Friday, July 28, 2006

antz

every summertime, i get insects crawling out of the woodwork in my apartment. this season, my first summer in this new apartment, its a lot of ants. so far, they've limited their activities and grazing to the kitchen sink. it seems funny because back home, it doesn't take long for ants to be where you don't want them to be: areas with food. my ants here haven't discovered my dining table yet, which has boxes of cereals, a bag of cheetos, bread, sugar dispenser, chocolate powder, and a can of pringles. i mean, its ant heaven.


my ants usually converge on the sink when i leave used pans and plates temporarily, and try to salvage any scraps they can find. when i catch them milling about the area, its deluge time, baby! there's a certain amount of glee (and ok, ok, sadism) to wash them insects down the drain. hey, what do you want me to do, pick them one by one and deposit them on the window sill, say hello, bye-bye? you crazy.

to reinforce my theory that ants here are dumb (well, i guess the Philippine ants are similar), they don't learn from the experience. ever. i mean, if i were ever tried in a court of law in the Insect Kingdom, i'd be serving multiple life sentences, minimum, for being the worst serial killer of ants in the last few weeks. i could argue that perhaps some ants didn't drown, and they're still finding their way down in those drainage pipes. that could cut my sentence by about, oh say, a few decades. but anyway - ants never learn that they're gonna get swept down the kitchen drain when they hang around there. shouldn't the survivors communicate this danger to their brethren and preach about finding less-risky food ventures?

so they keep showing up everytime i wander by the sink. i even saw them trying for my upper shelves and cupboards. i finally got out and bought a can of Raid insect spray. sprayed the lot of them, and they all died. sprayed along the nooks and crannies. i see less and less of them showing up now. the insecticide must be working.

now i feel like saddam gassing the Kurds. he didn't feel any remorse either.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

OTG

Temporarily. But changed the blog addy just to make things consistent. More alikabok soon!

Friday, July 21, 2006

Thursday, July 20, 2006

cesspool

by popular demand (actually, 1 out of 2), we have set up another blog to put in the various minutiae we individually scrape from the Net, or any other crap we may want to throw out there. since we're forwarding the same crap to each other anyway, why not put it in a public forum, eh? and so was conceived

the blog about nothing

and oh, by the way ... i do not look like Jed Mandela (who is also not an offspring of Nelson Mandela).

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

whose side are you on?

Browser Wars, 2006.




as long as i have google browser sync, themes, and all the nifty extensions, i'm a Fox all the way.

Monday, July 17, 2006

home



some good news on a monday morning. now if the rest of the world just cracks down on those adventurists in the middle east ...

heat is on

the widgets don't lie ... its gonna be burning the whole week!



cash calamari

i'm not a big fan of squid, but man, this movie is a lot more fun than X3, MI3 and Superman Returns (which i haven't seen yet, but i can make the assessment now) ... combined.


not to mention it banked another $62M on its 2nd weekend, upping its treasure chest to $258M. that's not even counting the take from business overseas. it already holds the title for best opening weekend ever (beating the first Spider-Man), and is on pace to break the original Pirates' total in less time.

and with that out-of-left-field-but-logical cliffhanger, i can't wait till 2007. this is how you do a sequel (in a trilogy)!

note: the guy playing Lord Cutler Beckett seemed familiar, and it bugged me the whole time. turns out its Tom Hollander, from one of the lesser-known movies i've seen and liked ... the very thought of you.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

good for something


photo from the New York Times

who else wants to see the Israelis kick Hamas and Hezbollah ass?
i know i do!

why is everyone trying to appease these terrorist quasi-states? this is a step up from Zidane bearing the brunt of the criticism from the headbutt incident, but no one seems to want to take a hard look at the Italian "victim".

ironically, Zidane's France is one of those countries who treat Hamas and Hezbollah with kid gloves.

Friday, July 14, 2006

aldo maro

this?


or this?


everybody involved.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

newsflush!

just click on the links! (safe, no virus)

i beg you, mr. Sam Raimi. please reshoot Spider-Man 3!!!


a Suri Cruise sighting! its true; see how lovingly her mom holds her!


it wasn't Zidane at all! this is a travesty!!!

fish

some old crap, but done in 20 minutes or less, easy.

----------------
ALBERT EINSTEIN'S RIDDLE

ARE YOU IN THE TOP 2% OF INTELLIGENT PEOPLE IN THE WORLD? SOLVE THE RIDDLE AND FIND OUT.

There are no tricks, just pure logic, so good luck and don't give up.

1. In a street there are five houses, painted five different colours.
2. In each house lives a person of different nationality
3. These five homeowners each drink a different kind of beverage, smoke different brand of cigar and keep a different pet.

THE QUESTION: WHO OWNS THE FISH?

HINTS

1. The Brit lives in a red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The Green house is next to, and on the left of the White house.
5. The owner of the Green house drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the Yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The man living in the centre house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
12. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water.

ALBERT EINSTEIN WROTE THIS RIDDLE EARLY DURING THE 19th CENTURY. HE SAID THAT 98% OF THE WORLD POPULATION WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO SOLVE IT.
-----------------

maybe Einstein was thinking of the world back then. people have smartened up some since (while some regressed or stagnated, true).

unless i want to live in a shopping cart ...

The 10 most overpriced places in the U.S.

Rank

City Cost-of-living rank Median home price

1

Essex County, Mass. 102 $373,750

2

San Francisco 112 $720,400

3

San Jose, Calif. 111 $746,800

4

Honolulu 95 $625,000

5

Cambridge, Mass. 104 $390,400

6

New York 109 $528,700

7

Tucson, Ariz. 74 $248,600

8

Oakland, Calif. 108 $720,400

9

Boston 106 $390,400

10

Los Angeles 98 $563,900

Sunday, July 09, 2006

world cup final

after still being tied 1-1 at end of regulation, neither side made any headway in the first overtime.

and then the beginning of the end came in the 2nd overtime ...


the headbutt shown around the world (ok, thats like 3 seconds after)



zidane gets red-carded, and flopping, regardless of the situation, became the best weapon in soccer



a sad farewell to Zissou



Barthez just wet his pants knowing France now depended on him


PENALTY SHOOTOUT:

now its up to these two ... Barthez and the Buffoon, i mean Buffon



Azurri draw first blood (1-0)



Wiltord equalizes for France (1-1)



Materazzi gets past Barthez (2-1)



Trezeguet and the bad kick (2-1)



De Rossi (Assunta's cousin) makes it (3-1)



Abidal keeps France alive (3-2)



Del Piero makes a buffoon out of Barthez (4-2)



Barthez rapidly considers potential nations to apply for asylum



Sagnol delays Italian celebration (4-3)



who woulda thought the Italian savior would be someone named Fabio?



and that's that!



Def-a-Gon 16 (Defeat Agony #16)



real men hug each other


and now i have to rush to get to attend Mass, knowing i have to wade through the inevitable gaggle of drunk Italian-Americans littering the streets in celebration.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

patriarch act

in a little way to honor his turning 70, i am putting down 10 things i remember/ruminate about the past 34 years my father has been with us. they are not by any means a complete and total reading of the man or written in chronological order or by order of importance; they're more of little anecdotes of stuff that i remember at the moment, being the first-born son (that we know of, at least). i have an 11-year lead over his next child *lol*. there are probably better stories to be told by my family, or even his own friends and acquaintances. but these are mine. for now.
-

Breakfast Club
my dad always wakes up very early, even more so during the last decade. for some reason, he said needed less hours of sleep and this didn't seem to affect his energy during the day. being the first person up in the household, he usually prepares breakfast for everyone. it was simple fare, but i feel we kids didn't appreciate him enough, especially during our school years. what i miss most is having everyone together during mealtimes - each in their usual seat, exchanging stories and banter. when i lived in Manila and went home for summer vacations, or weekend jaunts, he would be waiting by our porch, as i disembarked from the bus (our home was just off the national highway). i usually took night trips, which means it would be breakfast time when i got home. we would complain a bit when we find that breakfast was just last night's recycled food, but we would eat it anyway, in those rare times he wouldn't open any canned goods. since then, breakfast is always my most important meal of the day, partially as a nod to his practice of having something - anything - ready for us when we open our eyes to greet the new day.

and i just have to mention this: the only time he ever made tocino for us (made, not cooked from a bag of Pampanga's Best or Pampanga's Pride) - and that was the first time i heard of the word salitre (saltpeter, the nitrate/additive that makes tocino taste better, but yes, unhealthy, just like MSG) - he hit it out of the ballpark. way out.


Excite Bike
one of the earliest memories i had was him taking me to school in this old funny-looking bike - not a kid's bike, and not the predecessor of a mountain bike either (where you could brake by reversing the normal motion of your pedalling). it was of medium height, with a backrest, a ringer and a basket in front. the lengthy seat accomodated us both, and during my elementary years that was my "limo", although it was more of the hatid rather than the sundo. my dad used to wake up early (as he always does) and head out on that bike to get the newspaper and hot pandesal. it used to be my joy too to find him returning with my weekly fix of Funny Komiks (thought i was raised on Sesame Street, comics, local or imported, was really my TV). this was also the first bike i used to learn how to ride (it was a movie moment: without any trainers, i thought my dad was still holding the bike while i was pedalling - and then i glanced at my shadow and i saw him too far away to be supporting me ... i'm riding a bike! on my own!). towards my latter years in elementary, i took that bike as my own and i had my own adventures with it. but it usually broke down with age, and considering my classmates had their spanky BMXs, this was a constant source of frustration. i think i got my own sort-of BMX later, but that first bike my dad used had all the best memories.


The Wander Years
when i was a kid, i had separation issues especially after my (biological) mom passed away, or even in her waning years. my dad's work took him through the backroads and far-flung towns of the Cagayan province, and more often than not, he had to take me along (perhaps mostly by necessity). i used to cry and insist on tagging along. there was one time i just woke up on a late afternoon in some transient house in Sanchez Mira. i looked out and the town was having its fiesta and there was a perya (local carnival) at opposite block. of course, a curious child will always wander around, which i did. and so at an early age i learned to be dispatched and left in strange places. further on, my dad used to ship me off with strangers (his friends/acquaintances) who were going to the big city (Manila) - sort of premeditated hitchhiking. we didn't have much money for bus fare then; maybe he paid them with legal advice. one thing for sure: if i didn't feel like doing that and dealing with strangers, he'd surely write me a letter - there was one where he wrote about growing up and strengthening sinews - and i'd feel a lot stronger. i think he wanted me to fend for myself at a young age because he did the same. how else did he manage to wander to Cagayan from Pampanga in the first place? how else did we wander as a family during my growing years (finally settling down back where i was born)? look at me: i wandered from Tuguegarao to New York. my kids should wander from New York to Mars.


The Wander Years Part 2
one thing i can marvel at my dad was his steadfastness and firm responsibility to a sick spouse in her decline. aside from my dad's work, which took us around Luzon quite a bit, was my mom's failing health and her choice of going to faith healers for relief. perhaps not also having the financial means to resolve those issues played a part in that. for the most part, we know that faith healers are quacks. however, they did provide some relief for her, and its to his credit that he went along with her wishes. i can barely remember the places where we went for her healing sessions - a house in Novaliches and Liliw, Laguna come to mind - and coupled with these trips was the constant nomadic journey, staying with relatives for a time, then moving on to the next. through it all, my dad persevered. when we finally came back to Tuguegarao, there was a sense of stability somehow. my mom died 4 years later, and we only moved once since (to our present home).

if i am to regret anything about journeys, it is that my dad's constant traveling (even after he retired) ultimately took its toll, and he suffered that heart attack a year ago while on a bus going home to Tuguegarao.


brownout + math - cards = knowledge
brownouts are still a common occurence in my hometown, even to this day. can you imagine not having electricity for better parts of the day, especially during the summer months? back then, we even had all-nighters. cursing the electric company was a frequent neighborhood pastime. but despite that, he still had this notion that maybe we should not waste our time idling even if there wasn't any electricity. case in point: in my grade school (i matriculated in a Chinese school, for reasons i will try to explain later), we had separation of English/regular classes and the Chinese language classes. in one of those Chinese classes, you have to memorize (by rote; hey i didn't like it either) the multiplication table, and then recite it in front of the class. in Chinese. i had difficulty then (who wouldn't? right, the Chinese!). one blackened night, i somehow learned to shuffle cards. yeah, learning how to shuffle cards at home during a brownout is a good way to pass the time. not according to my dad. he came home that night, and i proudly showed my potential as a casino blackjack dealer; he shook his head and said "e yung multiplication table, alam mo na?".

this explains why to this day, i still calculate in my head in Chinese. no kidding.


Abode Acrobat
we used to rent the ground level of a 2-story home in Tuguegarao. when my dad remarried, they decided to get our own place (always the first important thing to do in your life, kids - always!). the place they settled for was on the hilly outskirts of the town - this is where we eventually settled, and the house exists to this day. this was during my high school years. my dad had this grand plan of building a nipa hut/bahay kubo at the back of the main house where we can sit back, relax and enjoy the country breeze. i had fun envisioning that, bring my friends over, having a good time.

the only trouble with that is: the bahay kubo came first before the main house, and we lived in it for 2 years.

i quickly had to hide my disappointment during those days when i was with the work crew, building our first home (!) with bare hands. they even had to import the nipa (it was of the anahaw variation) from somewhere else. i couldn't believe it. i had already bragged to my friends then that we would be having a "rest house". turns out the "rest house" was the rest of the house. there wasn't even any running water, and my dad drove his trusty old Renault (bought from our last landlord) to pick up gallons of water everyday. yeah, money didn't come easy in those days. neither does it now.

the main house was finally built two years later, but parts of its main structure were built from the original bahay kubo (which we moved, yes, bayanihan style, from its original location). to my parents' credit, the location was primo mucho - my friends still came over and we used have picnics and swim in the river by our backyard. people used to visit us and always marvel at the place (i say used to, because now we have more neighbors and they have bigger houses). but for most of my high school years, the bahay kubo was my home. my siblings had their growing years there. by the time the main house was completed, i had moved to Manila for college. but i still remember how my dad pulled that hat trick on me.


Visitation Rights
back in 1988, i started my college education in the big city and for out-of-towners like me, you either have to stay at a boarding house with total strangers or stay with relatives. luckily, i always had options on the latter. my first year in college, i stayed at a grandmother's house in Malate and renewed ties with relatives i barely knew. i had a great year there, back when the jeepney fare was still a peso, the ROTC still existed, and simple pleasures included going to Harrison Plaza and blowing my scholarship stipend on music tapes. said scholarship stipend was a boon to my dad, because it relieved him from paying my tuition fees for 5 years. and perhaps to express his gratitude for his savings and to remind not to get too comfortable being let loose from the confines of home, he showed up one night (a 10-hour trip from my hometown, back in those days), and took me to watch a movie. yes, "Die Hard" will always be memorable for me. it would be the first time he visited me when i would be living away from home, but it wouldn't be the last (i'm sure he did the same for my brother when he attended our provincial seminary for his high school education, where they were cloistered 6 days a week). back then, when telephones were rare, i used to get letters from him letting me know when he would be traveling. i always looked forward to those days. Yipee-kayay.


Do The Write Thing
my dad never wanted to be a lawyer. he said he only took up law at the behest of his grandfather; he wanted to be a writer/journalist. he never stopped writing, be it long letters of instructions to people, his child's latest essay or sweet words to his wife. if only for the loss of that particular joy after his stroke, i weep for him. perhaps doing good in English classes, ending up as editor of our college journal, writing prolific love letters in my heyday, and currently, maintaining this blog, that's still his genes and blood flowing through me. he wrote with a pen; my pencraft had long deteriorated ever since i got my first computer. i can only imagine if he thrived in this digital age of blogging, instant messaging, dictaphones and what not. he'd probably be an internet activist or an e-columnist. i wished i kept all the letters he sent me, whatever state of mind they were written in then. rummaging through my pile, i recreated one for this piece.


He Does Not Compute
speaking of computers, it is always amazing to think that he invested his retirement money in something he didn't know a thing about - computers - by putting up a computer school in Aparri, which is among the northernmost enclaves of the region (don't believe the phrase boasting of the length and breadth of the Philippines: "mula Aparri hanggang Jolo" - if you wanted to be accurate, it'll be "mula Batanes Islands hanggang Jolo"). this ran completely against logical business sense, because that area wasn't exactly that economically viable then (back in 1995). but he didn't want the profit - he loved helping people, even to his own detriment. so instead of settling for a tour abroad, he sank his money into a small place, cajoled friends, recruited new ones, and kickstarted a venture that is celebrating its 10th year at this time. the school, which offers vocational and technical courses, doesn't seem to run out of students, and its fortunes have risen and fallen along with the economic climes of the area itself. they've moved to a new, bigger and better location, which is always a good sign, and presumably each graduating class have gone on to seek their own fortunes elsewhere, instead of ending up as the stereotypical disenfranchised. i would think, and i know he felt the same way, that only those who don't strive enough end up as failures. i hope he'll still be able to witness the continued success of the school for a long time.

and he never learned how to use a computer. imagine.


Chinatown
i have these weird Chinese ties. my kindergarten year was spent in a Chinese school in Dagupan, Pangasinan. when we moved back to Tuguegarao, i had my grade school education in a Chinese school. that means most of my classmates were Filipino-Chinese. i even had a classmate who transferred to our school in Grade 5, and it turns out he spent his kindergarten year in ... yep, in the same Chinese school i attended in Dagupan. imagine the catching-up of two 10-year olds who had barely anything in common. why did i get into Chinese schools in the first place? my dad had this vision ... even before anyone noticed the Chinese population explosion in the last 2 decades. 'Learn Chinese, and you may be able to use it in business someday', he said. all i learned was to curse in Fookien. this seems to elicit laughter in some circles.

my first job - and my present job - is still with the same ... yes, Chinese software company. my dad found the ad in the newspaper back in 1994. i was lollygagging around, passing my Engineering board exams but had no clue what to do next with my life. and then he sent for me and showed me the ad, brushed up the resume, and my mom went along with me for my interview. she was even mistaken for being the applicant. honest injun. i got accepted, then the rest is history. stuff of legend.

and where did i go for my first-ever trip abroad? no place other than ... you guessed it ... China! with 4 trips in 6 years, that must be more than what other people could ever want. anyway, it kept with the 'stranger in a strange land' theme from my growing years, and it led to better places, like where i currently reside.

guess what, dad? i didn't learn Chinese much. but thanks anyway - you got me here.



the cover of his latest album, Dekada 7


for 30-plus years of nurturing ... through thick and thin ... thank you, Dad.

Friday, July 07, 2006

Spain, not Cagayan

Pamplona!



un día ...

Thursday, July 06, 2006

this just in

leatherface underground!

and NJ is now (almost) open for business. delphi can hit the casinos again.

signs of the apocalypse

Fear the Tae!


... Taepodong, that is.

its been almost 2 years since Team America. i guess li'l Kim needs some attention.

-

tell me if i read this right:
"gamblers express disgust at casino closures." (a.k.a. No Jersey, Day 6)

because of a budget impasse involving whether or not to raise the sales tax to 7%, New Jersey state shuts down government service and directly affected are the casinos (particularly along the famous Atlantic City strip) since they need state supervision and the state workers can't perform their supervising functions because the state doesn't have the money to pay their salaries.

what is this? did NJ just become another Puerto Rico?

and the gamblers? you're gonna lose your money anyway, just give it to me or to charity. and by 'charity', i don't mean your regular hooker on 43rd St. and 9th Ave.

-
just after my pal j-go ranted about the further absence of justice in this world with the (untimely/deserved) passing of Kenny Boy, here come the conspiracy theorists.

i mean, c'mon, yeah, check the coffin!!!!

-

and who knew putin liked k'ttens?

-

and over in the Gaza, we have another Israeli-Palestinian shootout. Can we just settle this by putting them both in Sunday's World Cup finale?

yo-ho-ho

so who's the girl in this ensemble?

... wait -! they're all girls!!!


and its final and confirmed: this man is Jack Sparrow's papa.

j.i. go

there's no ICQ chatlog to mine as a smash hit this time, although the emails still have a bite now and then. so, let me rummage through my years and years of keeping crap (and having it accumulate dust), and see what i can find.

a-ha.


let's debunk his theories in this chickenscrawl of a note:

(1) its been years and the girl-robot named Wendy has now moved on to Europe and creates her own A.I. nanobots which she will use to conquer the world. this means he lost the PhP600 bet he made and i hope he used it to buy his 2 adorable daughters some books, popcorn and a couple of ice cream cones. if he still hasn't, that means he now has to do it for 3 kids.

(2) despite the fact that i got him a The Rock shirt back when there was still a WWF (not the panda-saving treehuggers), he still doesn't have Rock-like chutzpah to say this to my face. especially after i tossed him out of the ring, smashing the announcers' table when he landed.

(3) my comics are not crap, as he has begrudingly learned through the years. and he won't admit it, but he wants to kill me for my collection, because i'm just feeding him crumbs. as you can see from the note, he barely repressed himself admitting that he peed in his pants when he finished Danger Girl.


To more conspiracy-theorizing, beer-swilling, trash-talking, hell-raising, them-fighting ...

here's to another 88 years, jabroni.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

frogstomp

1-0

Frogs led by the Big Z face the Flops for Sunday's World Cup Finals. they had a couple of scary/lucky moments (what couple? they had a lot during the 4-minute stoppage time), but managed to hang on.

Portuguese coach and English-slayer Luiz Scolari will probably leave after this and perhaps resurface down under ... which brings hope to my boy Jego's fancying the up-and-coming Socceroos (what faith?) for 2010.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

success!


Godspeed, people.


"It's time for the human race to enter the solar system."
- Dan Quayle, former (!) United States VP (!!!)

krauthammer. not.

upset!!!

apart from the crazy balmy weather (rain or no rain?), my afternoon was further spun into orbit with the flopping pretty boy mascara-ed italians stunning ze germans, with 2 goals in the 2nd overtime.

i was already resigned to see the krauts win via penalty kicks, dozing off several times during the two overtimes. and then - bam! italians score one. still celebrating that goal after the long drought, they still get another - bam! the germans got blitzkrieged. scheisse! fick!

230



happy 4th of July, G.I. Joes!

always remember your forefathers' American Dream.

Monday, July 03, 2006


Journey, Inverna Lockpez

big idiot

stupid program.

do we not have the same shit back home?

join for your 15 minutes of fame!

Sunday, July 02, 2006

americana

watched this red, white and blue over the weekend .

not at par with other Pixar gems (Toy Storys, Finding Nemo), but as always, being story-driven is always a Pixar strength. Owen Wilson fits the role/voice of Lightning McQueen, a brash rookie racecar poised for bigger things, if only he finds a heart beneath the hood. Cars, like The Incredibles, is not exactly geared toward the kiddie set, but there's enough action, color, and great lessons to be picked up even by most short attention-spanned child.




is it just me, or is there something inherently creepy about this New York Magazine cover?

Saturday, July 01, 2006

upsets

won by PKs again!!!

the English went home as well, creating havoc with my Final 4 bracket. on penalty kicks to boot. turns out Rooney was red-carded and Pretty Boy Becks went out with an injury. this is also the 2nd time they've lost to Portugal on PKs.

then the French defeat the Boys from Brazil, 0-1, giving me a 1 for 4 prediction rate. geez. but i didn't notice any jubilant celebration when i passed by my neighborhood Boulangerie-Patisserie. should i now even try to predict the World Cup finalists? okay (heaving breaths): France invades Germany, which is kinda weird if this was 1942.

didn't watch the matches, but that might've saved me from drowning myself in a tub of ... Chocolate Devotion at the local Cold Stone Creamery.