Of kettles and teapots

It's interesting to see how Pinoys react to bigoted staments and/or racial slurs made in mass media, e.g., TV, newspapers and radio. (There's one happening right now.)

When you call out someone for his questionable character, I think that it's just appropriate that you judge yourself according to a high standard of ethos as well; otherwise, your response would only make you... a kettle.

So no, you don't call Chip Tsao a "fag@#%" because his hips look funny in the picture; and no, you don't diss the Chinese altogether, and worse, involve the Indonesians in the mess; and yes, maybe I shouldn't be pointing these out myself because I've had my own share of name-calling during my younger and more immature years. (I don't regret writing this though. :-P)

It's just one guy's opinion, and seriously clouded at that.

Sundo

For Sundo, scriptwriter Aloy Adlawan copied the story from Final Destination, wherein a group escapes Death so Death comes after the group. Script has no logic and framework. The cast dies one by one for no apparent reason other than... trip lang nung writer.

It's a shame that the actors, who turned in decent performances, were stuck with such an unreasonable script. Everything happens at random... it was almost improv theater! Could it have been improv?

Aloy: O Glydel, ganito ha.... maiihi ka, so papasok ka sa bulok na CR ok? Eh mababagsakan ka ng scaffolding, so anong gagawin mo? Action!
Glydel Mercado: Aaaaaaaaay!!!!

Aloy: O Hero, ikaw naman. Ganito ha... nasa burol kayo, tapos... BIGLANG MAWAWALAN NG ILAW AT MAKUKULONG KA SA KWARTO!!!! Shet, ang galing ko.
Hero Angeles: Huh? Ba't naman mangyayari 'yon?
Aloy: Shut up, ok?! So ayun... tapos... tapos... bubukas yung gripo sa lababo, babaha yung sahig tapos.... matutumba yung umaandar na electric fan... so... so MAKUKURYENTE KA!!!!!!!!!
Hero: Huh? Eh di ba brownout nga?
Aloy: Shut up nga eh! Patayin kaya kita sa script!
Hero: Wag naman po...
Aloy: Ayan, pinatay na kita.
Hero: Shet.

Aloy: O Mark, ikaw naman...
Mark Bautista: *gulp*
Aloy: Bumibili ka ng barbecue... eh biglang may tumalsik na siga sa mata mo so pano acting mo nyan?
Mark: Aaaaarghh!!!!
Aloy: Ang galing!!! O, so bulag ka na di ba?
Mark: Huh? Eh natalsikan lang ako ng siga di ba, ba't mabubulag na ko?
Aloy: Loko ka pala eh... sumasabat ka pa ha. Eh may dadating na van, sasalpok sa yo, durog utak mo, o loko.
Mark: Shet.

Aloy: O Katrina, ganito sayo...
Katrina Halili: Yes, Sir Aloy...
Aloy: Nasa spa ka kunwari... sayang naman kasi, ang seksi mo pa naman...
Katrina: Yes, Sir Aloy...
Aloy: O eh tapos... MAKUKULONG KA SA KWARTO!!!
Katrina: Nanaman? Di ba ganyan na yung kay Hero?
Aloy: Eh loko ka pala eh, ikaw kaya mag-isip ng storya ha? Ang hirap hirap kayang mag-isip! Hirap na hirap na ko mag-isip! Napanood mo ba yung obra ko na When I Met U?!?! Alam mo ba kung gano kahirap sumulat ng istorya tungkol sa magboyfriend na nag-away tapos magbabati din sa huli?!?! Ha? Ha???
Katrina: Sige na po...
Aloy: Shet. So ayun, malo-lock ka sa loob ng kwarto tapos... SOBRANG INIT NA NG STEAM!!! Sige, arte ka iha, arte ka...
Katrina: Aaaaay!!!! Aaaaaay!!!!
Aloy: Ang init-init no? Shet, ang init ng steam... para kang... NASUSUNOG!!!
Katrina: Aaaaay!!!! Aaaaaay!!!!
Aloy: Ayan, so namatay ka.


Aloy: O kayong tatlo... pano ko ba kayo papatayin? Shet naman, ang hirap hirap na mag-isip!!!
Sunshine Dizon: Baka naman pwedeng itira nyo na ko, after all, ang galing galing ko umarte as a troubled doctor...
Rhian Ramos: Sir Aloy, bulag na nga ako eh, baka naman pwedeng mabuhay na din ako.
Robin Padilla: O eh lalo naman ako, eh ako nga ang bida.
Aloy: Shut up! Ako ang hari dito, ha. Walang sinabi yang acting nyo at galing ni Topel sa pag-direk sa galing ng istorya ko! Di nyo ba napanood yung When I Met U, ha?!?!
Robin: Eh baka lang naman kasi pwede...
Aloy: Shut up!!! So ikaw Sunshine, tabunan mo ng unan si Rhian...
Rhian: Ho?
Aloy: tapos ikaw Rhian, multuhin mo si Robin tapos talon kayo sa balcony...
Robin: Ha?
Aloy: tapos ikaw Robin, multuhin mo si Sunshine tapos... tapos...

End of improv.

Earth Hour on March 28

My blogspot site is currently hosting a banner ad for Earth Hour before I turn it into Google Adsense (hehe). I got the idea from our company, which has pledged its participation to this WWF-funded cause (and which I was tasked to write about in our company website).

On March 28, everyone is highly encouraged to turn off their lights for an hour starting at 8:30pm. The objective is not to save electricity (although that's an added bonus) -- according to Time's piece, Earth Hour '08: Did It Matter?, the energy saved by turning off the lights for an hour doesn't "make an enormous difference" in cutting down carbon emissions.

The main point is to gather support and participation from at least 1 billion people. This will then be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. The meeting will determine official government policies to take action against global warming, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol.

You can pledge your support by signing up here.

Chuk Chak China

This particular development over the Spratlys issue from Inquirer elicited a few giggles from me:


Under the dramatic banner headline, "China shows might in South China Sea" is the feeble, government response in bullet point: "No move yet to counter Chinese Navy."

Yet? Counter? Do they mean that at some point, we are willing to place our bangka side-by-side with what is touted as China's "most modern patrol ship"?

Aaah... baka naman isakay nila si Manny Pacquiao dun sa bangka, lol.

In all seriousness, mahiya naman ang China no. It is way up north to even meddle with the Spratlys affair. We can understand the logic behind Vietnam and Malaysia's contentions which are based on geography, but not quite China's, which is based on ancient records that include documentation on "fantastical creatures, such as mermaids."

In other words, based on its Spratlys logic, China also holds claim to discovering mermaids and perhaps, even unicorns, gnomes, the Care Bears and Smurfs :-P

Among its other claims, China also says that "the islands have been an integral part of China for nearly two thousand years and that neighboring countries and European Powers took advantage of China's poor condition and diversity to impinge on its sovereignty."

We can replace some words and come up with: "The islands have been an integral part of the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia since the dissolution of Pangaea until a neighboring country, China, took advantage of their poor condition and diversity to impinge on their sovereignty."

End of argument.

Congo's well-dressed

In Congo, there's a movement called SAPE or La Societé des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes (the Society for the Advancement of People of Elegance). According to this article, followers of SAPE or sapeurs "wear $10,000 jackets and $500 shoes," only there's one problem: they live in and amidst poverty.




In an interview with BBC, director-producers Cosima Spender and George Amponsah, who made a documentary on the subject, explain the symbolism of high fashion for the sapeur:

George: It was really one way of coping with a society that had broken down. For a young person growing up at that time, there wasn't much to grasp hold of to help you feel better about yourself. Politics was out, so you found a lot of cargo cult religions in the Congo. The Sape is essentially one of these. The distinctive look of the sapeurs was also a rebellion against one of Mobutu's dictatorial decrees, which was that everyone was expected to dress in a very traditional, standard African costume - the abacost.

Cosima: The sapeurs in Paris and Brussels are using these European status symbols not to integrate into European society but to 'be someone' back home in the Congo. This separates them from European fashionistas. They aren't so much concerned with proving anything to the outside world but rather to one another, among their own community. These people have grown up with no kind of social structure to rely on. The Sape is a mini-state providing its own social strata: president, ministers, acolytes and so on.

This would make me look at well-dressed persons a bit more differently: their designer clothes, shoes and handbags may actually be a call for help.


Photos by Hector Mediavilla. Click to view his other breathtaking photos.

Of good accidents

"My life has been a series of well-orchestrated accidents; I’ve always suffered from hallucinogenic optimism. I was broke for more than 10 years. I remember staying up all night one night at my first company and looking in couch cushions the next morning for some change to buy coffee. I’ve been able to pay my father back, which is nice, and my mother doesn’t worry about me as much since I got married a year and a half ago."

- Excerpt from The New York Times piece by Evan Williams, Twitter C.E.O. and Blogger founder

For someone who actually never planned any of this in life (that's me), this articles strikes a deep chord.

Cheers to good accidents!

Lesson on humility

I don't know who Radiohead is but I'm willing to be a fan for this:

When Radiohead refused to meet Miley Cyrus and Kanye West at the Grammy Awards last month, the starlet threatened to "ruin" them and the rapper refused to stand for their performance. Now the In Rainbows band is fighting back.

Cyrus kicked off the feudin' during an appearance on the Johnjay and Rich radio show and rambled on for more than six minutes about how the band dissed her after she begged her manager to set up an introduction.

"I'm like, these are the people I really want to meet," she said. "I'd freak out. They're my rock gods. These are the only people that I would cry over…My manager asked and said, 'Miley's really obsessed. And they were like, 'We don't really do that.' "

She continued on in disbelief about the Thom Yorke band's lack of interest in meeting the Hannah Montana, admitting she was so disappointed about the diss, she left the show early.

"I left 'cause I was so upset," she said. "I wasn't going to watch. Stinkin' Radiohead! I'm gonna ruin them, I'm going to tell everyone."

The three-time Grammy winners responded by putting the teen in her place…

"When Miley grows up, she'll learn not to have such a sense of entitlement," the quintet said in a statement.

From E online.

The peen's social value

From GMANews.TV:

"... What redeeming social value does displaying the male genitals to prurient or innocent audience young and old posses to justify it?"

- Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. on a fraternity event in Sampaloc which was similar to the Oblation Run.

I'm looking at mine now and I can't find an answer, lol.

Kelan

When we were in high school, my barkada and I thought we were all that. Boys would be after us to no end. (Seriously. They make all sorts of advances and we'd have to slap them just to make them stop. Ang arte no? Lol.)

Then we entered college. In college, we saw photos of ourselves in high school and we could barely keep a straight face as we looked totally ridiculous in them. "And we thought we were all that?" we asked ourselves.

So we proceeded with college and we thought, "Never mind, we're so much better-looking now than when we were in high school."

Then we left college. As yuppies, we saw photos of ourselves in college and I, in particular, could barely swallow the fact that I, in fact, looked ugly.

So as a professional, I allotted a chunk of my salary in improving my style and total look.

And then there's now. A few minutes ago, I saw my photos from what, just 2-3 years ago, and my gulay, I thought I already looked pretty decent then, but judging from these pics, I judged wrongly.

Right now, I'm already feeling pretty good about how I look but gee, I wonder if I'd find my current look atrocious, say 4-5 years down the road?

Ricky Reyes, I need help, lol.

Tidal wave

From the CNN article, Is AIG facing collapse? The losses explained:

Will AIG collapse?

It's possible. The extra $30 billion AIG will get from the U.S. government is the equivalent of the little boy putting his finger in the dike to stop the water flooding in.

This is incredibly serious as it makes Citigroup's recent losses look insignificant by comparison.

What would happen if it did?

It would quite simply be the biggest financial disaster in history -- completely catastrophic. There hasn't been a single insurance bond trade in the world that has not had AIG's stamp on it either directly or indirectly. The whole insurance market would be trashed.

The U.S. government is desperate to ensure this doesn't happen as it would have a major ripple effect on the global financial system given the extent of its operations. Thousands of businesses and individuals with insurance policies underwritten by AIG would be left exposed.

The resulting domino effect would have obvious social implications with the unemployment rate in the U.S. for example predicted to hit 10 percent by the end of the decade.

I'm seriously scared. Apparently, AIG's collapse will eclipse that of Lehman Brothers's, and that had already caused a catastrophic chain of events.

May we not feel the ripple.

Not cheesy at all

In this case, it is not good for it not to be cheesy.

Despite the absence of advertising (or perhaps, I haven't been watching enough TV or reading enough newspapers), KFC's Cheezy BBQ Meltz has been selling like crazy, or to use American Idol's Kara parlance, ridiculous.

I've been eating KFC for the last three days, and in all three instances, customers would agree to wait for 10 minutes just to have the Meltz. On my third day, I decided to do just that, although instead of 10 minutes, I and Mon had to wait for 20 minutes because the Hot and Crispy variety of its chicken wasn't ready.

(Digression: One of my major... beef, sorry for the pun, with KFC is that they like making customers wait for chicken -- whether it's Hot and Crispy, or Original, or a thigh or breast part. They'd always just have say, the wings or the legs, which are a tad tinier compared to the other chicken parts. Moving on...)

So we waited. We must have been in our 30th minute of waiting when we started following up our order like crazy. In the 40th, the pleasant and apologetic manager came to our table and explained the kitchen's dilemma -- something about the oven only being on low-heat -- and frankly, I didn't bother listening to the excuses long enough because all I wanted was to eat!!!

Eventually, after about 5 more minutes of negotiation, mainly to replace what we wanted -- breast and thigh parts in Orginal and Hot and Crispy (aside from the fact that earlier, KFC didn't have Pepsi so we settled with Mirinda) -- we got two Original ribs and Meltz. (Whenever I spell out Meltz with a "z" I feel like I'm losing a few of my IQ points).

Here's a poster of Meltz:



All that cheese and beef do seem enough to whet one's appetite.

So I took my first bite imagining the thrill of having to wait for almost an hour and finally tasting heaven...

... then I felt like I was chewing cardboard paper.

I pried my Meltz open and didn't have to wonder. I took a shot with my cellphone:



It only had two pieces of taco chips, a pinch of meat and tomatoes, and oh, MAYBE A DROP OF F***ING CHEESE!!!!! I mean seriously, can you even spot the cheese there? It's like meeting someone online who sends you a photo looking like Orlando Bloom, but when you meet in person, he's f**king Gollum.

I was extremely disappointed and would've not eaten more if only I wasn't so hungry from waiting.

KFC's Cheezy BBQ Meltz retails for P85. Unless your KFC branch serves good quality Meltz (mine was at the Liberty Center in Shaw), you'll be better off having the real deal in other restaurants.