USELESS INFO: WHY THERE IS A 160 CHARACTER LIMIT IN TXT MESSAGING?

I bet you have a cellular phone and chances are, you have more than one. It seems like everybody has cellular phones nowadays and it is no big deal. It is a norm. This was a far cry during the early 90’s wherein having one, albeit the soap bar appearances and massive weight is such a big thing.

A BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING

“Ang bilis ng oras”, the bride quipped after the wedding rites and reception that followed.

I am not married yet, but I do understand what exactly she meant by that. The pressure of the preparations, the countless calls, txt to friends, the invitations, the coordination and making contacts with all the people involve. The sleepless nights, the apprehensions on the decisions, confusions on the things to come and all the excitement; it seems like it took forever to conclude. When it finally arrived, everything happened like a blur, as it seems.

Strange Day

I was sleeping soundly when I started hearing screams emanating from our neighbors. I was supposed to wake up at around 10 am today to rest my body, but then again a drunk neighbor decided to climb a tree and decided to sleep on top. Heard from the background is his mother begging him to dismount from the tree.

CHOPSUEY Movies Legend

One of the great things when you are on vacation is the luxury of even a slimmest of time to discover some of the things that you never knew existed. Now, you have probably heard, seen and might have made essays or term papers that are combination of statements, facts, practically work of other authors, that are probably also a combination of statements and work of other authors. I use to call these as chopsuey or halo halo works. Thanks mainly to the advent and presence of the internet, these have become rampant in the contemporary times.

But one step ahead of them all is a man that I whose craft and art I recently discovered. Meet:
Alton Cheung
Benny Ho
Bert Brooks
Bob Poe
Bruce Lambert
Burt Petersen
Carmen Heller
Charles Lee
Daniel Wells
Edgar Jere
Felix Tong
Fong Ho
George King
Godfrey Hall
Joe Livingstone
Ken Ashley
Mark Coston
Mick Stuard
Richard Philips
Ted King
Tommy Cheung
Victor Sears
Wallace Chan
Ho Chi-Keung
Ho Chieh-Chiang
Hoh Chi-Keung
Ho Chih-Chiang
Ho Jang-Cheon
Hoh Jun-Sing
Zhi Jiang He

His name is really Godfrey Ho and those names above are his aliases. He is not really a criminal, a movie director and producer in fact. But his movies are so horrendous and borderline stupid and criminal. That is the probably the reason for those aliases, maulaw pud siguro. :)

All of his movies are martial arts themed. I don't know what's with him but the elements of the movies always includes ninjas, zombies, vampires, and robots. Poor lighting, bad acting, stupid stunts and dialogues are also a staple of his movies. I believe some of his movies also dealt with the bruceploitation genre.

But the most amazing thing about his movies are the obvious cut and paste techniques that it utilize. It is very obvious that scenes from different unfinished movies are patched up to create new one, like watching a single movie with many movies in one, with less care on the story and coherence.

To fully understand what I am blabbing, be amazed at this videos:




As crazy as his movies are, he was able to make 200+ cut and paste movies that were distributed in Asia and probably the other planets also. Best of all, all of his great efforts were actually rewarded as he is now one of the teachers in the prestigious Hongkong Film Academy. Hahahaha. Who's crazy now ninja?

I actually downloaded some of his ninjas/vampire/robots/zombies movies to fully enjoy the cut and paste feel since you tube video cannot really capture its essence. Want some? :p
As they say, a true ninja knows Godfrey Ho.

BLOGGING and the 4 P’s of Marketing

During my MBA class back then, Marketing (the subject) was one of my most anticipated one. I heard quite a lot of stories about how interesting it is from really old people. I have also read marketing books (though not that much) and find some of it to be interesting and informative. But as we know by now, disappointments in life are of common occurrence, and my marketing class turned out to be a snooze fest.

Come the comprehensive exams, I am not really sure what I am going to do with the perceived (my own perception that is) lack of understanding on the subject matter. But good thing that life is full of disappointments, as it turned out that the exams were relatively easy for me. You know why? It was just all about utilizing one, single, bisan isa lang ka idea or concept in marketing.

I may not be an MBA yet during that time, but I have common sense. The simplest thing to do then is to utilize the simplest and easily remembered concept and take off from there, which is, tadan; the 4 P’s of marketing.

Notwithstanding my long intro, the 4 P’s says that Marketing decisions generally fall into the four controllable categories: Product, Price, Place, Promotion. This entry really is related to blogging and tries to come up with a fun analogy, parallelism and irony between the two.

PRODUCT
In business (unless blogging is your business), the objective is ultimately to sell the product and contribute to the bottom line. In blogging, you don’t necessarily need to sell the product, meaning nobody needs to read your blogs and yet it would contribute to your bottom line.

Many are blogging just to release pent up emotions. Some would even prefer that nobody will read their posts. Some blogs are only directed to certain individuals or groups. But more often than not, bloggers wants as much traffic as possible for one reason or another. May it be for monetizing or they just want to feel appreciated for their ideas.

PRICE
In business, price plays the biggest factor in determining whether you will be a patronized or not. Will we be doing premium pricing or mass produced pricing. These are the usual issues.

In blogging, it is how much are you willing to pay, both literal and figurative that determine how your blog will roll. Are you willing to spend long hours even up to dawn in tweaking your html much to the detriment of your sleep? Are you willing to give up a portion of your privacy and share to the world some of your deepest secrets and desires? How much money and resources are you actually spending in doing all these stuff?

PLACE
In business it generally refers to the ways on how your product reaches your customer. It talks about logistics, distribution channels, market coverage, among others. It is diverse and wide in scope.

In blogging, all you need to be is in your house, coffee shop with free wifi, net cafes or even hulog2x piso internet stalls/ machines. Yet it is even more diverse and world wide web in scope.

PROMOTIONS
In business much time, effort and money is spent in promoting the product. Certain strategies are even employed as to optimize the promotional activities. The goal will always be to generate a positive customer response.

In blogging, you may or may not promote your product (again unless you are blogging for money). If there is a promotional strategy such as push or pull in business, in blogging it is just; publish, delete, public or private. It is interesting to note though that blog that are monetize, tend to do lots of promotion, even to the point of spamming.

The 4 P’s was only a very useful tool on the early times of the marketing concept. Blogging on the other hand just kept getting bigger, nastier and lot’s of irrelevant posts such as this entry are proliferating. :P

MAGIC Number

Any number could be it. Mine was, is and will always be nine. My B-day, her bday, the most magical, mysterious and consequential of all.
But I am required to do it.
Rub your magic 8 gently
But the magic words will always be.....I love you.
:)

THE ARTIST OF WAR

I glanced upon a book when I was in grade 3. I was vacationing then in an uncle’s house in a province of North Cotabato. It has a dark or almost black cover with a sort of rising sun emblem on the center, with great similarity to that of the Miss Saigon logo. The book’s title; The Art of War. The author, Sun Tzu

My understanding back then, was that the book probably speaks of war. And with an Oriental sounding author, it is probably a war that involves martial arts.
Where the protagonists and antagonists would kick and scream and fly with their swords and daggers and bows and arrows and everything. The kind that I used to see every Sunday morning on RPN 9.

I could remember that back then, I actually opened few pages and read some phrases. I am not sure anymore what happened after, but all I can remember was that it did not caught my attention. I left it, went outside and play along with my cousins.

It was only when I was in college that I got interested on the book. It is during my “knowledge hunt” that I have decided to look what this book has to offer. This was the time that I got interested to “classic”, such as Newton’s Principia, or Boyles’ Theory on Gasses.

Sun Tzu is a Chinese general, circa 500 B.C., sometime referred to as Sun Wu, and Sun Tzi. I even mistaken Sun Tzu for Lao Tze, the founder of Taosism. Primarily for the fact that the most fundamental of Sun Tzu's principles for the conduct of war is that "All warfare is based on deception". Another key Sun Tzu principle is that "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”. Now, these principles bear the basic characteristics that are taught in Taoism by Lao Tze.

During the time that it was written, China was basically made of warring states. It is during this time that there is a high demand for military leaders and armies that would go from different leaders selling their military skills. The book covers a variety of different aspects of warfare including laying plans, waging war, terrain, energy, maneuverings, and even the use of spies.

The applicability goes beyond boundaries and breaks cultural barriers, as not only the Chinese that were influenced by the book, but other nations as well. The works of Sun Tzu have been widely known in the United States since the mid-1970s. Diplomat Henry Kissinger has made reference to Sun Tzu and the principles for the conduct of warfare have been the subject of serious study in U.S. military circles for many years. The Art of War as applied to business, sports, diplomacy and personal lives has been popularized in American business and management texts. Sun Tzu may be the most frequently quoted Chinese personality in the world today.

For me, it is all about understanding human conflict in every ways possible. People are afraid of what we don’t understand. If we are afraid, we tend to make erroneous judgment. If we fully understand the nature of things, in this case conflict, only then that could we truly be prepared for its resolution.

The teaching takes a rational approach to the problem of conflict, as oppose to emotional one. It is taught that conflict can not only be resolved, but more importantly, and preferably, it can be prevented.

It pinpoints that greed and anger are the fundamental causes of failure, while the emotionless or detached fighter will win. Not the hot headed, not the one seeking vengeance or the ambitious fortune seeker.

Finally, though the title of the book may be associated with violence or attack, the book is actually an advocate of preventing it. This echoes the idea of combat as a last resort. The ideal situation is to winning without fighting. If it is done, then ultimate victory is achieved.

However, Sun Tzu is smart. Sun Tzu was very aware that war should be the last resort but if you were going to "do war" then you should do it properly and ruthlessly to ensure victory.
hasta la vista, loco

ID4 (The Annual Banter)

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!!!
Happy Independence Day.

Why ID4? Isn't this the American Version of Independence Day? The 4th of July extravaganza?

No, this is not in reference to the American Independence Day on the 4th of July. I just used the ID 4 since this will be the 4th time that I'll be wasting your time on my Independence day blog. The 4th Installment dating back as far as when I was still at 1st blog site.

It is also a Yes, since for the lack of better understanding on the issue, I am one of those who believe that technically our Independence Day should have been on the 4th of July, from the Americans. This is in conjunction with the beliefs of many historians, philosophers, rockers, hip hoppers, constitutionalists, artists, scientists, yuppies, and rapists. (see my previous blogs if you can, to understand what I mean)

But what the heck, do we really still care about these things anymore? Or do we only see these times of the year, as the time of the year wherein a lot street vendors are selling flags and flag lets. The TV shows are flooded with movies about Rizal and Bonifacio, starring Cezar Montano, Joel Torre and Gardo Verzosa. Your local variety shows singing patriotic OPM music and dancing the folk dances to the tune of Lady Gaga's music.

Worse, do we even know what is the difference between (as oppose to who) Jose Rizal and Tony Stark, they are both distinguished lover boys, right? Or Andres Bonifacio and Wolverine, aren't they both fearful and savage fighters? Or Lapu Lapu and the Prince of Persia, aren't they both with royal pedigree?

Like many of us, I also "don't really" know. All I am sure about is that all of them are superheroes. One is real, the other is not. As for who or what is real, well, another hazy issue for me.

Just bear in mind that what they went through. Just for you, and me. In order for everyone of us to enjoy our condition right now.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!!!

M.O.S 09

"Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection into eternal life"

The departure to the better of world of EARL SAAVEDRA, one of my two best friends, a founding father of MOSTECH, came as a shock to all of us. For one, everything came without a warning. He wasn't sick because that guy was as healthy as a horse. Nor he got beaten by people with grudges or something, because he was a very good person. He tragically died due to an accident. Everything was so sudden.

As certain as death is, lies the uncertainty when would it exactly come. Hard to accept as it is, I have to say goodbye to to an exceptional person. A caring son to his mother, a loving and supportive husband to his wife Flordy, was, is and definitely would have been, a sturdy and excellent father to his son Mikko. A friend to us all. My best friend.

Rest in peace MOS 09
Eternally missed, never will be forgotten...

Whine Time

I unusually get tired a lot earlier and easier these past few days. It is probably due to thinking, no, make it considering problems that have yet or not even sure that would occur.

It is hard when you are told be like this, then hear through a grapevine that you might be doing this and that. Complaining is among the farthest of words in my relatively short line of vocabulary. Yes I observe and often I critique, but I seldom, no, make it very200000x seldom complain.

This is one of those very200000x seldom times. This is one of those times wherein I feel like I am one of those toys that I have.


Or Am I not.

Yun lang!!!

ELECTION DAY - An Ode To A Successful Defeat

It has been a tradition of mine to listen to a particular song every election day, since 1998. I found this song as early as 1995, a 45-rpm vinyl record, stacked along with so many many "plakas" as it is called, in the then house of my grandparents in Kidapawan.

You have probably not heard of this song since it is not really that popular. It will never become popular. It is not catchy, lyrically weak, musically awful. But for nostalgia and the heck of it, I just need to play this every time of the season.

Some members of our family, for reasons unknown to me, are into politics. Some gained success, while most did not. Not really a big time politicians, but I would say, trying hard to be one. So the election of 1998, is one of the most memorable times of my adolescence-maturity (does this beginning to sound like Xerex? hahahaha).

In 1998, my grandfather, old and weak (relatively compared before) decided to run as councilor . Unlike before, It is obvious then that no party is interested on him anymore, none took him into the slate. So he ran as an independent candidate.

It meant making a campaign funded by our personal and limited pockets. It meant the absence of "professional" campaign groups and mga bayaran to actually do the campaigning. It meant having to do the campaigning, a family affair. This is then, where all the fun started.

Me and my brother went to Kidapawan only for our annual summer vacation, as we thought. We went there to get wild with our cousins and of course to help for the campaign sparingly. But as fate would have it and due to limited resources, I ended up as the campaign manager for the group. We were composed of the cousins, all unregistered and unqualified voters with ages ranging from 7-17 years old. I myself had no knowledge and experience campaigning except when I ran and won as President of the Student Council in High School.

We tried to be resourceful then. We were so proud of our election posters made of up old and used calendars, bond papers and manila papers with the name of our beloved candidate (our lolo) manually written using ballpens, pentel pens, crayons and water colors. Only to be dwarfed by the expensive and attractive paraphernalia of the seasoned politicians. The final product, our posters can barely be seen and noticed.

We only have a single jeep at our arsenal, a colored blue owner type jeep with a sitting capacity 7, there were 12 of us. Our gasoline allocation was sourced out from the tipok2x of our respective uncles and aunts, relatives, friends and supporters (this one I doubt). Despite it, we tried and were able to roam around the city, and actually went to places I never knew existed in Kidapawan.

We were able to meet and greet lots of interesting people. As in guapa, pangit, humot, baho. There were some who finds us cute (the team, not me) and there were those who would remark, "pila gi bayad sa inyo?". There were those whom upon given a fact sheet would remark "dili lang ko dong, di ko mo boto", and there was a time we gave someone a fact sheet and just smiled at us strangely, only to be told by a bystander, "ngano gi hatagan mo man na, buang man na".

But still every so often, the kid in us would also surface then. There were times wherein we didn't wanted to campaign. Instead, watch the cartoon network or just play computers and basketball. There was even a time, during the final meeting de avance at the public market that we were not able to hear and watch our lolo speak. The reason, we were at the other side of the palengke. Busy and fixated with the street magic2x salamangka, with all its bitin2x (as in snake) and what have you.

Despite the odds stacked upon us, and even if the obvious are staring on us, we never really felt that we were at a disadvantage. Such youthful optimism and probably innocence and ignorance made us believe that somehow, we are going to pull this one out.

The result? Since I am the campaign manager, what would you expect? Of course, we did not win :0. But the good thing is, we did great. We were number 13. The magic number is 8. There where more than 13 candidates, 35 to be exact. We gained notoriety as the cleanest group (ok we were neat and had good smell), and the only candidate who did not spend more than allowed, mainly because we have nothing to spend.

We did not win, yet the experiences and the memories made us all feel like winners. The bonding we shared, the many times that we were chased by dogs, the drunk who made fun of us, the laughs and other intangibles that makes us feel good to be alive, the things that we still talked of today whenever the cousins get together, thanks to the election.

There were other campaigns that came after 1998, for my other relatives. We still got involved and this time came up with relative success as far as getting the win goes. But nothing beats out defeat in 1998.

As for the song, I did play it on the old turntable at my grandparent's house , the first thing I did during election day of 1998.
Let's enjoy this if you can :)

1998 Campaign Team

Splitzapper
Jiveman
Forge
Reibach
Wild Kanapian
Kenot
Brenz
Karl
Kwek
Adette
Ace
Kiko - Ni apas ka pa

RUNNING COST

While I am at it, I will be making of list of movies that I liked this year. This list will go on as the year progresses.

MOVIES THAT I SAW THIS YEAR THAT I LIKED (Regardless when it was originally released)
not in a particular order.

1. Memento
2. Silence of The Lambs (I saw this already when I was in Elementary, but it made no sense then)
3. The Usual Suspects
4. The Blind Side (my gf loves this also)
5. Where The Wild Things Are
6. Ironman 2
7. Serbis
8. Tokyo Sonata
9. Up In the Air

THE INEVITABLE

Yes, this is about a movie.
This is about Tony Stark.
This is about:
That's gotta be one of the crappiest intro of all time. How ironic since Ironman was and is the only hero that for me is cool and possible enough to become a reality. To become an IRONMAN, you just need intellect, charm, and much money. All of which, I do not have. But I could always buy a cobra energy drink and become the other "IRONMAN" if you know what I mean.

I watched this movie more than a week ago, last Sunday to be exact. I went out with my gf, a Downey fan I supposed, while I am not really a Robert Downey fan. The only movie that I can recall that starred RDJ is Only You with Marissa Tomei. Yet, I still mistaken him as Patrick Demsey on that film.

As expected, the cinema houses were full. We went earlier, even earlier than the next scheduled show, only to find out that the best seats on the Red Carpet are taken already, even up to the last full show. So we just settled with the next best thing, the best seats on VIP. It is obvious by now that I am referring to the cinema house in Victoria Plaza, right?

Justin Hammer, Happy Hogan, Pepper Pots, Obadiah Stane (not in this movie), the arms race, Crimson Dynamo, Whiplash. These are the reason why I was not really interested in IRONMAN the comics.

IRONMAN's armory, the Mandarin, his battle with alcoholism, the Avengers West Cost. These things what's makes its comic book runs, quite intriguing. All of which were not in the movie. Ok, I concur that you cannot put everything in a cramped up movie. But IRONMAN without its armory is like peanut butter sandwich without the peanut butter. (WOW!!!)

The movie is good but not great. Good enough to entertain you, but not that great as to have a profound effect on me after I went out of the cinema house. It has humor, drama, impressive special effects, respectable acting, even though with not so intriguing of a plot and less action than expected. This is still IRONMAN. It was still fun and worth the cost, the time and the wait.

Anyway here are my findings, mostly not directly related to the movie, quite a mouthful, but I avoided sounding like a geek as much as possible.:

1. The sexiest comic book heroine ever in the universe is Psyclocke, my high school crush. The black widow cannot hold a candle to her, when it comes to hotness. In the movies, Psyclocke is one of the ugliest characters ever. More so compared to black widow in IRONMAN. This is unfair. This is injustice. Here is the proof:



2. Whiplash is actually just a secondary villain. Despite so, he was really cool in the movie. He appeared formidable.

3. The only good thing about Gaisano Cinema Malls are its sure seats. The screen is mediocre, the sound is bad, no, terrible.

4. There is an alternative ending/ epilogue to the movie. The one you saw probably involved the discovery of Mjolnir (Thor's hammer). The second one has screen caps as found below:


As parting shot, I will give to you the best IRONMAN MTV out there. The 1960's cartoon classic.
Enjoy!!!

The Crazzies

I've been commuting a lot going to work in recent days. It means waking up extra early in the morning. Riding tricycle and jeepneys going to work and back home and to everywhere I go. Not that I am not used to commuting, I've been doing this for more than half of my existence here on earth. It is just that I observed something while doing so.

One night, while on my way home, I saw some substantial number of crazy, insane, buang na tao in Davao. I saw one in, R.Castillo, 3 in San Pedro, 1 in Mc Donalds MTS, 1 in NCCC Mall, and 1 in Ulas. Mind you, this is on a single night. Then there are ones I regularly see. The running man of Toril, the walking man of South, and the respective resident buang of the Churches in Davao.

When I was young, I only knew of two. This is because, mao ni ang pang hadlok sa ako mama and papa sa una if mag binugoy ko. Na kuhaon ko nila, not seriously though. These two by the way, goes by the name of: Django Buang and Pansit. They can be found back then in San Pedro. God knows, where are they now. No plans of finding out for myself either.

Seeing them made me asked myself, what might have caused them this situation? I don't want to second guess, but statistics shows that, wait, I really have no statistics to back me up on this one.

But conventional wisdom would suggest that they are probably suffering thy fate due to kawad on. Ok, sige na, extreme kawad on. Probably depressed due to kawad on. Or nalipasan ug kaon tungod sa kawad on. Na depressed tungod gi bayaan sa uyab, asawa tungod sa kawad on. Dagahan mahitabo na di maayo tungod sa kawad on.


So its poverty pala ha. Then how would you explain the insane, na anak ug datu? Well, could you find them on the streets? Maybe, but probably not. Malamang sa malamang they are in a "mental institution", rehabilitating, because wala sila problema sa kawad on.

I really have no point to make here. I am just shocked to have observed this. Is Davao getting poorer now? Is this the trend (as if naman getting insane is cool). Is this the final phase of human evolution? Or this is a norm that I was not able to recognize then, due to kawad on (sa care ug time to observe). Whatever is the case, how I wish I have the strength to be optimist for them. For now, all I can give them are my prayers, and probably a little buck or two from time to time. Not that much I can do, that I do recognize.

Mahirap maging mahirap. I agree. Pag may hirap, may ginhawa. Yes, I also agree. But most of the time, ang gumiginhawa ay indi yung dating mahirap. It is just a statement of parallelism. That the poor and the rich exist. Not necessarily the poor will become rich.

On a lighter note, here are some fun facts (if you call it one) about our ill fated brothers and sisters:

Their favorite song is of course: Crazy
Their favorite male singer is Julio Iglesias for his song Crazy
Their favorite female singer is Kim Chiu for her song Crazy Love
Their favorite movie is One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Their favorite color is the Rainbow
Their favorite food is Beef Insanity, sadly they cannot afford it due to kawad on
Their favorite blogger is not me. :-) (though i am not sure about it)

and a Pampagana oh:

101

Somehow, I already had a hunch about it. But was not really a firm believer. More of a wishful thinker in fact. Somehow, I am lucky, more appropriately; blessed, to have lived to witness and experience it.



Again, I am talking in what it seem is trance. But not deliberately trying not be understood. Nothing here that is cumbersome, not to be understood though. In its simplest term, all I am saying is that; what I have been hoping, wishing, thinking and knew all along, can, will and did happen.

All the hurts, failed expectations, crestfallen moments and total disarray were just preparations, to fully appreciate a gift so grand. Because you, me, we deserve more than the best, more than 100%.

And everything I left behind, means nothing now. No longer in a disarray. Blazing and reaching new heights. Simply happy and blessed, having you.

You are unlike anything I ever seen, felt and experienced. You're more than what I want and what I need.

God loves me, He sent me you...