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...

Nov 7, 2010 They've been saying it for a long time—they finally got him today. The rathole where i live, there's a shack on the side where 2 old people stay, my landlady and the senile (poopdropping) landlord. They had an old old dog tied near the outdoor tiled sink and they've been saying it's useless so they're gonna get rid of it one day. That was Bachoychoy—really old stinker—too old to stand up except to eat, ask for water, sleep, poop, etc—looked like a grizzled brown chowchow with mangy hairless red arms (inflamed) ending in long claws. I used to feed him leftovers—he was grateful and my hand would sometimes get too slow to avoid his grateful licks. Anyway, at 6am today—I was in bed still groggy from the Tanduay rum—I heard the old landlady say "There's a gate near the sink, you can come in there..." Those were instructions for the executioners—I covered my ears but did me no good. The first two blows were followed by long howls tinged with regr...

I'm at my old college today -- Visca, Baybay, Leyte. I figured i'd spend the night here before going to Tacloban Saturday. I'd like to ask around for anyone experienced in building biogas digesters to fuel electric generators. I'm on an errand for my sister heheh. Had dinner with 3 campus paper editors (it was like a mini college editors' congress hehe) and they showed me around the publication office. Ahh, same old computers I remember from 3 years ago... still running on pirated stuff ... except that time when most computers abruptly switched to Linux... I discovered PCLinuxOS in 2004, at the height of the Microsoft-Business Software Alliance raid rumours at Visca. Heheh, everybody was scared because the penalty for being caught with pirated software was confiscation of your computer plus P100,000 fine for every pirated title identified -- including windoze. Some even hid their pirated CDs up the kisame. Over a weekend, many PC units in Visca were converted to Bay...

Seems a spammer got hold of my Yahoo!Mail addresses—or worse, my password—using my email address, it forwarded this message to several (but not all) contacts in my Yahoo! contacts list: Dear friend ~~ 2--p I have a Japanese friend who tells me that he works in a Japanese company. I visited the company he works for and found their products quite favorable. And the products have many versions, such as European version, American version, and the Asian version etc. All the company's products have photos in the internet.I suggest you take a look in this website: www.zol-trade.com. You will certainly be interested in some products. Thank you k--g o--^ Yahoo! Answers ( 'dear friend' emails ) says my computer and email password could have been compromised by a malicious program (which records keystrokes) and now part of a botnet. A TechWorld article tells me to get rid of Windows since it's a Window's problem. I looked in the Yahoo!Mail 'sent' box—the spam were sen...

Today I needed to get a new postal ID and since I'm new to Cebu (2 years isn't long enough), i googled. Found this nice tutorial courtesy of Maris—turns out to be a friend of a friend back when I worked at Convergys Banawa. Very thorough tutorial, i managed to follow da directions to where da postmen were hanging out. It was a hot and sticky 2pm so many of the postmen had their shirts off. Felt like a warehouse. The postman for our sitio (Sitio Verde, Labangon) wasn't on his table yet so I chatted with the postman-next-table. The conversation gave me hints on how getting a Cebu postal ID goes: "How long have you been living at Labangon? "2 years." "So you're not eligible for voting in the barangay yet!?" "Uhh..." [dunno] "Sez here you live in an apartment—how long?" "2 years . . ." "I usually don't approve applications with apartment addresses—people there don't last long, some get their IDs and disapp...

The drive from Clarin, Bohol to Tagbilaran can take one and a half hours so i usually have fun noting the names of the businesses along the way: Polbos ('powder') Lumber, Sumampong Lumber, Tomo Lumber, Balane ('magnet') Welding, Udtohan ('noontime') Store . . . So many Pinoy family (last) names. Even though there's the Claveria edict of 1849—the Spanish authorities made us change our surnames into Spanish for tax purposes. I'm not surprised. Bohol, after all, is Dagohoy country—Governor General Claveria's edict came just 20 years after the 85-year Dagohoy Rebellion so many folks could just have ignored the decree altogether. I wonder, if most of us retained our Pinoy last names, maybe we would see businesses like these today: Camatayan ('death') Community Hospital, Hupas ('expired') Pharmacy, Ilad ('swindle') Microfinance, Pildi, Pildi & Pildi ('loser') Attorneys at Law, Pan-os ('spoiled') Restaurant, Maca...

Ayos! —was finally able to import my (originally Friendster ) blog from Blogger to Facebook—Facebook wasn't able to import posts earlier than Oct 17 2008 though, so just head over to da Blogger acct for those. [Since Facebook will also import this post, it's written with Facebook readers in mind.] Now if only Mandigo Wordpress theme were available for Blogger . . .

Saw this post today—about importing Friendster™ blogs (basically Wordpress™ blogs) to Blogger™. I managed to import 50 (of the 59) posts—will do the rest tomorrow as Blogger only allows 50 imports per day. This is just my third Blogger post. Anything after the first post and before the post on Feb 2, 2010 was imported from Friendster. I've not been writing posts at Friendster for a long time [Friendster is now mostly for the teenage crowd (and their camp followers)] and I'm looking for a good blog system to settle on. Blogger is there as part of iGoogle but I'm not satisfied. Not yet . . . . UPDATE Nope, it wasn't 50 posts imported. There were errors so it was more like 40 and now the tool is not allowing me to import some more. I just deleted the imports and Google time again—Eureka! Here's an easier way to import blogs from Friendster to Blogger: 1) Log on to your Friendster blog and download your blog export file: It will be saved as a wordpress.yyyy-mm-dd.x...

The heading for my first post said "I'd improve this later . . ." that turned out to be five years ago . . . 2005. Man, I was wordy back then. Less wordy now . . . If I weren't on a cram course on CMS, I wouldn't have found this blog again. Hope this continues. Ahem.

A friend tells me how he went drinking with a buddy who guards a vacant lot owned by Cebu's Aznar family—it had a lot of trees. It was almost dusk—for pulutan they shot down a fruit bat off the trees. This one had a baby clinging to it. They ripped the baby off the dead mother and it screamed and screamed this high-pitched scream until they too added it to the menu. [It's heartbreaking how phone cams allow one to easily create snuff films]. You're lucky, Stellaluna. Tastes like chicken—a very bony chicken. People often say exotic meats taste like chicken—monitor lizard, python, frogs . . . (so why don't they just get a f@#^ng chicken and have done with it?). And why hunt at all? There's better food at the market. You can always get a burger —predator's prerogative my @##—predators kill out of necessity, not for fun. It's hardly a sport—flushing out and killing unsuspecting animals just for the heck of it is not sporting—give the game a gun and let them skin...

"I would rather be hated for what I am than loved for what I am not." ~André Gide The author appears to know the problem but still needs time to work on the real solution. Advice: You do seem to know you're obnoxious (and that's good because knowing the problem is half the solution). But if you say you don't want to be plastic about it, then, for once, can't you try to be really—actually—uhm—lovable? That would make the world a better, safer place. No, the world does not really hate you—it doesn't have the time. How can one truly hate/love what one doesn't truly know? The world just does not love you. It saves time. The real opposite of love is fear. One fears what one does not understand. More blood has been shed because of fear than because of hate. Strike now, sort out later—that's been the way for many. Real hate should be reserved for the incorrigible. If you are one, then consider the hate well deserved. My real enemies—and my real friends—ar...

I like Joe Talisic's design for the Proudly Pinoy logo: It bested 297 other entries. I've always thought the best symbol linking these islands is the sea -- and the gem of the seas would be a pearl or a shell -- like the Department of tourism logo I agree with their jab at the London Olympics 2012 logo ("it's not a logo, it's a brand" my @$$): "really really awful." July 4 is almost here. Happy Independence Day (from America) Philippines! Edit Feb 17, 2010: The proudly pinoy website has been inaccessible for some time.

Don't go gentle . . . I am fascinated by the fact that human beings laugh; they are the only animals to do so. They are also the only ones who know they are going to die. ~Umberto Eco (in an interview by James Runcie, 1989) And don't forget tears: Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they might have been. ~William Hazlitt

Mall-day—just strolled around—oohs and aahs in the appliances section—large LCD tv screens with high-definition demos. Something's wrong with movies shown on HD—very very clear but the "movie-like" quality is lost. It's as if i'm watching "The Making" and not the movie itself—movements are fast, fluid and everything but i feel like watching the shooting, not the movie itself . . . the 'believability' (suspension of disbelief [?]) is gone. I can imagine HD would be fantastic on many documentaries . . . but on movies? Falls flat. A movie, like any good work of art, relies on the creative participation of the viewer's mind. Too much definition leaves nothing for the imagination. HD is to movies as politically correct is to language—it kills the flavor of the thing. Charles Bukowski sez: "An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way." HD in movies is t...

"As with most fine things, chocolate has its season.  There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate." -- Sandra Boynton, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion" (Brought to you by Fortune command line program, samples here .)

Keep It Simple S__[nsert the rest of favorite 's-word' here]! Today I just remembered a really big word -- ' discombobulate ' -- and found out its real definition -- exactly the opposite of what i always thought it was. I often thought 'discombobulate' meant to clarify, make less confusing, organize. Just the very opposite -- it means "to confuse". I dunno -- 'combobulated' sounds like a very confused situation to me -- so to discombobulate -- at least to me -- meant to take the 'combobulation' out of your life and make it simpler haha. Words sounding like what they mean are called onomatopoeia -- i don't know the antonym -- words sounding the very opposite of what they mean -- it's like, the word for 'whisper' is 'bang!' I know there's a word for them -- diplomats and politicians use them all the time . . . " Bhangbhangduc "!