You know you're living in 2004 when...

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.
7. You make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial "9" to get an outside line.
8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.
10. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.
11. Your boss doesn't have the ability to do your job.
12. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home.
13. Every commercial on television has a website at the bottom of the screen.
14. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
15. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.
16. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :)
17. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
18. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
19. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
20. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself.

Go on, forward this to your friends ...you know you want to!

(fresh from my inbox)

Olympic suggestion

a couple of days ago i was watching the hammer throw event in the olympics on tv. i couldn't help but think about how dangerous the job of those guys measuring the distances where those heavy things fell. shouldn't those guys be wearing protective clothing like helmets instead of soft hats? accidents do happen.

it also occured to me that somebody should perhaps invent a hammer with a built-in tracing device to make measuring distance, and perhaps velocity, done in real time. i guess to could be applied to other thrown objects like the javelin and the discus.

I pity the soldier

across the street from camp aguinaldo (the HQ of the philippine armed forces) one finds that there are several, perhaps a dozen, lending and finance companies having offices in the buildings opposite the base. i always pass by that street whenever i go to the office and everytime i do so i always think of how debt-ridden our soldiers must be.

with their meager salaries, they and their families often times seek the help of these companies when they find themselves in dire financial need. now i'm not condemning these companies for their services, they have legitimate services and often they become saviors, but i wouldn't be surprised if those they've saved become unhappily dependent on them.

i really pity our soldiers. they have specialized skills but their salaries are less than that of those unskilled filipino laborers who find themselves working abroad. this is the state of the filipino soldier, a member of the one of the most advanced armed forces in asia in the 50s and 60s, but currently the lousiest.

the root of the problem i think is that filipinos are not proud of their armed forces. i also believe that a great number of us are still suspicious of the military especially when they recall its role during the martial law era. they have lost respect for the institution. my generation perhaps never had respect for it in the first place, unless one belongs to a military family. so the bottomline is that we instinctively reject the military while demanding it to do its job of helping and protecting us. we refuse to supply it with respect and support yet we expect it to be modern and professional while performing extraordinary tasks.

a country's military institution, i believe, should reflect the best of what that country is all about. if one considers this, then the filipino will continue dissing and abusing himself as long as he does the same with his own boys in arms.

It happens to me

it started out as a lazy stroll along the "gimik" places in our place with my cousin, when i decided to go to the local internet cafe (since the phone company hasn't yet sent their people to install the new phone line) to take a peek at my server's activities. i discovered that it has failed to process some transactions. in a flash, i left the place and my cousin and now i'm at the office, at midnight!

anyway, i've fixed the problem by reseting the server but i've decided to hang out for a couple of hours more to investigate the bugs in the server program. right now, i don't see them. the server's running as smoothly as i expect it to run. strange. it behaves itself when i'm around but fouls up when i'm not.

Philippine troops to withdraw from the Philippines

"Since we withdrew our troops from Iraq not one of our troops have been kidnapped. Obviously my much criticized negotiations have truly worked. To prevent further problems of hostage taking in Mindinao and in other parts of the Philippines we are going to withdraw all troops from the Philippines. I realize that this will be disruptive to those in the military and their families but this will surely prevent further hostage taking of our troops. My ministers in fact our working out plans to move all non-Muslims citizens from our country. We haven't quite figured out where we all will go yet, but that is a minor detail when faced with the threat of hostage takings and beheadings"

(by one of the masters of parody himself, the curt jester)

Lose money by putting them in banks

basic finance theory states that transaction or service charges diminish the value of a financial asset. so according to what i've learned in school, if investors, savers or depositors discover that such charges are made on their bank deposits or stock transfers, there is a greater likelihood that they'll shift their investments to forms which are cheaper and more profitable.

it is this principle that long governed the imposition of service charges on routine and mundane banking transactions that has long kept banks, at least here in the philippines, from making their clients bear transaction costs.

but it seems that banks recently no longer observe this principle of costs. a couple of years ago they imposed an 8 peso charge for every withdrawal made through the ATM. now, i've discovered that they've also imposed a 1 peso charge for every balance inquiry transaction. this move is apparently done to make up for the losses banks have been incurring from their main source of revenue, loans. losses from non-performing assets have been the scourge of the local banking industry lately.

for a casual observer, such costs look insignificant, but for a frequent ATM user, such costs are a heavy burden. and in my opinion, they simply defeat the purpose of keeping money in the banks. and being one trained in finance, i'm interested to discover the extent of the impact of the introduction of charges to ATM transactions. but as a small depositor, i'm more interested to see that such charges are removed and that banks reimburse all their depositors, for such charges are, in my view, unfair.

In Quezon City, Philippines

one finds the national headquarters of the bureau of jail management and penology along the avenue called kalayaan, "freedom avenue." further along the way, as one takes kalayaan avenue, one also finds a place named after a tropical disease: Malaria, Quezon City.

Good news

first, i'm expecting to get the new phone line installed at the condo in a few days time. it means i shall once again have access to the internet once it is done. so bear with me. i shall return to regular blogging soon.

second, business in riyadh seems to be growing, although extremely slower than how i've expected or wished. the marketing effort is slowly taking shape, 2 new agent accounts were created the other day. but there are still some bugs i need to address with respect to the "accounting" system within the service. so even if i do get a new phone line, there are still other impediments that will come to prevent me from blogging freely.

Why am I not surprised?

the Poles are with the Nazis this time, so to speak, except that the Poland of today bears no resemblance to yesteryear’s sad and noble country of the same name.

a filipino journalist's comparison of the WWII polish uprising with the trouble created by islamic militants in najaf is simply one of the insanities that he or she can easily get away with. fully appealing to the historical ignorance of the paper's readers, this editorial tries to make a false equivalence between the struggle of the poles with that of the najaf muslims.

even if one is half educated with the polish uprising, one would easily detect the inconsistencies in the comparision between these two events.

the americans aren't doing nazi style suppression of culture and national identity as what took place in war time poland. in fact, the americans are trying to get iraq back on its feet. they didn't target iraqi intellectuals and leaders and sent them to prison or their deaths, but rather placed them in authority. and most of the fighting done againsts al sadr's men in najaf is done by iraqi forces. iraqis themselves are tired of the troublemakers whose exploits are venturing unto criminal behavior (wholly incomparable with that of the poles) and are the ones doing the fighting in the holy sites. americans surely don't want to alienate iraqis by going into their sacred places, so they prefer to iragis themselves to settle the insurgency and help out only when they are most needed.

somebody should educate this editorial's writer.

but the bigger question i must ask myself is why i still keep reading such insanities from that paper... perhaps i enjoy distrubing humor daily spewed and vomitted by our fearless journalists. perhaps.

Sorry folks!

the phone line at the condo was disconnected due to unpaid bills, thus i wasn't able to connect to the internet and have my daily fix of blogging yesterday. right now i'm at the office doing some errands, as well as trying to figure out how to get a new line installed since the old one was in the condo's previous owner's name. while waiting for the miraculous to happen, i decided to take advantage of the unsupervised pc connected to the net and write, if only i could come up with something.

RP may send peacekeepers back to Iraq under UN charter

finally some good news. under this initiative, the philippines could come back to that war zone we call iraq without losing face.

filipino leaders know that they've made a mistake pulling out. iraqi leaders have continously pointed out that our knuckle-headed decision to pullout caused the surge in the violence. of course our spin doctors made it clear to the rest of the world that there has been rising violence down there prior to the pullout, but they never ever told anyone how the iraqis perceived the after effects, the sharp rise in the trend and the greater persistence of the militants after the pullout, and how they are directly suffering because of us.

our cowardince simply caused more problems for the people left in that land, while we're out here far away from the violence. but the violence will soon find its way here. pullout or not, muslim militants will strike us because they've discovered a weakling, an easy prey that could easily be manipulated and frightened into submission.

Strange twists

in the movies: criminals do their jobs professionally
in real life : professionals do their jobs criminally

US 'dismayed' at E Timor tribunal

events around the world only become news when the US issues statements something about them, even mere side comments or "no comment."

Women's group decries 2-child policy as 'anti-poor'

chesterton said the same thing. i actually had an unlikely fantasy that they read his essay and in a wild yet unexpected way, finally got it. but i was asking too much:

"What the country needs to create sustained contraceptive behavior are access to a full range of contraceptive methods, fully informed choice and good quality reproductive health care services"

well i guess they still don't get it. somehow they do, but they couldn't bring themselves to realize that the alternative they propose simply bring about the same discrimination they decry. weird logic they have.

I never knew

last week i found myself doing some errands at the professional regulatory commission. while i was queueing in one of the cashier windows there, i spent time looking at some statistics posted on the wall. i was surprised to discover that interior design was actually a licensed profession in the country. currently there are 1,100 licensed interior designers. i never knew that they actually had such a privileged status.

When al Qaeda targets you

it means you're doing the right thing. the philippines was doing the right thing, so militants decided to take a filipino hostage. filipinos, however, allowed themselves, their country and their sovereignity taken hostage by small group of meddling a*sholes as well.

the fact is that jihadists are just evil people. they see no difference between the iraqi campaign or the afghan campaign or the the 9/11 attacks. they're all battles in the same war:

The truce gave countries three months to pull troops out of Afghanistan , Iraq and other Muslim states or face attacks like the Madrid train bombings in March that killed 191 people.

but victory is slowly being won by those backward idiots shouting allahu akbar thanks to our little show of cowardice. the press and left in the philippines keep on deluding themselves of the righteousness of their act that they've forgotten what the jihadists has in store for them. they simply ignore the fact that jihadists will attack only if we thwart their evil deeds, prefering instead to appease them. of course they don't call it appeasement, they just reason out that we had no business with the illegal war of aggression... yada, yada, yada, never telling you that jihadists don't see it that way.

BBC's Panorama does it again

i've seen it. i dunno, but the latest tyrade of the panaroma program against the church once again underlines the old premise that everyone is doing one thing alone 24/7: sex, sex and more sex! in other words, there's nothing new about it.

i was surprised to see that they actually included a filipino nurse's testimony. i wonder if they were aware that despite the absence of any condom program in the philippines, there is no more than a thousand cases of AIDS in the country.

of course they simply presented their own body of evidence, they're more than happy to present their evidence "destroying" cardinal trujillo's statement since they are aware that nobody else can present a cross examination of their allegations.

there's more crap to beat in the report, but it must be left for the experts in blogdom to articulate.

R. P. no longer a member of the Coalition of the Willing

all thanks to ball-less filipinos who willingly surrender their country's sovereignity to a bunch of trouble-making hoodlums and to our fearless mediamen who kept their coverage "intentionally subdued" but roused the public's ignorant compassion for a cause equally worthy of their arrogant stupidity.

the philippines should never be taken seriously. we're a big joke.

Filipino journalists should see a neuro surgeon

for a much needed brain transplant. they obviously need it badly. stupidty is the hallmark of filipino opinion makers.

Familiar, isn't it:

"athletes lived off the glory of their achievement ever afterwards. Their hometowns might reward them with free meals for the rest of their lives, cash, tax breaks, honorary appointments, or leadership positions in the community."

it was never really a modern phenomenon.

Clarification

it turns out that the post i wrote yesterday was actually published. it wasn't wasted after all.

Excuses

i failed to do my daily duty yesterday. well actually i did write a lengthy post which disappeared when my attempt at publishing failed. when i clicked the back button, the entire 2-hour worth post disappeared. i would've rewritten it, were it not for the fact that a) i had countless errands to do, b) i was up for about 36 hours with only a few minute intervals of sleep and so c) i fell asleep right before i was about to do it.

anyway, yesterday i found myself accompanying my cousin to a place in makati where she would be interviewed for a job. she's new in manila, so i had to wait for her until she her interview was over. i stayed at st. john bosco parish since i found no other place for that purpose. the church is separated by a yard and a fence from the school where i spent more than 10 long happy years of growing up.

a special celebration took place there yesterday. they were having a school-wide mass at the park. at first i couldn't figure it out since there were no big feasts for the day. it turned out to be rector's day, which marks the current rector's birthday.

bosconians, like those before them, have kept alive a tradition, singing the rector our version of the happy birthday song:

happy birthday to you (half day!)
happy birthday to you (half day!)
happy birthday, happy birthday
happy birthday to you (half day!)

i couldn't help but laugh out loud in church, attracting unneeded attention to myself from local people doing their devotions or just visiting the church. (catholic bloggers from the US would envy such a lively parish life there.) this time, the rector didn't disappoint them and gave them what they have been chanting over and over during the course of the presentations after the mass: half day! their classes were supended.

i would've loved to have the same break but i'm always needed here and i actually like the feeling of being needed often.

as i've announced earlier, expect light blogging from me. there had been lulls in my schedule before that gave me the chance to blog. this time, i might not be as lucky to have them. first of all, i haven't started doing the business proposal that i need to submit to my uncle so that the little project i've conceived of would eventually be a profitable reality.

Manila Standard: The future is nowhere

yesterday, i found a local newspaper that headlined reaction to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's document, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World which the Manila Standard provocatively entitled Vatican Denounces Feminism.

i wanted to react to this yet another example of defecient understanding of things catholic which every journalist seem to be good at. i would have started by citing how a catholic news source covered the news and pointing out the silly conclusions the filipino press made. but then i was too busy to write lengthily on the matter, especially since my many errands and new found responsibilities provide me with no time to blog as heavily as i would like to.

anyway, i decided to give it a try if i could find time, and so i did. i first tried to check the whole article at the manila standard's online archives. but my initial attempts to find the article went unrewarded since i couldn't find it.

and then my eyes caught something peculiar. i discovered that if you try to view the standard's archives for august 2004, you will actually find yourself looking the pages from august 2003.

so much for their "the future is ours" slogan.

update (4 august 2004): they fixed the faulty link.... aawww...

I need help

is there anyone out there familiar with the ins and outs of the philippine broadcast industry? please leave your contact information at the comments box below.

referrals to third parties fitting what i need would be welcome too.

thanks!

Can't stand the high cost of fuel?

why not build your own gas stations? it's reasonable isn't it?

verlaine pointed out the problem about my blogging woes:

u need ie6 to see the edit options as they require 128-bit encryption. you must be using lower version of ie if you do not see the options.

* by now, you should be saying "thank you!"*

you're welcome.

indeed, thank you very much!

actually, i've known about this prior to reading verlaine's post. i decided to upgrade to IE6 for its ability to block pop-ups, a convenience which totally captured my heart. now i can check my friendster, and other sites as well, without being bothered by those pesky ads that keep accumulating everytime i navigate through them.