Man On A Street

It's been about four months since I last posted anything here. I was caught up with moving back to Cebu and readjusting and looking for a job and waiting (and seeking) for a place to stay—one I can call my own. Thank God (or the powers that be), I've gone through that checklist and now's the time to let things settle. Which means I probably will have more time for posting here at blogger. I didn't abandon sharing short stuff at Facebook though (artwork and pictures and links). Only I don't like Facebook's recent about-face on automatically importing posts from Blogger. I used to enjoy the Facebook feature that what I post here soon gets imported to my Facebook Notes page but that's no longer possible, thanks to the Google+ vs Facebook war. War's biggest casualties are the ones caught in the crossfire. Not that the Facebook blog import was perfect—it was crap—HTML tags would appear on the Facebook notes and you could not edit imported notes so I h...

I placed this note in the public folder of one of the Local Area Networked (LAN) PCs in the school unit where I spent most of my time from 2003-2007. That was in 2004. Back in those days, there was huge excitement about Microsoft and the Business Software Alliance doing raids (with the help of the National Bureau of Investigation) on Internet cafés and schools. Any PC found with pirated Microsoft Windows was to be confiscated and fined PhP100,000.00—each pirated software title installed in the PC would have gotten you fined PhP100,000.00. Needless to say, most school PC operating systems transformed from pirated Windows 98/XP to Bayanihan Linux (the government promoted distro) overnight. Some people made a killing selling cheap OEM Microsoft XP Home Edition (without the accompanying new PCs). The bad news was those PCs installed with Linux couldn't update their software through the Internet and some software didn't work. It made Linux "suck more" in their eyes. Here...

[Blogger] I didn't set out to do Baybayin fonts in the first place but one thing led to another so . . . Here they are so far (shapes done in Inkscape and assembled in Fontforge ): Note: the newer ones do not follow the Lopez cross virama but the 'J' shaped 'pamudpod' introduced by Antoon Postma and adapted by the Mangyan Hanunoo. I also use the Bikol 'Ra' and—purists may cringe—I use extra kudlit on the newer fonts to indicate 'i' and 'u' from 'e' and 'o.' Traditionally, the double kudlit was used to double the e/i or o/u syllable. Baybayin Electric (download from this link ): Originally aiming for a more 'runic' feel that's easy to read in small sizes. Ended up with this: Baybayin Electric Monospace version (download from this link ): Baybayin Hilig (download from this link ): "Hilig," in Tagalog, means "passion, favorite thing/activity;" in Bisaya it means "slanting, oblique, ...

Back in September 12, 2010, I posted the above pic on Facebook—an approximation of the earlier version of Pinoy Expats-OFW Blog Awards (PEBA, http://www.pinoyexpatsblogawards.com/ ), Inc's logo (I don't have access to a better pic—no copyright infringement intended). I said I "like the allusion to a butterfly—flitting and fleeting, vulnerable, solitary—wanderers of the world, in search of a better flower ... to be an OFW means broken families, little support from one's roots ..." Also, if you turn the butterfly head-up, the red side will be to its right—state of war—palaban. I'm glad they now simplified the design— Papilio lorquinianus is hard to draw well: The new design looks more appropriate too—the patterns on the wings look like people (male and female)—carrying the "body" with the year written on it. It's nearer to the idea of remittances keeping the Pinoy economy afloat hehehe. Please support the Pinoy Expats-OFW Blog Awards. Their Faceb...

[written 25 feb 1999 -- EDSA anniversary] (Aaargh!) (better?) What kind of insect or worm is that—yung dine-display ang katawan/labi ng kanilang biktima for a camouflage or adornment of themselves? Is it a spider? Para'ng tayo rin—Patis Tesoro and a host of fashion designers peddling the "ethnic chic." Ayala at ang Bagong Lumad ... the identity-confused hip militants who favor anything red and "ethnic"—you're displaying the skins of your victims—the bits and pieces of a mangled culture—cos we don't have our own.... There's nothing to fall back on—that's the secret of Filipino versatility—we embrace the popular values very easily and excel—don't we, Lea? Is there really nothing to fall back on? 'Course not! Jaime Lichauco says we have an "imposed" culture, not actually a damaged culture—in the same page, he says we are a "cultural schizophrenic"—a "fragmented" Filipino personality (Exploring the Powers of Your...