that your preaching will fall to deaf ears. I'm sure the merchants will appreciate it too if you talk about something else, but you don't. You'd love nothing more than to be the standard bearer of everything obvious and awkward. DICK MOVE.

#3 Copping a feel while having your picture taken with a girl

So here's the thing. You know as well as I do that there aren't many situations in this country that will allow you to, without paying for it, just walk up to a perfect stranger who happens to be scantily clad, ask your picture to be taken with her, and then walk away so you can furiously masturbate to the resulting image come night time. And as long as the masturbating part remains hidden from whoever that poor exploited person is, it's cool.

But of course, you're a purveyor of dick moves and wouldn't just let it rest as that. Moments before your picture is taken, your hands travel the distance, not just the normal distance - the Marco Polo distance, past the big desert called "social norm" and into her precious land of China, if you know what I mean.

Nevermind that she's a stranger, underaged, and waaaay out of your league. No, this is your opportunity and nobody will bar you from grabbing it with your bare hands. Way to go, Dick Move man. We'll try to visit you in jail after you get lucky and find a girl who knows an even better Dick Move - calling the cops and screaming rape.

#2 Standing in the middle of a busy thoroughfare.

You're a man of your own walk, and halls are made for walking around in. No problem right? Maybe. Maybe not. Convention halls aren't really normal halls. Like fresh air, there's very little moving space to go stand in, walk on, and shoot pictures in. Of course that doesn't apply to you, because the world is your walkway, and God bless everybody standing in your way. Or conversewise, those whose ways are going towards where you stand.

See, when walkways are barely two people wide, and you stand in the middle, you're the king of the fucking road. Dick Avenue, McAsshole Boulevard. People will love it when you become the center of attention, blockage, and directed murderous intent at the same time. I'm sure these people whose ways are being blocked by your enormous greatness will be glad you took some time off from their busy life, just to admire your greatness, and your great oversized backpack you don't even bother to remove from your back. That sexy backpack, you dick you.

#1 Attempting to hit on women who happen to be cosplaying

Being honest here, every man has his own fetish, and most of us probably have the term "young" and "dressed like strangely erotic drawings for the entertainment of kids". Okay, so maybe not many of us. Maybe very rarely, but not you, you sly you. All this dressing up and underaging has gotten you raging, and hormonally. Maybe they aren't, but fuck them, you know you are. You walk up to some random girl, try to feel them up with idle talk about how you're a fan of the same cartoon or how she looks so nice, maybe you'll even lie a bit and not admit you're telling her she looks nice, and even better in the nakedness of your imaginary sex scene. In your mind, if you deal your cards right, you're going to be doing take-home dinner tonight. Nevermind the thought that maybe these people don't exactly dress the way they do so they can get picked up the creepy nerds like you, that maybe they're just there for fun. In your mind, you're Hottie McHottie. Nevermind that maybe these girls even don't know the meaning of half of the words going through your head right now, because they don't teach that in gradeschool.

The moment comes, you spill the magic beans. The godmove of all dickmoves you can muster. Her eyes widen, yours too, along with that obscure bulge below your groin. And just when you think you've pulled it off, a big burly man comes running towards you with a big intimidating wooden stick filled with hurt - and you just know he's not holding it for cosplaying purposes. You start backing away, but it's too late. And on top of his catholic lungs he screams:

"What the hell are you doing to my son?!"

You've done it. The big kahuna of Dick Moves.

Congratulations man, you've just made it to the top 1 list of our Anime Convention Dick Moves.

More Dangerous Food

(foreword: Don't ask why I keep on posting about food and the dangers that are associated with it. I'm not sure either.)

Genetically modified food products are supposedly dangerous, so they get regulated. Milk with melamine is supposed to be dangerous so it got regulated too. Remember White Rabbit with formalin? Regulated. We didn't even know we were being slowly preserved while we were still alive. But why is it that one of the most dangerous types of food on the planet are being freely exchanged by the developed countries?

What food you ask?

Dangerous food. Serious food that will fuck up your system so hard, and so often, people have developed a certain level of blind acceptance for it the same way they've accepted that Boy Abunda is qualified to endorse hair shampoo. You know what I'm talking about.

SPICY FOODS.

(continued)

So last night, I decided that I was getting a bit tired of the usual instant noodles that save me from starvation whenever I go home and realize there's no food waiting for me. (God bless you instant noodle inventor). So instead of buying the usual poor man's dinner, I bought the poor Korean man's dinner - Korean instant noodles (which is interestingly 3 times more expensive than the local version).

Koreans, like Mexicans, Thais, Indians and our very own native Bicolanos, apparently hate their rectums a lot too. They're like Italians who prefer their dishes bright red, except when the Italians do it, they use tomatoes. The Koreans prefer to paint their dishes red with weaponized chili. Have you seen their Kimchi? I actually thought the red bits were tomatoes when I ate kimchi for the first time. Three hours later, I was stuck in the CR, shitting the burning realization that it was not tomato they added, but Satan sauce. Seriously, those things burn their way into your system, and symmetrically burn their way out.

I've encountered it before, and my colon didn't like the experience, so I decided to try and avoid the same burning-while-passing-shit sensation by looking for something less spicy. I picked the "mild" flavor noodles. Admittedly, I'm not really that much into spicy foods, because I sweat a lot. I avoid ordering these in situations where sweating might be interpreted as something I'd rather not be accused of. This applies for dates, lunch job interviews, business deals, and prison.

So anyway this morning, I decided to try to noodles out. I put in a bit more water than usual to help dilute the flavor, on the ready assumption that the "mild" was actually moderately spicy.

That was how I gravely underestimated my enemy.

Apparently, "mild" in Korea is "nuclear fusion-grade fuel" in this country. I downed several glasses of water for the first few mouthfuls alone. Suddenly the spicy salsa I had eaten a week before tasted more bland than what I was eating. The noodle soup wasn't fucking around, and I was thinking the powder mix included in the package is actually residue from the center of the Sun.

Well, I survived. But of course that's just the first part - the entering part. Remember what I said earlier? Burn in, burn out? Yeah, that part's still pending.

But I'm not taking this sitting down. I'll be on a constipation run for the next few weeks. No way I'd let my anus take another beating so soon.

Maaaan, fuck spicy foods.

Burger King Strikes Back

Not to be outdone by the hijinks of Jollibee and McDonald's in Shenzhen, China, the ever creative motherfuckers marketing people of Burger King here in our own country is showing why Burger King is called King - under-the-table treachery with flair for the diabolical only a real king can pull off.


This picture was taken earlier at Burger King, Robinson's Manila.

And yes, that IS Ronald McDonald, that peeping tom.

Taxi Scams Suck

It was bound to happen again, and I was expecting it. This morning, it did - I met another taxi scammer. The modus operandi? They call it "Batingting", named after the fact that the taxi's meter has been tampered with. Here's how it works.


A taxi's meter gets modded, in the same way we mod our gaming consoles, except instead of cheating software publishers of their money, the taxi drivers get to cheat particularly naive passengers. They rig a button somewhere in the car, which when pressed, fucks up the counters of the taxi. Here's the standard computation for a taxi fare:

Base Fare: 30 Pesos for the first 500 meters.
Mobile Increment: 2.50 Pesos for every 300 meters.
Steady Increment: 2.50 Pesos for every 2.5 minutes
Final Increment: 10 Pesos

From what I understand, both iterators run in parallel, and only increase the total fare once the 300 meters or 2.5 minutes marks are reached. The racket? The "batingting" button adds false distance to your travel time, making your fare increase unnecessarily.

I've been taking taxis to and from work for a very long time, and I've been traveling the same route to the office for almost 4 years now. I know the progression of the taxi meter by heart. My average taxi fare to work on a heavy traffic day never goes over 80 pesos even with the final increment.

This morning, I was actually happy because there was no traffic where I usually get stuck in traffic. I've already gotten past the place where I normally reach 40 pesos in the meter with only 32.50 in the meter.

Then, bullshit happened.

The drive started fixing something on the lower right wall beside the gas pedal. I heard him flick a switch three times. Last time I checked, Toyota doesn't put any buttons there for very practical reasons (i.e. not get the driver killed). Sure, my '81 Isuzu Gemini had a manual compressor switch in that same location, but the car looked no more than 5 years old.

A few seconds later, I checked the meter, it was already at 40 pesos.

Remember the algorithm? The two iterators run in parallel, but even if they increment at the same time, there's no way in hell the fare can jump 7.50 pesos in a heartbeat. We passed another intersection, it was already at 47.50. That's six iterations in less than 300 meters, in a matter of minutes.

My bullshit detector when crazy.

I decided to just let him take me somewhere near my office, but not exactly my office. For my case, the corner of Taft-Faura was okay already. I told him I'd be getting off already, but I will not be paying. He did not react at once, but asked why moments later. I told him nonchalantly, there's nothing to pay. He raised his voice and asked "Ano?" with an intimidating tone. I repeated my words and told him, "Kung may problema tayo, punta tayo dun sa may pulis para matingnan natin yang metro mo." He didn't say a word after that. I took a photo of his license plate and side-decoration for good measure as I got off and pretended I was getting in touch with a "tita" in the Traffic bureau.

Kinda ironic because just yesterday I was talking to another taxi driver ranting about how these cheating bastards are giving the remaining honest 5% in the taxi driver population a bad name.

If I weren't trying to catch my afternoon work time-in, I would've loved to really go further and ask for money from the guy as compensation. Maybe next time. There's always a next time, and I can feel it in my guts.

Here are things you need to watch out for to uncover scams like this:
- Increments greater than 5 pesos.
- Frequent increments
- The driver playing around with his radio, aircon, stickshift, or for this case, somewhere under his steering wheel.

If you're sure it's a scam, ask to be dropped off at the next safe location you pass by, then politely give the guy a dirty finger, or if possible, a new asshole c/o a .45 slug.

Taxi in the article: TYG237 Junife Taxi

Dangerous Food Products From China

Okay, so I finally got my hands on a memory card reader months after my younger sister decided that the best wedding gift that she could give my older sister is the frigging memory card reader we share around the house. (What a sister no? We could've let go of the old oventoaster instead. Nobody will miss that).

I've now started to unload a bulk of the shitty quality pictures Ive taken with my Nokia 6680 during my trips around Metro Manila, ShenZhen China, Hong Kong, and Macau. This is so that I can start filling up my phone again with more shitty quality pictures. And just so I don't feel that I've wasted my time taking those pictures, shitty or not, I've decided to share them to the readers of this site.

We've had our Melamine scare. We've learned that dangerous milk products are coming out of China. But you know what other food they have there that's dangerous? Fucking everything. Case in point? McDonald's China. McDonald's in the Philippines is pretty harmless. Sure, eating there will eventually kill you, but dying from the clogging cholesterol with all that recycled oil from the frying pan vat takes time. In China?

Fuck that.


How about some McKickYourAssSevenWaysFromBeijing ? Just one look at Ronald McDonald and you know he means business. Every meal in MickyD's China is a happy meal, and there's no toy - just be happy you're walking away with your life .

(continued)



Ronald McDonald here is so badass, his face can't even be contained in just one cup. Not convinced? Take a look at this picture closer. Where else in the world will you find a CAUTION: HOT warning on a softdrink cup? (clue: only where combo meal means the more painful kind of combo)


And maybe you'd think, hey, this is just McDonald's. Surely there might be some other resto there that's more peaceful. You know what's peaceful here? Jollibee. He's just a bee.


Not in China though. See that smile? That ain't no ChickenJoy. That's a "ImmaEnjoyKickingYourAssWithMyTaiChiKungFuSkills" kind of smile from Jollibee. When Jollibee says it's competition from McDonald's, they fucking mean it - and you better believe it let's you want to be Champ's jailbitch.

You might think, doesn't Ronald McDonald look a bit like Bruce Lee? Think out of the box. Don't you think Bruce Lee looks a bit like Ronald McDonald? Fuck yes he does, son. Try growing up eating in a fast food with a bad ass mascot and you'd want to grow up like him too.

Melamine? That's for babies. This is the real danger food you should be watching for.

McKickAss.

Coversational Trend

Here's a trend you see all the time, because most people are natural smartasses.

When there's news about Melamine contamination, suddenly every other person you talking to becomes a biochemistry major.

When the topic's about the large hadron collider, it's like everybody in a conversation become master astrophysicists.

And when you switch about the current financial crisis? You're suddenly talking to people who sound like financial analysts.

And I have no problem with that.

But why is it that when I try to switch the conversation to Peter North's latest hardcore anal movie "Into The Deep End", WHY don't I see people turning into porn stars?

Maaan, talk about selective knowledge.

Emo Reversal Tutorial for Photoshop CS3

I've always thought Photoshop CS3 is like LSD for bad pictures. A few minutes of shooping turns the wicked into the wonderful, the flat into the voluptous, and the horribly obnoxious hambeast subjects into the invisible subjects. (God bless you, eraser tool).

For this tutorial, we will be focusing on a specific category of bad pictures currently plaguing the net, and quite possibly your My Pictures folder - Emo pictures. Bland, poorly lit, misaligned, and unbelievably depressing, emo pictures are one adjective away from being your typical Korean TV drama.

Just take a look at this subject:


Don't you just want to start unleashing big buckets of vomit pity on this picture? :(

Any guy with a sane taste normally would. But we here at Public Static are about pro-activeness. So, armed with a tool called Photoshop and a good dose of tolerance for ugly, we'll perform De-emo-fication on our lucky sample and teach you how to do it from your own home.

(This week's article is cowritten with my good man, F!shCake, an accomplished multi-award winning graphic artist who is as good in Photoshop CS3 as he is with masturbating. In the dark. With handcuffs on. David Blaine got nothing on this guy.)



1. First, basics. Open the sample image and duplicate it. Go to the Image - Adjustments - Threshold and move the slider all the way to the left until you are left with just a little blob of black. Move the cursor over the picture and then shift click to place a marker.


2. This time, move the slider all the way to the right until you are left with just a little blob of white, the brightest point of the picture. Move the cursor over the picture and then shift click to place a marker.


3.Go to Image - Adjustments - Curves. There, you'll see three eye droppers. Left eye dropper goes to the darkest point marker, right eye dropper goes to the brightest point marker. The middle dropper goes to the grey area. Now we can slide the marker to the left to enhance brightness, or the right to enhance contrast. Note that increasing brightness will not affect the actual IQ of the subject, just the picture's appearance.


4. Next, we're going to fix the lens-induced anemia, because nobody really likes pasty white people. NOT EVEN MIMES. Go to Image - Adjustments - Hue/Saturation and color your heart out. How much blonde is too blonde? The sky is the limit.


5. Now that we're working with a picture that actually looks like a colored image, let's fix the half-hidden face. Select the left portion of the mug with the polygonal tool and hit ctrl-C then ctrl-v to copy and paste.


6. Using control-T (transform), hit flip horizontal and then place it over the other half of the face to remove the bangs. Feel free to take a fifteen minute break if you need to throw up. Press enter, when you're happy with the results.


7. Merge the two layers of the face by pressing Ctrl-E. Use the healing brush to make sure the grafted right side of the face merges with the original right face. If still vomiting at this point, seek psychiatric counseling immediately.


8. Take a sample "happy" hair from the internet and paste it on the original sample. Use Ctrl-T (transform) to make sure the hair will nicely fit the crown of our subject. As a general rule, the funkier the hair, the better.


9. Create a vector mask on the hair sample layer. Click on the soft brush tool and set the brush flow at 18%, set background colour to black then paint away the artifacts from the sampled "happy" hair.


10. Use the brush tool to paint the forehead back, the way they do it in Nip/Tuck and the way they don't do it in Rambo. Using those guidelines, make it look natural.


11. Use the dodge tool and the paint brush to remove the guy's eyeliner. No self-respecting man should ever wear eyeliners, under any circumstances, even if he's got cancer and it's his only cure.


12. Remove the shirt's awful print using the clonestamp tool and the healing brush. Don't forget to repaint the jacket's shadow back once done.



13. Use the pentool to create a vector selection on the outline of the shirt. Make the selections as show in the image and press okay.



14. With the selection active, go to Image - Adjustments - Hue/Saturation. Click the colorize ticker box and adjust the sliders to give the subject a "happier" shirt tone. For this case, "yellow", says F!SHCAKE, "yellow is the new motherfuckin' black."


15. Add a decal to show that our subject is finally going back to the right side of the fence (read: not the gay side)


16. Next, we put a smile on the guy's face. A smile is the difference between a victim of society, and a deranged serial killer (a happy one, at least). Select the mouth using the rectangular marquee tool.


17. Select Filters - Render - Happiness :)


18. In the happiness dialog box, select the settings as indicated. Don't expect too much though, it's only a computer generated smile and chances are, the guy in the picture will still be a dick afterwards.


19. Let's take a bit of a break to look at our subject. That's one creepy, albeit happy, mother fucker.

20. To make sure our subject's expression isn't off cue, go to Filter - Stylize - PIRATE PIMP*


21. Play around with the settings, hit OK when done.


And, we're done! Given you didn't puke your guts out to death before finishing the tutorial, you're now the proud owner of a well-made piratey looking picture. Congratulations! That's one less picture bringing down the average happiness of mankind. We've done our part, and now you can too! (p.s. start with your own pictures, then your family, then your friends, then My Chemical Romance)


Maan, I hate My Chemical Romance.

*(optional, for users of the Y'arr plugin v1.1)

Layout Change 2008

After one year and eight months, I've changed the layout on my blog again. I've decided to return to a motif using black background for two reasons. One is that my 9-year old monitor at home is starting to have trouble balancing out the brightness for white screens and I can't accept the idea that my ever-so-white blog will be the monitor's reason for a faster retirement. Second reason is, well, my last layout had a white background.

Actually, the main reason I'm changing my layout is to enable post summaries. I noticed that whenever I get really studious and post an article with a word count twice the size of Juan Unlimitxt's vocabulary, the front page ends up loading slower than usual.

Given that most of my vistors here are ADHD adrenaline junkies, we just can't have that.

I've also enabled tags, which I'll be fixing when I get the time. Sifting through 500 or so, cranial hemorrhage-inducing posts is no easy task so I'll do it when I don't need my brain for other things (like screening out bad music).

As for the links to the usual gang of idiots Blog friends, I'll be putting them back up online as soon as I review which blogs are still active and which are virtual corpses. (you may not know it, but I don't really like to associate with dead things)

Anyhoo, if you see any layout problems, feel free to drop a message. The show will go on, and FiSHCake! will still make random nonsense comments about how Mariah Carey shaves her armpits, among other things.

Extended Dragonball Movie Trailer

Here's the leaked unofficial extended preview Dragonball Movie Trailer, set to show in theaters 2009.



It began as genius.

Filipino Drivers are The Devil's Own

I remember what they said before, that Filipino drivers are the best in the world. I'd agree with that, but I have to add that we are to be the best because we have to be the best. We have to be the best in the same way the gazelle has to run the fastest in the savanna - anything less will lead to horrible results.

It's like this. In other countries, driving is a mechanical thing. You read the signs, people obey the road protocols, and you get to where you need to get to by following a specific set of instructions. Granted, it's entirely possible for a gerbil to drive in other countries given enough Pavlovian training.

In our country, one can only dream of such a luxury. To put it simply, driving around in our roads is a systematic gentleman's game of chicken. Right of way is decided by who thinks he can push the envelope of safety to its limits. You think you can take that lane before you collide with the other car's bumper? Feel free.

If you're a driver, you goddamn know what I'm talking about. A driver in this country will have to have a 360 degree awareness of his surroundings at all times. Hell, motherfucking Yoda will have a hard time keeping up with the force, traffic enforcers to be precise. After years of driving, you get a certain degree of awareness that will let you sense - yes, sense - cars that get too close in your car's area of comfort. It's like the martial artist's sense, applied to a car.

On any particular road, there are buses and jeeps diving in and out of lanes like they're dive bombing the sidewalks; motorcycles squeeze between lanes; people are wantonly crossing the road frogger style; there are holes in the road that will destroy your suspension; and if it's raining, half of the damn road is filled with turbid water. Our roads make driving around a war zone feel like a Sunday cruise. At least in a battlefield, if you hit anything, it's collateral damage. Around here, if you hit anything, it's always your fault, and that's thousands of pesos of reparations out of your pocket.

For a Christian country, the Philippines truly has Christianized roads - as in they're so Christian, driving around will make you a prayerful lot (and say Jesus, Christ, and God a lot in a very fervent manner)

And like I always say, "If you can't take the heat, take the jeep."

5 Secrets to Being A Good Student

An excellent student in my great book of definitions is a student who diligently does what he is told to, studies and practices until he has all but perfected a topic, always has quiz pads ready, and will readily suck the proverbial academic dick to get into the honors list.

By this definition, I was never an excellent student and I never really dreamed of becoming one, not that I could ever really attain such a status even if I did want to.

A good student, on the other hand, is somebody who doesn't fail, doesn't get in trouble (often), and doesn't get refused when he asks for extra quiz paper from the excellent students . My kind of student attitude. Somebody once told me to shoot for the stars so I can fail with certainty and land on the moon. I like it better when I shoot for the moon, overdo it and make my trip to the stars accidental - it impresses chicks more.

So anyway, being a good student is not easy. Well, maybe not as hard as sucking dick like them excellent students, but it's still hard in its own way. Here are a few things that I was able to pick up as protips to get that "good" student status easier in not so "good" ways:

1. Keep nodding your head and saying "aah" enthusiastically, even when you're already lost and bored.

Nodding does two things: First, it shakes your stagnating brain, and helps all those small nutrients get into the less nourished parts of your noggin. If overdone, it gives you a concussion, which effectively excuses you from class legally, which is an awesome thing. Second, nodding gives the illusion that you actually are learning - and it gives your teachers the idea that they are actually getting their job done. In a sea of bored asshole students, anybody showing enthusiasm, however false, will stand out like a gleaming monument to teaching orgasm. You want to be that orgasm. Trust me on this. You want that position. How does that help? No matter how objective teachers say they are, once you start giving them their guilty pleasures without even appearing to do so, it will affect your grades, 100% sure.

2. If you really have to cheat, don't glance at the teacher while doing it.

I remember back in college, right after I swore off years of cheating, I noticed that the other newbie cheaters had this bad habit they couldn't shake off. They kept looking at the teacher with guilty glances. Some of them got caught, others got away because the professors didn't know what to look for, or just didn't care. If it were my HS Religion teacher who claims she hears the voice of God telling her who the cheating heathens are, they would've been caught 12 milliseconds into the act. Bottomline is this: Unless your professor is super hot and currently wearing lingerie, a student taking an exam has no reason to glance at him/her every 30 seconds. Cut it out.

3. Read your lessons before classes.

Here's one technique I didn't really learn until my college years. You'd be surprised how easier things get when you're a step ahead. For my case, I had to do it because I kept on falling asleep and effectively missed a lot of topics. Reading ahead became my insurance, in case the professor gets pissed and gives a quiz right after you wake up (happened to me twice). If you're a regular sleeper like me, this is for you. If you're not a regular sleeper, just do it anyway to make things easier. Advanced reading is like lubricant for prison anal sex. While you can't really avoid getting sodomized inside prison, you can actually make the process less painful.

4. Aim low, get high success rates.

Again, the shoot for the stars thing. Aim high, fail often. Aim low, succeed more. Whoever thinks lots of disappointment is necessary for growth has never failed so much. Nobody likes to get disappointed, specially if they're disappointed at themselves. Fuck people who set goals for you. Set attainable goals, like the passing grade instead of the highest possible grade. While it won't exactly let you have sex with that hot girl in class, it's not like being a dean's lister will give you tail either. On the other hand, at least you don't get as much pressure, which has this bad tendency of developing into various psychosomatic disorders (totally not cool). When was the last time you heard somebody who got schizophrenia graduated from college? See what I mean? Keep it real.

5. Choose your friends wisely.

See here's the thing. Peer pressure has always been taught as a bad thing, in truth though, it goes both ways. If you're hanging out with a bunch of faggots who have strict parents that do not hesitate to beat the John Lennon out of your friends when they fail subjects, they will study hard, and will influence you to study along with them. In effect, you get their motivation, minus the butt sores they get from being flogged everytime they tank in academics. Conversewise, it's not that hard to talk to somebody for 30 minutes and know that the person doesn't have much of a future waiting for him. One clue you might want to watch out for is having the words "billiards" and "umuubos" spoken under one breath. While studying is an individual thing, motivation isn't and it's just common sense beyond that. The more motivated your friends are, the more motivated you get - which applies to both graduating on time, and dropping out and living a life around mixing cement.