Ninjas vs Dentists

When I was a kid (heck, even until now), I wanted to be part of some dark and shadowy world. I daydreamed about being a spy, or a ninja, or an assassin, part of some secret society, proficient in all kinds of weapons, training in deadly martial arts, mastering the art of deceit, delivering world-changing information, and of course, saving the world. Kung Fu movies, manga and anime, and James Bond were the source material for my fantasies.

Yes, being a super ninja-spy-assassin was great — except for the fact that being captured was always an inevitable plot point. Capture would involve jail, interrogation, and *gulp* torture. Typical heroes would usually cry out, “I won’t give up!” or “I won’t tell you!” as they got beat up by the evil overlord’s goons. Eventually, friends would come to the rescue, or the hero goes into some sort of rage mode and kills everyone in sight. As I got older and my source material shifted from cartoons to books and actual research, these dramatic and fantastic rescues or sudden bursts of power gave way to more realistic psychological drama and torture that was beyond getting turned into a human punching bag. Ninjas were wise to commit suicide before they got captured.

Even so, I didn’t let these details get in the way of my fantasizing. One thing that Shonen manga always taught was that willpower can overcome anything. In my head, I was still the perfect super ninja-spy-assassin thingy who never gave up and never surrendered. At least, until I got a taste of extreme pain.

Yesterday, I went for a visit to what many children perceive as a hive of evil: a dental clinic.

 
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Political Science has ruined me

My little brother (12) and little sister (14) were fighting again. I have no idea what started it, I have no interest in knowing how it started, I usually adopt the ignore-it-until-it’s-too-annoying-then-beat-both-of-them-up style of big brothering. There they were shouting, shoving, slapping, and generally contributing to the chi disruption of the whole place, and I thought to myself, are there rules for these fights? My little sibs generally follow a pattern in their fights and it would be interesting if their little fights are just a representation of a universal unwritten code for kid fights. There would be unspoken rules like:

-> Physically harmful contact from any party, whether intended or not, is justified reason for declaring a fight.

->The first phase of the fight will be on verbal territory and will compose 70% of the whole fight. Verbal attacks including, but not limited to, ad hominem insults, recountings of past embarrassments, grossly exaggerated parodies of the actions of the opposing party, taking past events out-of-context with intent to ridicule, and statements that questions the heterosexuality of the opposing party are acceptable. With regards to the relaying of past experiences, the date and recency of said experience is irrelevant.

->The second phase of the fight begins when during the first phase, a party does not retaliate with a verbal assault but with a physical one. All parties can now deliver physical blows to each other. Verbal attacks can still be performed along with physical attacks. Physical actions will be limited to slaps, shoves, pinches, and hair-pulling. The neck, the eyes, the gut, and the genitals are zones of no physical contact.

->A fight ends when one of the following events happens:

•  An adult breaks up the fight
• One party declares their opponents are stupid and leaves the fight
• When one or all parties are emotionally unable to continue fighting
• When one or all parties are physically unable to continue fighting

-> A party is declared the “Winner” when:

• The party successfully pleads their case in front of an adult, resulting in the punishment of the opposing parties, while escaping punishment or receiving a lighter punishment.
• The party is successful in emotionally incapacitating the opposing party
• The opposing party “goes too far”  by performing a physical action on a party which makes movement, breathing, or sight difficult for the said party.
• A party has given better verbal attacks, dealt the verbal attack that provoked the opposing party into entering the second phase, and successfully stood their ground in the second phase.

-> A draw happens when:

• All parties receive the same punishment from an adult
• A party leaves the fight, leaving both parties thinking they were better than the other
•  The party that opened the second phase demonstrates superior physical capabilites in it. (The party that opens the second phase is declared pikon and is no longer eligible for being declared a winner.)

*reads the above*

That does it. I have too much “free” time on my hands. Now to get to real work.

 *sigh*

Ever wonder about stuff?

I’ve always been curious about the qwerty keyboard. I kept on thinking about who the hell would think of putting the letters of the english alphabet in such an order and why that person would do so. What exactly did that person have in mind? I needed answers so I brought my hands together, cleared my mind, and asked an entity whose knowledge would provide me with insight; I typed “qwerty keyboard” into the Google search engine. Almighty Google led me to a repository of reliable information, Wikipedia from which I asked the same query.

From what I read and understood from Wikipedia, the makers of the qwerty keyboard didn’t have ergonomics, general comfort, and practical placement of keys in mind, basically everything I thought they had in mind. Apparently, early typewriters had a nasty habit of having jammed keys. The qwerty layout did the trick, and so did better typewriter designs that came years later. I guess the selling point of the qwerty layout was that the typewriter makers found it cute that you could spell “typewriter” using only one string of keys, which is pretty nifty and cute. Anyway since qwerty was the first to be mass-produced, it enjoyed the privelege of being used by almost everybody.

Decades later, some people decided they didn’t like the qwerty layout. They said it wasn’t the most practical of layouts. Qwerty preferred the right hand over the left since most of the commonly used letters were on the side of the left hand. Those people wanted to start a revolution and they introduced the dvorak keyboard layout. They said it provides better comfort than the qwerty, that it was more practical since the most frequently used letters were placed on the home line (the asdf-jkl; line in the qwerty layout), and it wouldn’t stress your hands that much. A grand idea really.

Too bad it didn’t revolutionize the world; almost all of us are still using qwerty, heck I use qwerty, everybody in the world is stuck with qwerty. But the dvorak cause isn’t totally lost since one can toggle the languages part of the computer to recognize the dvorak layout. Learning to type with the dvorak layout seems like a nice thing to do on days of mind-numbing boredom; that also goes for learning lojban.

I guess I’ll end this with a (pretentious) rhetorical question (am I using that right?) followed by a little exposition (am I using that right?). Isn’t it sad that things could be (theoretically) better by changing a few things we’d rather not since we’re already used to the old thing? I mean we can probably end a few keyboard-related injuries by learning a new layout and stuff. We’d probably type faster and maybe blog better (or worse). Anyway, I’m running out of ideas, and I’ve wasted enough of your time.

(I have got to work on how to end stuff.)

Fear the underachiever

“Hey, you should really start working your ass.”

“Eh?” That did not sound right, but I think what you’re getting at.

“I mean you should start doing a better job at your grades. We’re on our last semester and you should at least try and go out in a blaze of glory.”

“Me-eh.”  I know, I know.

“You know it’s really annoying when you just reply with those… those… whatever non-words you use.”

“Huh.”  And still we are with each other’s company.

“Anyway, what’s stopping you from actually excelling?”

“aiunno. lack of motivation?”

“And what gets you motivated then?”

“Meh?” If I knew that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

“We’re not growing younger you know, and life outside of school is totally different. You should start working. You can’t keep on thinking that you can just wing your way around everything.”

*sigh* I know, I know. If I don’t do anything, I’d most likely end up as a weird stinky old bum who talks to himself.

“So?”

“Hnnf.” Whatever, might as well stop it with the perfectionist fears and stuff. Sure, I’ll work on my grades this semester. Might do me some good.

And thus, with the seeds of a proper work ethic planted within the vessel, the beast of the apocalypse awoke. His enemies could only watch in despair as their enchantment on the vessel was broken. Without the delays of frequent procrastination, and with the vessel’s ego free from the dead weight of worries about failure, the beast only had to wait until it was his time.

For the sake of making a new post

Since I can’t really think of anything to write in my blog, I just fiddled with the templates.

Since I can’t really think of anything to write in my blog, I am reverting to my original writing style which is just plain rambling.

 Since I can’t really think of anything to write in my blog, I am just going to say how much I’ve missed rambling online, typing on a germ-filled keyboard, wasting precious time, ignoring certain physical needs like eating, and other stuff like that.

Since I can’t really think of anything to write in my blog, I am now honestly out of ideas to fuel this since-I-can’t-think-of-anything-to-write-in-my-blog train of thought. Which doesn’t mean that this post ends here.

I miss writing. I miss rambling. It’s actually the only literary skill I have. My writing self-image is that of a pretentious a-hole thinking he’s a great Mozart of letters and he’s just too lazy to unleash his talents on the world when he’s actually quite average or even worse than average. This image gets slammed into me whenever I try to do decent writing like academic papers. On average, the average student can make an average paper in about 6 hours. That paper would meet the minimum page requirement (an average of about 10 pages), be complete with citations, and would sound very dignified and academic. When I try to do academic papers, I’d first waste a bajillion hours reading online forums, webcomics, and blogs of people I am intimidated of. I’d open a separate window for online sources, searching through the dungheap which is the internet for something useful. I’ll open a word processor, type the usual header details, and then stare at the blank screen for about 15 minutes and then break down in tears, realizing that I know zilch about the topic. I’d then curse my inability to bullshit and then cut myself. After that, I’d go to class and learn about late submissions. I feel happy for a little glimmer of hope (or some other cliche for hope), think of actually doing the paper, blow it off, then “forget” all about it. And that is why I have so many blank grades in my records. Wow.

That was quite a long and senseless paragraph. And just like when I was new to blogging, I’m ending this post abruptly. Without warning. Suddenly. In the blink of an eye. Snap. Some overused line depicting a very short period of time.

God damn I missed this

Whatever.

Ting: Graaaaahrgh….

Madz: What the hell Ting, You’re typing nonsense.

Uretz: Ting has a creepy laugh.

Ting: inaantok ako

Uretz: That’s no excuse.

Madz: May taekwondo pa tayo mamaya!

Ting: sana magising by that time. ENERGY… *blag*

Madz: Mag-Cobra energy drink! (kung meron ka nito, wala kang talo!)

Uretz: Want me to wake you up? *evil grin*

Ting: eh? *innocence*

Uretz: *kicks Ting* There, waking you up.

Ting: Ooh! My tenders….

Madz: Omelette kick?

Uretz: Specialty kick!

Madz: Sana podcast ‘to no? 

Ting: *yawn*

Uretz: Whatever.

Madz: O ayan, naubusan ng masabi. Hahaha! Plurk muna.

Ting: *drools and bleeds while unconscious*

Madz: Ewww!

Uretz: *mops Ting with his drool*

____________________________________________

(no tings were hurt in the making of this SPAM post 

Evangelion fanboy geektalk

Somewhere in my old blog, I posted something about the movie, End of Evangelion. I’m doing this right now since I marathoned Evangelion: Death and End of Evangelion and to my surprise, I think it made sense. Maybe because it’s my second time watching the end, or maybe it was because of decent subtitles, but I pretty much understood the freaky end to the Eva series and it wasn’t really depressing the second time around.

 Spoiler alert!

 
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A *bad* paper on some ethical theories

 What follows is a crappy attempt at passing some academic requirement. I generally suck at requirements and I’d rather not do them. I just like the idea that I could’ve done something great if I wanted to, I just didn’t. I like that better than the harsh reality of crating something stupid and crappy. Yep, real nice and mature of me.

So, this is what happens when I cram:

I heard from one of my professors that the immortal answer of a UP student to almost any question is, "It depends." A pretty safe answer that doesn’t choose any sides until it has sufficient facts. It also allows for the moderate relativity of a situation. This statement has allowed me to join some discussions where I know virtually nothing about the topic.
    I remember "It depends." now that I am faced with questions like these:

What is the Good?
How will we know the Good?
Are we free?
Is the Good based on God’s Will, or is God’s Will based on the Good?
Is the Good relative?

    What the fudge is the Good? The meanings may be as many as the stars. There may be shallow answers, deep answers, answers that make sense, and answers that just make you scratch your head while going, "Huh?" But since this is an Ethics paper the answers are limited to the definitions of Good in the field of ethical philosophy. "It depends" comes into the picture, offering a seeming veil of objectivity as we hope to scrutinize ethical theories.

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So does this change things?

Pedro Gil, around 10 o’clock. The DVD vendors are packing up their merchandise. Road construction is still going on, something to do with pipes. Reighben said it took 2 years when something similar happened to their neighborhood. Street kids are selling roses for P20. I wonder, at what price were they selling them a little while earlier? The new fountain’s lights are still on at St.Paul’s. I think they’ve switched the water off. I still can’t get over the fact that the pipes used for it look terribly cheap against the shiny facade.

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Foot-in-Mouth Disease, you sly fox you…

Your speech on the benefits of something or another goes well. The words just pop into your head and they flow out of your mouth in a continuous stream of sense, painting the big picture in the heads of your listeners. And then the last word you say blows it all to pieces. You end up with your foot in your mouth, and a very bruised ego. Happened quite recently to my dad.

 
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A Brat’s Statement

I stand by my right to curse, swear, bitch, bullshit, and generally be an asshole whenever I am asked to do chores. If that means I'm spoiled rotten, then yes I'm spoiled. I'm a brat, ladies and gentlemen, a whiny good-for-nothing spoiled brat.

 
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The Adventures of… Mistress V!

 "A- are you sure about this?" Chris was feeling very uneasy. Rachel's parents were on an out-of-town trip and the only people in the Perez household was him and Rachel. He knew he shouldn't be uneasy, he had waited for an opportunity like this for quite some time. He knew what was going to happen, what they were about to do; and he knew that Rachel knew. Still, butterflies were raising a typhoon inside his stomach and his heart was pounding like crazy.

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I am soooo… emo

I never got to watch the Sugarfree concert last Saturday. Long story short, we got to the Music Museum and were faced with the sign: SOLD OUT.

Yes, very depressing, I know.

It's the reason why I got myself a copy of Robert Jordan's "The Great Hunt", the second book in the Wheel of Time series. God, I'm such a comfort shopper.

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The problem of being a cellphone recluse

Sometimes, I feel that my phone is wasted on me. Usually, I'd just leave it lying around some part of the house and I wouldn't even see that I have a very important message 'til I remember that I have a cellphone. I'm one of those people whose phones are not a part of their body and having zero load isn't really a crisis. I rarely load up credits and I rarely idly contact people. I have an anemic text life.

It's not really a problem and I only let it bother me when I want it to. There are some perks to being an almost incognito cellphone user. My inbox is clear of junk mail, particularly chain text messages that promise to send some horrible spectre of death to you or someone dear to you if you don't pass it on to everybody you know. When I do receive one of them dread messages, I first fret over the fact that I don't have enough load and contacts to save my soul and then laugh about it and hope for the best. Presently, no bloody couple/man/woman/baby has made a surprise visit to me and I'm still very much alive and updating this here blog thing you young'uns like to have. -Don't believe a thing! I actually thought those text messages were a joke since nothing happened whenever I ignored them until I came home one day and found all those horrible specters of death having a macabre rave party in my house!-

Other perks of having a not -so-living text life would be that my phone battery doesn't really need much charging since it isn't constantly beeping and vibrating. Anyway, I mostly don't care about all that. There are just some times when I regret not making that many social ties using my phone; like today.

(a pretty long and pointless intro, isn't it?) 

 
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At first I was afraid; I was petrified

I've been thinking about the song I Will Survive and how it's usually connected to gay people. It's just that I Will Survive is almost always presented as the national anthem of the gay community. A gay man in the movie, Boat Trip (Two guys accidentally board a gay cruise ship and are going to be stuck there for a week. Main character falls for hot female dance instructor and pretends to be gay in order to get close to her.) tells the main character that you can't be gay without knowing the lyrics of Gloria Gaynor's classic. So what is it with this song? Why am I even asking? What's the point?

 
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Why being a girl would be nice

My sister walks in and says, " I just watched Transformers!"

Turning away from the computer, I ask, "Again?"

"Yes, and for free. I love being a girl!" 

There has to be some kind of consolation for being a guy…