Because nothing says "legit" more...

... than getting wads of cash in a shopping bag.

Good luck getting anyone to believe your story, League of Provinces. Even student orgs and small clubs have bank accounts, receipts, and an auditing system. Handing a governor a stack of bills in a plastic bag is suspect, even if (yeah, right) the money came from legit sources.

Baka may magreklamo na naman...

Wagi na naman tayo! The most terrifying food in the world is Balut.

Of course it's according to humor magazine Cracked (think MAD with less class). "...when you're biting into something that hasn't even had a chance to see its mother's face..." Brilliant.

Just browse through the comments to see some Pinoys getting worked up. Again. Man, we whine too much.

Slow news day much?

NBI agents seize 18 computers with fake software.

Ah. It's nice to know that the NBI is out there protecting the interests of multi-national software corporations instead of finding out who bombed Glorietta. Wow, 18 computers! That's what... .0001% of all the computers in Metro Manila running pirated software?

Not that there's anything wrong with enforcing the Intellectual Property Law. It's just that the headline is laughable given the number of computers with fake software even in government offices. Pustahan, NBI computers run on pirated copies of XP, too (you know, the one with the Nissan loading screen). And their newsletters , like most other offices', are laid out with unauthorized Adobe CS2.

Of course it's probably an engineering contractor or architectural firm running the latest AutoCAD bought from Shoppesville or the St. Francis Tiangge. Which means they're making lots of money off pirated software and actually do deserve to be fined at least. Despite my pro-piracy stance, I draw the line at business-related software since it's not just for plain entertainment.

But suing them (or having the NBI conduct a raid on their offices) isn't the most prudent course of action. To promote original software they should look to Blizzard's technique. The producers of Warcraft had agents going around the various small gaming cafes offering software licenses. No need to snitch, just give them an affordable opportunity to become legit.

We need dogs

At a little past one last Friday I was passing through the Landmark bridgeway on my way to SM. I noticed that Glorietta's metal detectors were beeping but the security guards weren't doing anything about it. And then I remembered someone telling me that those handheld metal detectors didn't actually work -- they just beeped and were basically there to assuage customers' safety concerns. This I immediately dismissed as urban legend as metal detectors are cheap mechanisms. (you can even build your own)

Anyway, the problem is that they can detect only guns and knives, not bombs. Which makes malls safe from hold-uppers and armed robbers but not bombers. In fact there was a show on RJTV that had their undercover guys smuggling bomb components into various malls proving that the "magic stick" method doesn't really work. A group of people working in concert can bring in and assemble a bomb within a mall.

And that was a household chemical bomb. C-4 (with a blasting cap and a cellphone detonator) may be a little easier to bring in absent bomb-sniffing dogs. Which is what the malls should have if they're concerned about bomb threats. Right now (I was just there this afternoon) they're just poking a little bit deeper.

May maidudulot ring kabutihan...

... ang kabaduyan mo.

The Zoo vocalist Arnel Pineda is rumored to be Journey's next frontman. Check out the report at melodicrock.com and scroll down to September 26. Here he is showing his chops with videoke favorite "Open Arms" complete with the accent. ("We dreeefted apart...")

Here's the band with a cover of Heart's "Alone." He does a mean version but someone should tell them that a guy screaming "How do I get you alone?" is several shades of creepy.

Put in 0.00 if you want

Radiohead are selling downloads of their new album for whatever you're willing to pay. Plug in 0.00 pounds if you're cheap, or whatever fraction's available on your PayPal. Now THIS is the way to curb piracy and earn more.

By cutting off the middleman (i.e. record labels) the band can charge as low as they want for an album and get all of it instead of receiving a few dollars per CD sold. This could theoretically amount to more. Besides, they'd make a killing on tour anyway.

Of course you could argue that Radiohead is a big enough band to do this, but the rise of indie acts like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Lily Allen -- via social networking sites -- is showing us the power of the internet to hype talent.

Oh Samantha... it's KRIS, not Cory

Is America Ready for a Woman President?

Here we go again missing the point. They're not making fun of Cory, Deedee, if you bothered to watch the entire clip you'd see that they were actually criticizing the idiots like La Shawn Barber who insist that women are the weaker sex. If you bothered to listen you'd have heard Bee saying Aquino faced down dictators but that she's "still a woman." If you bothered to look at the other figures in the PerezHilton-type site she was browsing, you'd have seen other prominent women leaders. If you bothered to think about it, "slut" as applied to Cory is so inappropriate that it's funny in itself. If the "Desperate Housewives" thing taught us anything, it's that a joke has to have a ring of truth to hurt. Cory is many things (positive and negative) but a slut she ain't, which makes the thing absurd.

The trouble with satire is that in order to be really funny it needs to be subtle. And subtlety is something too trivial for sainted leaders' assistants to be bothered with.

Balat sibuyas

So ABC apologizes for the "Desperate Housewives" joke, which was the prudent thing to do. In the US, where interest groups fuss about being politically correct and McDonalds gets sued for not warning idiots that their coffee is hot, the only thing you can do is apologize. But petition writer Kevin Nadal's statement ticks me off. In the AP article he says:

Filipinos and other minorities also should be depicted on TV as "prominent, positive role models," Nadal said.

SHOULD?!? Since when can anyone dictate how anyone is supposed to be depicted in popular media. It's one thing to bat for truth and accuracy, it's quite another to demand that writers become virtual PR guys for your countrymen.

And quid pro quo. If we want to take the moral high ground, then we should remove/edit all traces of racial insensitivity in our TV shows. We can't expect them to follow an ethical standard that we ourselves don't subscribe to. Because that would just be hypocritical of us.

* * * * *

This incident just shows how small we really are.

When I was working in government I noticed that it was the barangay officials and the city councilors who insisted on inserting "honorable" in front of their names. The latter I can blame on flunkies sucking up to their boss but the former, who type their own mail, just leaves me shaking my head. I've worked with Roco and Salonga and they never corrected anyone for not addressing them as "honorable" even though we all knew they deserved it more than anyone. It's the small people, the minor officials who insist on being treated as "prominent" and "positive."

It's a national self-esteem issue because we balk at every negative comment on our country/people instead of just laughing it off. It would've been better (and way cooler) if the medical workers association there just issued a statement saying that the Philippines is one of the US' leading sources of health care professionals. If worded diplomatically, it might've even resulted in Marc Cherry (a pretty liberal guy) including a Filipino doctor character in one episode, just to offset the previous joke.

Or the DOH and CHED could've issued a statement saying that Philippine medical schools are of high quality and that our neighboring countries send their kids here to study medicine (i.e. a Philippine diploma is a good thing). The spin is that the Philippine government is ok with it because we know it isn't true but are concerned about the possible misinformation that might be spread (among ignorant Americans, he implied).

But no. We had to huff and puff and go all drama queen screaming "racial discrimination." Which just goes to show how small we really are.

Meanwhile the veterans who defended the US in WW2 are still scrambling for their benefits from the US government.

Racist?

Hindi yan racial slur kung hindi race ang tinitira.

Para kayong si Carlo J. Caparas, na pinapamagatang "massacre" ang lahat ng pelikula niya kahit isang tao lang ang namatay. Massacre of logic and language tuloy ang kinalabasan ng mga pelikula nila ni Donna Villa (God save us).

Hindi yan racial slur kung hindi race ang tinitira. Kapag sinabi ni Susan sa "Desperate Housewives" na duda siya sa doktor (na puti, BTW) at gusto niyang siguraduhin na hindi galing sa Pilipinas yung diploma, and pinatatamaan niya (kung meron man) ay yung sistema ng edukasyon ng bansa natin. Kung sinabi niya na ayaw niya ng Pilipinong doktor dahil _____ (insert stereotype here) sila, ayun, maaring racist yun. Pero yung joke kasi ay nakasalalay sa ideya na malayong bansa ang Pilipinas (third-world pati) na nagpapadala ng napakaraming health care professionals sa Amerika. (Di ba't may mga Pinoy na nurse na nga sa "E.R.?") Ang isang tatanga-tangang karakter tulad ni Susan ay within character lamang kung medyo duda siya sa eskwelahan ng ibang bansa.

Ang tanong ay kung makakaapekto ba ito sa pagtingin ng mga Amerikano sa mga doktor natin dun. Hindi naman siguro. May board exams na dapat ipasa ang mga doktor doon at yun ang magpapatunay ng kwalipikasyon nila. Que se hoda pang sa unibersidad sa Siquijor* galing yung diploma mo, kung board passer ka dun, pwede kang manggamot.

Ngayon, sa mga nagsimula ng petition: sinasabi nyo bang ganun katanga ang mga Amerikano at hindi nila madidifferentiate ang katha lamang sa telebisyon at tunay na buhay?

Baka kayo ang racist.


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* O, joke lang ha? Siquijor is just a random term representing a far-flung island province in the Philippines. That's part of the joke's structure. Aswangs notwithstanding, I have nothing against Siquijor, its people, or its medical schools (if any).

Not just bad writing, it's bad thinking

Some ads don't make sense.

The Rexona commecial asking why there aren't any male cheerleaders is not just bad, it's plain false. First, there ARE male cheerleaders. And while their jobs are usually limited to throwing the females around in routines or leading the crowd in shouting, they do exist. Second, the reason the women get all the attention is because the athletes are usually men. The cheerleaders are there to inspire the men who play (and those who watch as well).

To claim that men don't cheer because they sweat a lot is lazy writing, probably meant to justify the silly visual of sweaty, bearded men doing a cheerdance routine.

Kris Aquino's ad for Maggi Sinigang Mix is no better. In it she tells how her mom suggested she use said product. Now does anyone actually believe that Cory Aquino, former president, widow to a national hero, and one of the wealthiest people in the country (with or without Ninoy) actually cooks her own meals AND USES CHEAP ARTIFICIAL FLAVORING?

An ad is basically an argument. And while people may not boycott a product because of a silly, illogical ad (I think we still use Maggi Sinigang at home), it's a matter of integrity for the creative director and copywriter to insist on a script that makes sense.