yet another dodong pic

Here's a watermelon to quench your summer thirst. Enjoy!

Bring the Summer Into Your Office!

1. Bring lots of citrus-y fruits to the office. Consume with haste. Burp.

2. Fill office mug with C2 Green Tea, or a drink of your choice. Put lots of ice cubes. Top with umbrella toothpick. Drink slowly.

3. Hang summer umbrella on the ceiling. Make believe you are in a beach resort with many computers.

4. Think of a foreign country to vacation in. Pretend you are there.

4. Doze off.

Papaya Dance goes international

After People Power, this is the Filipinos gift to the world.

Kawasan Falls claim lives

i was actually there.

i was with my family last Friday in Kawasan Falls to spend the night. Kawasan is located in Matutiniao Badian, Cebu. it's almost 4 hours from Cebu City, but the scenery is worth it.


since it was a holiday, there was quite a number of people -- locals, white foreigners, and koreans. once in a while, some men would climb up the side of the falls to dive. this would make the crowd cheer and clap for the diver. (wherever you are in the resort, whenever you here loud cheering and jeering, you will know someone is about to dive.)

when the korean was about to dive, the usual cheers came. but instantly i knew something went wrong when i didn't hear a splash by the time he should have hit the water below. instead, we heard a loud thud. people began shouting shocks of horror. the korean diver fell on some rafters just making their way out of the falls.

when you decide to go rafting, the instructor will tell you to lie flat on your stomach as you negotiate the narrow opening of the falls. you will emerge from under the falls -- the force of flowing water hitting you like millions of tiny hands jabbing you everywhere. it was in this position the victim found himself suddenly crushed by something from above. it was his fellow korean student.


the fall killed the victim instantly. the diver was injured. someone else on the raft was injured. locals rushed to the scene and carried them back to the town proper (a good 30 minutes). korean ladies were weeping aloud rushing from behind. they all packed their bags and left.

the victim was carried by three men: one held his head, another his torso, another his legs. he had a wound on his chin. there was something white and frothy in his mouth. i remember well. they passed in front of me.

i want to post nice pictures of my Kawasan vacation. but somehow, i don't feel so right about that.

Baba Yetu

Baba Yetu was composed by Christopher Tin for the video game Civilization IV. the lyrics is in Swahili, and it is derived from the Lord's Prayer. the translation from the net is a bit clunky because turns out Tin really didn't pay so much attention to Swahili grammar.

big note: the first line from the Chorus should have read, "Baba yetu, Yesu uliye" -- Yesu is Jesus in Swahili. it changed to "yetu" due to recording changes.

i love this song!



Here are the lyrics with translation:

CHORUS Baba yetu, yetu uliye Mbinguni yetu, yetu, amina! Baba yetu, yetu, uliye Jina lako litukuzwe. (x2) Utupe leo chakula chetu Tunachohitaji utusamehe Makosa yetu, hey! Kama nasi tunavyowasamehe Waliotukosea usitutie Katika majaribu, lakini Utuokoe, na yule, milelea milele! CHORUS Ufalme wako ufike utakalo Lifanyike duniani kama mbinguni. (Amina) CHORUS Utupe leo chakula chetu Tunachohitaji utusamehe Makosa yetu, hey! Kama nasi tunavyowasamehe Waliotukosea usitutie Katika majaribu, lakini Utuokoe, na yule, simama mwehu Baba yetu, yetu, uliye Jina lako litukuzwe. (x2)

CHORUS Our Father, Jesus, who art in Heaven. Amen! Our Father, Jesus Hallowed be thy name. (x2) Give us this day our daily bread, Forgive us of our trespasses As we forgive others Who tresspass against us Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from Evil, and you are forever and ever! CHORUS Your kingdom come, your will be done On Earth as it is in Heaven. (Amen) CHORUS Give us this day our daily bread, Forgive us of our trespasses As we forgive others Who tresspass against us Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from Evil, and you wake the dead (?) Our Father, Jesus who art... Hallowed be thy name. (x2)

holy week preps

next week is holy week. so to set ourselves in the mood, i have extracted these timely movies from my dvd collection:


The Passion of the Christ. this modern adaptation of the last days of Christ is quite good. i have been to at least 3 churches that show clips from this movie during communion Sundays. the gore factor i believe is quite called for. plus the visuals are stunning.


The Last Temptation of Christ. this movie is not the gospel. i repeat, this is not the gospel. this is Martin Scorsese's adaptation of the gospel story. it is very controversial, it has been banned by the catholic church some years back. i know of one person who absolutely had to stop the film because he cannot allow the way Jesus is interpreted in some scenes. i repeat, this is not the gospel. open the Bible and read Mark, John, Luke and Matthew. those are the gospel books.


The Greatest Story Ever Told. i just got this copy this afternoon. i will post a review after i see it. i do know that it took USD 20 million to make this film. Hmmm....

One Night with the King. for good measure, i will throw in this movie based on the old testament Book of Esther. i love that book! when i read it, i had a movie playing in my head. i was pleasantly surprised when i found out it has indeed been made into a movie. the movie, admittedly, is rather lame: script is long-winded, actors over-act, even the title is not good. but the Book of Esther rocks!

does anyone have a copy of Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings? or does anyone know where i can get one?

Happy Pi Day!!!

Today is the international day of Pi. :)

i have no generation, show me my motivation

the title of this post comes from the great Switchfoot song "Ammunition". this is a reaction to the growing hatemongering directed towards the manila elitist crowd in pinoy blogosphere.

first of all, let me agree to the universally accepted notion that my generation's motivation seems to be vanity. i have written about this before, and i do not retract it:

we are absolutely in love with ourselves. we have learned to equate great looking clothes to a successful career; fair skin to a happy love life; toned body to healthy living. our older siblings' generation had their depression, our parents' had their free love, our lolos' had their revolutions, we have our looks. and by george, do we look good. go to any mall and stare at us in our pamporma attire and tell me i'm lying.

(note that i am in no way encouraging vanity. but i will stand by my generation's motivation. i will not feel sorry for it as i do not expect the 90s generation to feel sorry for its depression, heck alternative music was born that way. the 80s had its yuppies who taught as a thing or two about financial security. the 70s had its hippies who shamed the world of its penchant for wars.)

for so many times our government has failed us. our leaders have become hopeless. my generation has never been really inspired. in school, teachers ask us, "What makes you proud to be Filipinos?", and we scratch our heads thinking of a bluff that could perhaps merit a good grade for recitation. many of us think the church is a joke.

devoid of inspiration, we look at ourselves. we began to make each other our own muses.

that said, i am not shocked to hear about my generation acting like complete fools, prancing around bars, burning money like nothing, all for our quixotic quest for ultimate hotness. i do have problem, however, when people start saying that we are only about that:

Over at Embassy, where Imelda’s grandson promotes Monday nights and the lady herself recently appeared for a twirl across the tiles, [Tim] Yap said consciences were not bothered by the yawning gap between rich and poor in the city.

“There is this mind-set, which I think is so passe, that says: ‘The country is in shambles and the country is having a hard time and you are out there partying.’ But this generation is guiltless when it comes to that.”

REUTERS

i'm sorry Mr. Yap, but you are dead wrong. we in this generation might fall all over ourselves trying to act and look hot, but if there is anything we have not lost, it is our conscience.

in order to see this conscience of which i speak, you need not drive far away from Embassy. near the edge of makati, you will find Washington -- a well-known nook of apartments upon apartments of bed spacers. all very affordable. this is where most of your generation sleep at night after long hours of partying.

you see, when the music stops playing, and the makeup is washed off, we go back to what really matters: we party to de-stress from work; work is employment; employment earns us money; money is what we spend for -- who else -- our families. most of our hard-earned money goes to our siblings' education, our lola's medication, our parent's needs.

think of the thousands of filipino nurses who go abroad. we go on and on about the nurses helping the country's economy -- the new heroes of the nation. this is the fact: they are leaving the country not because they care for our nation, they do that because they care for their families! that's a different story altogether, although no less heroic.

this generation has gotten tired of people power. we have stopped believing that a change in governance will feed the poor of the nation, solve graft and corruption and make the Philippines a First World Country!

we have disillusioned ourselves from thinking we can change the whole system. instead, we have focused our attention to the immediate, to the closest possible group of people we can help -- our families. and we do it by working our assess off. early morning shift, graveyard, overtime, overnight, weekend work, work from home, on-call duty. heck, we'll take them all! you want consciousness?! guilt?! ask the young people who work for you, Mr. Yap. chances are, some of them are sending kids to school.

so now let me post a picture of my generation. Reuters should talk to these people, not to Tim Yap.

tales of mere existence

there is a bunch of other videos from this guy Lev at YouTube. Lev, you are a genius!

dst

(a poem by banne, the coolest girlfriend ever)

the hours do not mean
what they used to mean
here in this planet
where the sun suspends its setting
the hours do not say
where my shadow must fall
but the sand in the glass
fall steadily
and the snow lingers
(anyway)

where you sleep
the clock does not forget
but how do you love me
on daylight saving time?

a rule for kings (or queens)

tonight in church, one of the verses that struck me was this one from the old book of Deuteronomy:

“When he sits on the throne as king, he must copy for himself this body of instruction on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. He must always keep that copy with him and read it daily as long as he lives. That way he will learn to fear the Lord his God by obeying all the terms of these instructions and decrees. This regular reading will prevent him from becoming proud and acting as if he is above his fellow citizens. It will also prevent him from turning away from these commands in the smallest way. And it will ensure that he and his descendants will reign for many generations in Israel." - Deuteronomy 17:18-20 (NLT)

a little backgrounder: here were the Israelites clamoring for a king to rule over them. God says: Hmmm.. i'm not so sure if that's such a great idea. the Israelites say: Come on, we want a king like all the other nations that surround us. Then God says: Ok, but here are the rules....


one of the rules is above. the king will have to do all those things as a rule. even before he will be crowned king, he has to write down all the scriptures by hand in front of the priests. this ensured that the king will know all the scriptures word by word. also, this solved the practical problem of the king not having a copy of the bible for himself -- since there were no printing presses then and owning a copy of the bible was virtually impossible.

the king will then have to read the scriptures every day of his life so he will: 1) revere the Lord, 2) obey the rules, 3) be humble.

i propose a similar rule for the future presidents of our country. any takers?

PLDT MyDSL woes

with banne out of the country and all, i have succumbed to the added expense of a DSL connection. of course i chose PLDT myDSL, as i have heard numerous horror stories about SmartBro -- the only other competition, in my opinion. of course there is Globe Visibility, but the price of a plan was ridiculous.

anyway, 2 weeks into my subscription, i noticed i was never able to load a YouTube video without having to wait for forever. i never really thought about testing my bandwidth download speed until last week. thanks to Speedtest.net, i was able to check exactly how much of my money's worth i was getting:



imagine that! i was running even less than dial up could give me. at times it would even go less than 44 kbps. to be fair, i was connecting to a BayanTel server in Quezon City which PLDT would soon advise does not have the same setup as theirs. instead, i should be connecting to Singapore's NewMedia Express. well, even that gave a measly 132 kbps:



and so i called up 172, and reported my problem. the 172 guys would keep on telling me that the report have been updated (i don't know how much updating 1 report can take) and that technical people would soon be contacting me. well, 3 days passed and i was getting a bit pissed because i was only able to talk to one technical specialist (who asked me to look at my modem and check the twinkling lights) and he was only able to raise my speed to 250+. i called 172 hundreds of times again just trying to get them to give me a technical specialist, but they would not. suffice it to say, i was angry.

so i did something totally desperate. i sent an email to customers@pldt.com.ph and cc'ed some of PLDT's Vice Presidents! (i could have cc'ed the President as well but i thought that would be going too far.) now, the obvious question should be: how the hey did i get the contact numbers of the top honchos?! well, i will have to direct you to Google for you to do your own research. ;)

anyway, this is the letter (edited so you will not stalk me):

To: Customers@pldt.com.ph (PLDT)
Cc: MEDINA, Jose Carlo A. (PLDT); NAZARENO, Napoleon L. (PLDT); NARBONETA, Jose Rodel I. (PLDT); MAGBANUA, Herbert M. (PLDT)
Subject: Will PLDT please help its customer?

Hello,

I am Brian Magalong, a PLDT myDSL subscriber (under my mother's name _______________) from Consolacion, Cebu. My telephone number is _________________.

Since the start of my subscription, I have never been able to achieve the maximum bandwidth which I am paying for. With my subscription, I should be able to avail of a speed equal to or around 1000kbps. Until now, I average 100 kbps, with a range of 40kbps-150kbps.

I have been following the advertised procedure for availing customer support. I have dutifully and patiently called 172, and recounted my problem many times. Always, they say my complaint report has been updated. For all my efforts, however, I was able to talk with one technical support personnel only once -- last Feb 26, 2008. From 40 kbps, he was able to raise my speed to 200 kbps with the promise that the speed will increase in time. Obviously, his promise did not come to pass.

For the past few nights, I have been assured that another technical support personnel will call me up. I stayed up until midnight last night and the night before just waiting for a call. None came.

I am sending this mail as a desperate last resort. Will this company not do anything about my problem? Won't anybody help? My family pays our telephone subscription religiously. Do I at least deserve a good service?

Brian Magalong

(you will have to forgive the melodramatic rhetorical questions in the end. i wrote that while i was sleepy, frustrated and angry.)

the next day, we received around 10 calls from PLDT! my mother must have gotten a good exercise from walking to the phone to pick up the receiver everytime. the day after that, technical specialists came to our house and checked everything. they stopped short of climbing our poste to check if the telephone lines had been worn out! a Manila-based, official sounding boss called me on my cellphone assuring me that the problem is being monitored and that i should text him personally if i am not contented with the troubleshooting from their technical group. whoa!

and then i got this reply to my email:

From: QUIMBO, Corazon R. (PLDT)
To: _____________________
Subject:RE: Will PLDT please help its customer?

Maayong hapon. Your email happens to reach me and I would like to know if your problem is already resolved.

of course, i did what every sane guy would. i Googled her. assured of her identity, i replied:

Hello Corazon,

Last Saturday, there were some PLDT personnel who came to our house to check on the connection. They found that it was indeed unusually slow, although they did not see any immediate reason why.

Over the weekend, they conducted several tests/configuration changes from their end but the speed did not improve. They said that on Monday (should be sometime this morning/afternoon) a technician will personally check on the line. Worst case, we might abandon the faulty connection altogether and just change telephone numbers. I believe this means we will be connecting to a different "node".

I arrived tonight and found my download speed to be 1Mbps. I am very glad of this, although I still hope the speed will be consistent for the rest of the day. As I write, another PLDT technician (from another "group" he says) is calling me over the phone to conduct some tests. I think they are still working on this.

I have been contacted by numerous PLDT personnel these past few days. They have been very polite, and I would like to believe that they are all doing their best to solve the problem. They have all asked me to keep them posted of any changes in my download speed. Tomorrow, I will inform them of the 1Mbps speed I got tonight.

Thank you for your concern,
Brian

to this, our friend replied:

Thank you for your feedback. Yes, that was one of our Technical Specialists based in Pasay, Manila working under NOC (Network Operations Center). We are monitoring the equipment we deployed and customer's feedback like yours greatly help us to improve.

You may want to give this email to your other friends experiencing problems with our new equipment.

Thanks again,

Cora Quimbo
Technical Manager
PLDT Makati

meanwhile, all those times i was at the office, my mother -- my dear nosy, mother -- had essentially befriended all our PLDT callers: from Manila, Pasay, Cebu, who knows where else. from them she learned that my email has indeed caused a rather large raucous in the mothership of PLDT and is putting unusual pressure on the technical team to solve the problem. turns out, my area has long been suffering from irregular DSL speed connections, and they have just deployed new machinery (forgive the term, i am not an ECE major) to address the problem. one even said my email was a "blessing in disguise", a Filipino phrase to mean "something really shitty happened, but at least something good came out of it".

and now the happy ending:



whoa!!! me happy.

twisted 8 !!!

today, it finally came. the 8th installment of the twisted books. did i mention i have all of them?

and because "the universe takes care of me," i have ms zafra's dedication:

yup, she can write her name that way. i'm so glad she did not misspell ours.

the ideal man

Happy Birthday, Ernie James!

Leaplings don't get the usual number of birthdays, so ernie had to splurge on this one. Here are some pictures:


Jola hernan cortez, near Off Roads. nice little Jola place.

the jola cake which we must not eat inside store premises. way to go with your policies, jola!
[update: actually, the cake can be eaten. ernie forgot to serve it. bwahahahaha.... way to go, er!]


maumau molina!!!! it's been a long while :D

Jola doing a lap dance on the birthday boy

Jola chasing gladys

mat mat. who will throw you dagger looks if he doesn't like you. but he likes me :D

Happy Birthday!!! :)