Twitter One-liner Roundup (Sept 2012 - July 2013) @redkinoko

There's something special about assknobs who've never worked a day in their lives rant about squatters being lazy and self-entitled.

1. Legalize porn 2. Set unrealistic expectations for an entire generation of boys 3. Population ↓ 4. Tissue and lotion industry ↑

My concept of a low cost 3D printer involves a wad of clay, a schematic printout, and copious amounts of whiskey.

Casper was a 2-hour long movie about what it feels like to be dead and still friendzoned.

Something's wrong with our generation if we have to go online before we can learn if somebody is a person of prayer.

Word of the day: Gallivanting. In Tagalog, "nangangahoy".

Drunk playing billiards sans a shirt at 9 in the morning. It's amazing how my ideas of being successful and being a failure are the same.

Why does Team Bon Chon Of The Game sound more of an affront than a corporate award?

New term of the day: #kiligtae as in "sa sobrang kilig... " Usage: "Dumaan si Dong kanina, walang Tshirt. Ayun, kiligtae naman si Maria."

Remember before the 2008 financial crisis, the biggest problem that we had deal with as a country was Hale's music? #wehaditgood

I wish I could rename my city Mon. Then I can skip the first day of the week on the grounds that it's Mon Day. #okaythatmadesenseinmydream

Release a bunch of plastic toys and nobody cares. Tell them it's collectible and everybody starts losing their minds.

People complaining about pictures of two hot chicks kissing in support of basic rights proves people will complain about just about anything

Massive Facebook Oneliner Roundup (Sept 2012 - July 2013)

Let's take a moment to thank the fact that Facebook did not exist before we got our act together and started behaving like perfectly normal human adults. For the most part, anyway.

Last of Us is awesome, not just because you get to play old Gerard Butler with a young Ellen Page sidekick but because of the attention spent in the details. If some dude from the game dev team spent time making sure the direction of flowing tears shifts when a person changes the angle of his/her head, you know damn well they're pulling no stops.

Fast and the Furious IS Twilight for men. There's them cheesy lines that would pass easily as highschool pulp and instead of vampires and werewolves, there's cars and unbelievably sexy race chicks. At the middle of it all is a heavily built up guy with black hair and a sparkly white dude blasting through one ridiculous plot device after another.

Crack Nancy Binay jokes one day, defend Jessica Soho the next.

PSA: Dear froshies, avoid clumping together and blocking entrances/tight hallways/entire road lanes whenever you feel the urge to convene on where to eat. The answer is nowhere because the new school motto is Religio/Mores/Kayo Bahala. Carrion of froshies that get stuck and starve to death is a major cause of human traffic and late book returns. Upper classmen in a hurry to fail their next class do not like to get delayed. Thank you.

House Parati-yon-absent , House Lannis-terrible-job, House Targarabekaramiwork, House Greyjoybeenanamankinakinkokanina George R R Anting. #earlycornfridays

"Started from the bottom now we here." - Tetris.

Laws of the Game of Thrones Universe

Law of Episodic Folicular Entropy : Sansa's hairstyle is not allowed to repeat more than once per episode

Stark's First Law of Colocation - Starks are not allowed to stay in Winterfell.

Stark's Second Law of Colocation - If more than two Starks are in one place, one or more of them will be unnecessarily displaced.

Stark's Third Law of Colocation - If you're a Stark and Arya is nearby, bad things will happen to you.


Law of Cosmic Pyrochromosomal Order - If you have dragon blood, the universe will let you get what you want. Eventually.

Pyrochromosomal disorder corollary - Bitching about it really helps.

Stock Market Terms for Filipinos

Streetsmarts - Yung klase ng talino na magagamit mo para mabuhay sa kalye pag nalugi na lahat ng pera mo sa PSE.

McArthur Stock - Mga stock na bumabagsak bago tumatalbog sa mas mataas na presyo. "I shall return"

Sharon Stock - Mga stock na sobrang bigat hindi na makagalaw sa charts.

Delata - Stock na kahit ibaon mo ng 3 taon e hindi nagbabago ang estado.

Bull Market - cycle ng stock market kung saan lahat ng hulanalysis e tama.

Bear Market - cycle ng stock market kung saan lahat ng hulanalysis e tama daw.

Annual Stock Holder meeting - Libreng doughnuts at aircon in exchange for depreciating investments.

Long term investment - Term na ginagamit ng mga tsupitero pag sobrang baba na ng value ng stocks nila, pwede nang ipaconvert sa certificates at ipamunas ng pwet para lang magkaron ng silbi.

Keep it real, Enrile.

Enrile's about to deliver his speech in the Senate in a few. Everybody's asking what its going to be about. Here are a few possible topics:

5. He's going to tell his 1st person account on who killed ninoy

4. He's going to tell his 1st person account on who killed Lapulapu

3. He'll start selling youth pills

2. He'll be delivering a lecture on the evils of garlic and why stakes to the heart are dangerous things

1. He's going to come out as a lesbian to Tito Boy

ENRILE? Y RLY.

Quick 10. Reasons why Senator Binay couldn't attend her proclamation:

She was cooking dinner for her family, nanay-de-pamilya and all. 

She'll have her own coronation ceremony in the Kingdom of Makati.

She's holding out for Dick.. Gordon. 

She's still out doing motorcades.

Risa kidnapped Nancy and is now debating the new senator inside a mock senate she's created in an abandoned warehouse while eating gobs of chocolate.

Moonlighting. She's still doing OJT, remember?

Struggling to crawl her way out after being buried by tons of stupid online internet memes.

Still trying to get the indelible ink off her finger.

She doesn't want to stand next to Grace Poe's ridiculously pasty white complexion.

She was there. The lighting was just bad.

President Marcos And Sabah

Disclaimer: I write historical fiction. I am not a historian. What you read here are products of years of playing around with historical fact to create stories.

We all know that some time in the late 60s, Marcos planned to invade Sabah by training commandos who would slip into Sabah, sow chaos, and ultimately lobby politically to break the claimed territory out of Malaysia and into Philippine custody.  And we all know that during the training, the commandos mutinied and were culled in what would be known as the Jabidah Massacre, with only one survivor escaping the prison island of corregidor and living to tell the tale. The account was then made public by the then-opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. in the Philippine Senate, which then concentrated the dissenting clans of Mindanao into full-on rebellion that lasted for almost 40 years with the succession of the MNLF, MILF, and the more recent BIFF. We also know that Malaysia, in seeking to prevent another attempt by the Philippines to plan out another retake of Sabah, secretly helped the MNLF with their struggle by providing Libyan arms and funding in the Philippine backdoor. And finally, we know that first quarter of 2013, the Sultan's Royal Army, with the backing of MNLF, finally went to Sabah.

Those are the things that we do know.

But there are still some things that never really got clarified.

Most of what the public knows of Operation Merdeka came from Benigno Aquino Jr. who, the Bangkok Post cautioned at the time as, at the baseline, a politician with great rhetorical skill, and may have formatted the information in such a way that it would stir up greater emotions among the populace and the spotty Senate hearing that led to nothing but dead ends.

Wedding Expos 101

Every once in a blue moon, a strange phenomenon happens in convention centers, activity centers, and event tents all over the country. People from different walks of life gather together and discuss topics and prepare for activities such as feeding the masses, clothing the naked, and sheltering strangers. No, I'm not talking about charity events. They're called Wedding Expos, which is what happens when clumps of clueless couples-to-be have a head on collision with people out to milk as much money from them as possible. If you're going to get married and you're into mainstream marriages, chances are at some point in your preparation, you will have to go to these strange occasions that seem to have its own traditions. If you've never been into one, or went to one and had such a traumatizing experience that your mind completely wiped out all the horrible memories out, let this article serve as your guide towards a healthy and hopefully, violence-free experience.

Just like most conventions, with the exception of the annual nationwide jueteng get-together, Wedding expos require you to register upon arrival. Pertinent information such as marriage date, religious affiliation, annual salary, and DNA swabs (sometimes) are collected, quite possibly for the benefit of getting a genetic footprint for gullibility. Grooms and brides-to-be are required to declare that they are soon to be married and are given special "badges" so that they are easily recognizable, herded, and sent to concentration camps treated with extra care by the exhibitors. These badges are required to be worn throughout the affair, even though wearing one will cause you to get constantly mauled by booth reps desperately trying to hit quota. NFL-style pile-ups are not unheard of. In some expos, and I kid you not, there are bouncers roving around for the sole purpose of ensuring you are wearing your star of David /s> badge, by force if necessary.  

Resolutions 2013

First, a result of my last year's resolutions:

Things to do for next year:
- Publish "the" book
- Give car a serious maintenance run  , Brakes, wheels, suspension
- Give standup comedy another go
- Read at least one Elliot Wave theory book
- Cook the perfect steak

My steak's vastly improved. With the introduction of tenderizing, the right amount of oyster sauce and pepper, and the better timing of cooking, I'm now less susceptible to serve half-raw, half-burnt steaks with a taste that treads between roadkill carcass and burnt rubber. When you're coming from that direction, any improvement is a vast improvement.

The car's gotten an oil change, new brakes, wheels. The suspension turned out to be still good. I also replaced the lights, wiper fluid, and cleaned up the windshield from old stickers.

Standup comedy didn't materialize. I'd like to say I've been busy but the truth is, I've been out of the game for so long it kind of scares me to go back. Watching my old vids kind of tell me that my jokes suck. But hey, there's still this year.

Read an Elliot Wave Theory Book. Two, even. Realized that in the wrong hands,it's more prone to give you bullshit predictions than other techniques. I picked off what I could, however, which I am now using for my week to week trading.

Publishing the book's been tricky. I've been editing the book for the better part of last year. I'm working with an old friend to do the artwork for me and it looks like the publishing's going to take more than just early this year. Good things don't need to be hurried anyway.


Others (aka shit that may or may not happen, kinda like sex on the first date):
- Android programming
- 10 lap regular swim
- At least one marathon

No android programming. I swapped it with other technologies I could use better at work, which I still suck at as well. But hey, sucking at something means you're actually trying, right? RIGHT?

No swimming either. My regular hangout's a bit too crowded these days. Maybe I'll try again. Maybe.

Marathon? I run 5k every now and then. My android app called ZOmbies Run make it more festive, but lately I haven't done so again. I'll give it another go this month.

This year:
1. Write screenplay for at least two short films
2. Publish at least 10 articles for the InTouch magazine while doing edits.
3. IELTS
4. Check prospects for another job.
4. Continue the stuff above that I did not completely abandon (book, running, swimming, standup)

Here's to another year of dicking around and pretending that partial progress is actual progress.

Yay!

p.s. Oh yeah, updating this blog once in a while sounds good too.

When Did Video Games Hit Mainstream?

Earlier today I came across a short article asking the absolute moment that videogames hit mainstream. The answer's probably not the same for everyplace, and the answer's probably not even the same for every person but as somebody who started gaming in the Philippines as early as 1986, I can at least shed some light (from my direction) on the subject.

The first probable time you can say gaming hit the mainstream is with the release, and the subsequent popularity of the Nintendo Family computer (Famicom), peaking sometime in the early to mid 90s. Before this, gaming was restricted to godawful personal computers that required multiple floppies and amazingly confusing jargon to install. For those who bitch about having to copy paste cracks, update software and the like, try having to update your bios and experiment with IRQ/DMA/IO just to get your game to work on DOS with sounds.

No, with the Family computer, anybody with a TV, a system unit, and a game cartridge could operate it. Hell, even my mom played it. Rental gaming centers popped up for the first time too, which was the reason my parents were called by our principal when i was in first grade for cutting classes. For the first time, video games were accessible to those who have the money but don't have the techie knowledge.

The one thing that the NES fever lacked is the idea that it could be for everybody. It was a toy, pure and simple. Adults would have none of it and those few that do, are afraid of talking about it in public, as though it were some sort of weird bedside fetish.

This changed sometime in 1995, when the playstation was released. The PS1 was radically expensive initially, but it was introduced not as a kid's toy, but as an entertainment appliance. Michael Jackson endorsed it. Michael Jordan endorsed it. Superstars endorsed it and not the prepubescent models of Nintendo. The games that came out were not only sophisticated. They were mature. They had blood. Violence was more graphic. The only thing that held back its popularity was its price. At 30,000 pesos a unit, it was not for everybody.

And then something else happened. Sometime when the PS1 units finally started depreciating, piracy came in. Don't get me wrong. Piracy has existed far longer than I have as a gamer, but with the age of CDs, piracy no longer meant having to shell 200 pesos for a 300 peso discount on a cartridge. It meant, in the year 1998, you can buy an entire game for the price of 30 pesos in the middle of a video store (Astrovision, from my experience) inside a mall. At 12k a system unit and 30 pesos a game, adoption exploded. Rental shops were everywhere. Every other classmate had a system unit. Games were swapped with abandon, both old and young.

Videogames was now accessible, and for all ages. At this point I can say that VGs have already hit the mainstream, but there's one more step.

Sometime in the year 2000, in parallel with the playstation's popularity, the PC once again became a popular gaming device of sorts. Game cafes started growing around the country for one big reason: Counterstrike, a first person shooting game. Whereas as recent as 1998 people had to go to Greenhills just to be able to play a decent 30 player game, by 2000, every other mall or college hangout had a cafe that could host a game twice the number of players.  Counterstrike, at its very heart, is really the first popular multiplayer game that doesn't just have players alternating in two controllers in front of the TV. It didn't need taking turns. Counterstrike was a game that involved people and in turn, socialized gaming itself.

It did not need investment in buying a console either. Anybody of any age with 40 pesos (it was still expensive at the time) could buy an hour, sit down, learn the game, and play with friends. It became an acceptable alternative to other social activities. Even girls finally got involved (a very rare sight prior to year 2000, to be honest). Tournaments were setup, cliques formed within and outside the game cafes, and people were no longer as afraid of telling other people what they like to do. People recognized videogames, albeit still with some apprehension, but accepted that yes, some people, adults even, consider it as an entertainment. A sport.

That year, I walked into a game cafe one of five in the same mall with my friends, saw college girls playing with guys who looked anything but geeks and spent two hours in Counterstrike playing against them.

It was at that moment that I realized, videogames have finally hit mainstream.