Gravity

Guy A: You don't know the gravity of the situation at hand.

Guy B:

Going Commando

"Going Commando" is a common term both among Filipinos and even around the world as a term for when you are not wearing any underwear, or socks. The origin of usage in the Philippines is largely a mystery, but it's been said that the term originates from Scottish tradition among soldiers that require them to not wear underwear when wearing a kilt. Alternative terms are "going regimental" and "being a true scotsman". Other alternative explanations claim that commandos in the jungle often had to work with a limited set of clothing so after a while they are left with little options in what they have underneath their workgear. There's also the idea that by not having underwear, you'd always be ready "for action" like a commando. Either way, it's still about dangling what shouldnt normally dangle. Like a pro.

Bantayan Island Cebu Travel Guide

Bantayan island is located near Cebu and is probably what Boracay looked like before it was Boracay. Bantayan is named after the local term "To guard" which is what the island used to do against Chinese pirates. Nowadays, that task has been passed on to the Optical Media board and Edu Manzano, and the island has become a getaway beach of sorts (less the Chinese pirates and plus the Korean tourists).

To get to Bantayan, you first have to go to Cebu, take a bus from the North Bus Station to the Hagnaya port and ride a RoRo ferry which, next to tectonic plates, is probably the slowest moving thing in the ocean today. Luckily, the ferry canteen offers beer. It doesn't make the trip faster, but like many things, alcohol helps you forget. Word of advice: Don't get the VIP seats. Don't ask why. One thing you may want to watch is the deluge of porters (guys who carry baggages for you) the split second the ferry hits (literally) the dock. They come flying into the galley from every conceivable entry point (windows, portholes, chimneys, CR etc) like pirate ninjas off to carry your loot luggage. It's amazing.

Bantayan island is actually home to three rural towns. Santa Fe, Bantayan, and some other town whose name I forgot. Most resorts are in Santa Fe, so expect prices to be unrural, because you know, you're a tourist. I didn't go to the other two. I just felt that I had to mention this fact here to sound like I'm credible.

Cheapest place to eat if you're not finicky or a fish (in which case you should avoid) is the wetmarket. There are carinderias over there where you can buy "de latas" and ask them to cook the contents (and the can, if that's your thing) Cebuanos like to cook rice and stuff them into intricately prepared banana leaves the size of a baby's heart. They call it "puso" and is probably the greatest innovation to rice eating ever since it lets you eat rice with just one hand, while standing up, on the go, or taking a dump.

The beach in Bantayan is like a conversation with a fine arts major. It's very artistic, it's shallow as hell, and it doesn't get any deeper no matter how far you go. The sand is white and powdery, but unlike Boracay, is populated with tiny sea shells that are sharp enough to puncture skin and small enough to enter your bloodstream. Enough of these pricked me while running around, so like if I bend sideways, you can almost hear the ocean waves. Boracay doesnt have these because they employ indigenous children to ground up the shells at night when nobody's looking for measly pay and horribly living conditions. Shame on you Boracay.

Nearby Bantayan is the Virgin island, which is called in local terms "palay na hindi pa nagiging bigas dahil wala pang bumabayo" since that's too long, and since they don't really speak dirty Tagalog in Cebu, it's called Virgin island.

There are no virgins in the island, save for the time me and my fellow gang of IT developer guys went there. We totally spiked the virginity ratios. Other than that, yeah. Don't get your hopes up.

Virgin Island, going by my earlier analogy, is like Bantayan Island before it realized it's Bantayan Island. Save for a sarisaristore, a makeshift toilet, and a mysterious couple of houses that have one too many earthen jars (that may or may not house ninjas) the Island is largely undeveloped.

The beachline is pristine, white, and teeming with fish and other sea life just a few feet from the shore. Unsurprisingly, sea urchins are also present just waiting to fuck your foot with their 3 inch needles of FUCK YOU. If you get pricked by one of these, you will be in exruciating pain, at least until you will realize that the fastest cure is to get yourself peed on wherever you got pricked to enable the urnine's ammonia to disperse the poison (after which the main sensation will be bordering shame/clinical depression).If ever you face dive and hit one of these things, tough shit. Wear sandals, use goggles, and don't be retarded. That ought to prevent any untoward events.

There are no waves in Bantayan island, making it ideal for backfloating, swimming, and sex on the beach. For references on how painful beach sex with strong waves may feel like, watch Derek and whats her name's love scene in I Love You, Goodbye. It's already scripted, starring the two hottest actors in the Philippine showbusiness, and they still couldn't make it look like they even remotely enjoyed it. But I digress.

Virgin island has very few people on it year round, making it a peaceful alternative to Boracay. Food is ordered ahead of time and cooked on the spot by a team of male chefs who coincidentally are the boatmen who will be taking you to the island. That's what you call true multidisciplinary practice (Take note, lazy Ateneans).

If you feel like pretending to be a masa mangingisda, or you just want to get to deeper waters without having to risk being raped by sea urchins, you can rent a row boat bangka and paddle to the deep part instead. I'm just saying. Real men would swim all the way. As nature intended.

80% of the island is covered with dense foiliage and jagged rocks that form small caves that are probably still being used by Japanese who think the war is not yet over. Exercise caution. You might trip and fall on a bayonet.

Other fast facts for Philippine destinations:
http://redkinoko.blogspot.com/2007/07/palawan-randomness.html
http://redkinoko.blogspot.com/2008/08/bohol.html

New Pilipinas Tourism Slogan

Once again, our good government has disappointed people by not only coming up with the most asinine slogan ever (who the hell markets to foreigners in Tagalog? By watching too many tagalized TV did we somehow get the impression that everybody in this world speaks the vernacular? Even hookers in Ermita haggle in English for pete's sake) and to top it off, we stole the font for our official logo from the tourism LOGO of Poland - as though by some chance, the people in Poland are still under Soviet rule and are forbidden from using the internet, watching TV, and recognizing their own standard banner when it's being ripped off by us.



exhibit a: the so called filipino ingenuity at work

You know what? Fuck it. I've had it putting up with these people who keep on stealing shit. If we're so proud of a culture that plagiarizes, rips people off, and ever proudly defends their right to do so, we might as well go along for the ride.

By the power vested in me by the tax money that I'm forced to pay every time I render work, I hereby exercise my right to contribute to governance by presenting to you my proposed tourism logo.



p.s. Poland, we're sorry. Feel free to steal this as compensation.

Mga Aral ng Dyip

(This article was cowritten with Anna for some project I can't really remember. It's in Tagalog, so if you don't understand the vernacular, come back again tomorrow for a different, but more understandable article. )

Lahat ng aral na kailangan mo matutunan sa buhay, matutunan mo na sa pagsakay ng dyip.

Kung sasakay ka ng dyip, kailangan marunong kang pumara. Dapat marunong kang ipaalam sa ibang tao kung ano ang iyong pakay. Minsan, ang mistulang hindi mahalagang wasiwas ng kamay ang pinagkaiba ng dyip na pwedeng sakyan at ng tangang nasagasaan.

Tulad ng buhay, ang paglalakbay lulan ng mga dyip ay hindi isang bihayeng matuwid. Dapat ay marunong kang magplano, tanggapin na hindi palaging pareho ang paroroonan mo at ng dyip; Na minsan kailangan mo bumaba bago magkalihis ang iyong landas at ng daang tinatahak ng sinasakyan mo. Matutong sumabay sa pagbabago.


Sa pagbabayad, kailangan matuto kang magtiwala sa mga kasama mo. Hindi mo kayang abutin lahat ng bagay, kaya dapat marunong ka ring umasa sa iba, at maging maasahan pag ikaw naman ang napaghingan ng tulong.

Ang dyip, parang mga pangyayari, madaling sakyan pero hindi mo sya palagi kayang pahintuin kung kailan mo gusto. Ang kaya mo lang gawin ay paghandaan ito at matutong lumakad kung lumagpas ka sa iyong inaasahan.

Ang dyip ay parang maliit na mundo. Maingay, magulo, at hindi mo mapipili ang mga taong makakasakay mo. Tinuturuan nito tayo ng pagtanggap na hindi lang tayo nagmamayari ng lahat, na ang mga karapatan mo ay hanggang kung saan lang abot ng pamasahe mo.

Ang dyip, parang pagkakataon din. Kapag naiwanan ka, hindi pa katapusan ng mundo. May darating at darating din na iba pa. At kung wala man, hindi lang iisa ang pwede mong kunin para makarating ka sa paroroonan. Basta marunong ka maghantay.

Hindi maiiwasan mapagiwanan, pero ang buhay, parang dyip lang talaga. Kung talagang gugustuhin mo, pwede ka pa ring sumabit, kumapit ng mahigpit, at makarating ka din sa paroroonan.

McDonald's Run (Away from that evil clown)

I saw this poster just this morning. Perhaps when Ronald was talking about Happy Meals, he was thinking of the emotional state of whatever he's going to eat for lunch. Who the hell gave the go signal to publish this image? You'd think the murderous slant of the eyebrows would've raised red flags already. It's a clown who's supposed to be happy, not a convict happy to break out from solitary confinement!



Disclaimer: Apart from zooming in using the oh-so-fab MSPaint and making snide remarks, I did not alter this poster to make Ronald McDonald look more evil. If you don't want to believe me, go visit your nearest McD outlet.

Funny Tagalog Quotes

Babangon ako't dudurugin kita. Tapos matutulog ako ulit.

Marami ka pang kakaining bigas. Mas marami kung hindi ka marunong magsaing.

Papunta ka pa lang, pabalik na ako. Gusto ko kasing makaupo sa MRT.

Kung ano ang puno, sya ang bunga. Alangan naman hindi, tanga!

Ang hindi marunong tumingin sa pinanggalingan, hindi makararating sa paroroonan - lalo na kung paatras ka pumarada.

Daig ng maagap ang masipag. Kasi kinabukasan, pwede mo nakawin yung ginawa ng masipag.

Ang tumakbo ng matulin, kung matinik ay malalim. At ang nantitinik ng malalim, kailangan tumakbo ng matulin.

Queso De Bola Hates You

Is it just me or is the Quezo De Bola the most impractical shit you will ever see being unquestionably gobbled up by consumers during Christmas? Whoever designed this piece of cheese really hates ordinary consumers. Here's a reason why:

1. Quezo De Bola is round, making it all the harder to store in a flat space without having it roll off somewhere else (like the ground, where it does not belong)

2. It's coated in paraffin wax. Call me backwards, but when considering looking for a way to find a way to keep the cheese clean, my thought isn't going to be "Let's dip it in melted red candle"

3. Quezo De Bola is sinisterly LARGE. Large enough, at least in my family, to supply cheese until about two months before the next Christmas season, ensuring we'd have to eat cheese at least once every two days if we want to be able to eat a new Quezo De Bola the following Christmas, which I have no idea why we'd want to, but we do so anyway.

4. Quezo De BOla is LARGE. Did I mention that? Because of #3, you have to store it at some point, and then when you try to fit it into the fridge, IT WON'T FIT BECAUSE IT'S ROUND. (see #1)

5. So now you have to chop it up into pieces, which defeats the purpose of #2 and exposes the CHEESE to the ELEMENTS ANYWAY because that's what happens when you CUT the PARAFIN coating.

Why Filipinos continue to bother with this salty cheese that's just slightly softer than cheddar is beyond me.

My Latest Project

Order placed. We'll see in 5 days if this works.

Backwards Compatibility

Whoever made the Bible would've fit nicely in working with Windows.

Support for the first five books of the Old Testament means it's backwards compatible with Judaism.

Converts would just have to add the additional modules (the New Testament, aptly acronymed NT) and other additional components (the other books of the OT) and voila.

That's what you call easy migration.

Villar Doesn't Get It

Manny Villar is passing a resolution to protect social networkers, and specifically pointed out the cases that are now being investigated by the police “wherein the suspects used Facebook and text messages to lure people, specially minors, into engaging in sexual activities.” Apparently, part of this device or scheme is to use the online networking system of establishing ‘clans’ and inviting youths to join where part of the initiation includes participation in sexual activities.
Or the resolution said.

I'm not sure if we're talking about the same internet here. Last time I checked, a clan is a term used for online games, networked games and the like. Having participated in a lot of these clan thingies for the better part of my post-pubescent life, I can conclude that there is nothing sexual in it, not counting men who try to masquerade as women in order to lure more men into the clan thinking that there is sex coming to them. 90% of these clans are constituted by men. 8% more of them are female identities secretly operated by men. The 2% remain the elusive womenfolk that actually exist.

A friend of a friend of mine who used to chat up this other guy told me and swears by it that one time, he actually saw a biological female in an EB of another clan. He swears by it enough so I believe him.

Anyway, unless men suddenly develop an evolutionary ability to physically change gender while connected to the internet, No, there will be no sexing that's going to happen. If ever, it's the opposite. By associating yourself with online clans, you in a sense ward off the idea of sex. For all the praise and acclaim the geek culture is getting nowadays, in truth, women are still repulsed by the idea of the clan-based geek. Clans are like what's promised to Islam fundamentalists. 99 virgins, albeit they're all men.

We can say that it's a passive contraceptive of sorts - the type that would make Bishops climax just thinking about it. I think we're approachign the problem in the wrong direction. We should pass a counteresolution. Promote clanism. It's like being in a frat and entering a seminary at the same time.

Population control of the new age.