Bad Writing IV

From a Survivor Philippines outdoor ad: "Here, the fiercest battle is not a war."

Of course it isn't, "war" doesn't fall under the category of "battle." There is no battle that can be considered a "war," just battles that are part of a larger war. Anyway, the rest of the ad says that your worst enemy could come from your tribe so the proper headline should be something like: "Here, the fiercest battle is not with your enemies."

La Boheme

We're seeing "La Boheme" courtesy of The Bachelor Girl, who convinced the Philippine Opera Company to open its dress rehearsal to bloggers willing to write a review. The peg is the comparison to "Rent," which is the incarnation most popular among theatergoers of my generation.

I still don't know what angle to take but since this'll be the first real opera I'll be seeing live, that'll be worth a few paragraphs, at least. I'll be bringing a videocamera just in case I can't write anything.

 

If it isn't on Wikipedia

Wikipedia doesn't contain everything, despite its inclusiveness it still deletes information considered too trivial, like the "list of films with monkeys in them" or an in-depth look at the weapons of Warhammer 40,000. But don't worry, there's a site that collects all of these. 

Deletionpedia, when you absolutely need to know who the minor bounty hunters in Star Wars are.

 
 

Really bad writing

"It was a dark and stormy night," found in Peanuts strips whenever Snoopy gets bit by the writing bug, is generally considered the worst opening line in literary history. It comes from "Paul Clifford" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton and is commemorated yearly at the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which invites writers to submit the worst opening lines for imaginary novels. 

It isn't just bad writing per se, it's supposed to be monumentally bad, as in earnestly attempting to be literary but failing massively. Just check out the winner for the "Purple Prose" category:

The mongrel dog began to lick her cheek voraciously with his sopping wet tongue, so wide and flat and soft, a miniature pink fleshy cape soaked through and oozing with liquid salivary gratitude; after all, she had rescued him from the clutches of Bernard, the curmudgeonly one-eyed dogcatcher, whose own tongue -- she remembered vividly the tongues of all her lovers -- was coarse and lethargic, like a slug in a sandpaper trenchcoat.

Or the overall champion:

Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J."

Check out the other winners here.

Promotions

missingpoints classic: Promotions
07 January 2003

The Inquirer's Nestor Torre ran an article commenting on recent commercials that were deemed by readers as offensive, improper, or just plain stupid. One such commercial (promoting a shampoo) had a guy who was about to leave for abroad. He proposed to his girlfriend after feeling her soft shiny hair. Talk about your non-sequiturs.

The same brand (I think) ran the ad where the girl was able to land a newscasting job because of beautiful hair. Like a joke that is half-meant, it may give us some insight as to the state of newscasting in Philippine television, but it fails to give viewers a compelling reason to buy the product.

Commercial spots used to expound the qualities of a product and focused on Rosser Reeves' USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Newer ads sought to convey an image (based on the positioning strategy) through appropriate scenes, situations and music. Now it seems they do neither.

Over dinner my father lamented that people do not learn anything from commercials nowadays, unlike (according to him) back in the 70s. Thankfully, this did not unleash (as it often does) a nostalgia trip for my parents but instead led to a discussion of the nostalgia trip they call promotions for the Dekada 70 movie.

We all agreed that it was terrible.

Which was not what we expected from the supposedly intelligent people of ABS-CBN whose motto is "karangalan namin ang maglingkod sa inyo." If they're proud of what they're doing, then I guess their standards are pretty low. (Perhaps because they got their jobs on account of their soft, shiny hair?)

The promo was pretty standard, with the people involved in the production being given guest spots in most ABS-CBN programs. What was irritating was the lack of coherence, nay intelligence in the promo. While the film was touted to be the most "socially relevant" of the lot, this was not evident in the interviews given by the leads.

In "Morning Girls," for example, the actors were asked to describe life in the 70s. While this was alright for Vilma Santos and Boyet de Leon, the kids were clueless. Marvin Agustin (born in the early 80s) was even asked how students were back then (he probably has no idea how students are today). While I've absolutely no respect for the interviewing talents of the morning girls, I was expecting a better question from the promoters who presumably feed them lines.

What happened was instead of promoting the picture as a great piece of literature turned into a supposedly great film, Star Cinema ended up promoting the 70s as an era in Philippine history. And not an important era at that.

The entire Martial Law / Activism / Uncertainty groove that permeated the film was trivialized by 70s dances and fashion featured on MTB. Even their exhibit at the Galleria cinemas was all about nostalgia (Ate Vi posters, jukeboxes, old records, etc.).

Of course the film won awards and made money. Which was what the producers expected. Like the shampoo, it was able to sell a fairly decent product. However, that still doesn't make the promotion any less ridiculuous.

Gotcha

The problem with local traffic cops -- police, MMDA, MAPSA -- is that they think their job is to catch people. It is not. A traffic enforcer is supposed to ease the flow of traffic and traffic rules are there to help facilitate this. The power to issue tickets is only the stick used to enforce the rules that are supposed to help unclog the streets.

Lying in wait, like a trapdoor spider, while a motorist confused by ever-changing rules and obfuscated signs misses the point entirely.

Of course their goals are different from society's. While we are willing to submit to inconvenient policies (like Makati's loading/unloading areas) for a faster commute, the traffic cops seem to think that the rules are there so that they can catch more people.

What they should do is warn us. Stop motorists if they're making illegal turns. Have some guy wave his arms to show that the yellow lane is for buses only. Don't look the other way and then converge on me if I make a mistake: I will argue with you and we will end up blocking the road for a longer time, defeating the purpose of those rules.

You don't wait for the guy to shoot so you can charge him with murder.

Switching models

A few months ago I wrote about how the Asus EeePC changed the laptop game. By offering a cheap ultraportable they were effectively creating a new market. Instead of catering only to professionals who can afford a tiny $2,000 laptop they targeted kids and homemakers and everyone else who would be willing to spend less than $500 on a bare bones machine with a tiny footprint running Linux on a flash drive. The millions of EeePCs sold proved them right.

But their success goes beyond that. In what will probably be cited as an example in future “Blue Ocean” books, Asus created a new commercial market. What was supposed to be the domain of the OLPC project became a viable product category.

What's good is that the competitors will produce other, perhaps better versions of the concept. So from the ultra crappy Everex Cloudbook to that Neo Explore model that looks like a (*nostalgia alert*) “Speak n Spell,” you have a myriad of choices. Anyone who wants a cheap laptop to throw into a book bag or bring around the house or lend the kids can afford one.

So while I really loved my EeePc 4G, my half year romance with it had to end. It was great but ultimately proved incapable of handling my needs. I wanted to get the new Eees but there were two factors hindering me: price and that damn shift key.

The tiny keyboard I can live with, it's the tiny right-hand shift key that bothers me. As a touch typist I end up pressing the “up” button every time I wanted capital letters. And while the new EeePc 1000 has a bigger footprint, they still didn't fix the shift key: it was still as tiny as the one on the smaller models.

I also found another brand that offered similar specs, a better looking case, and a full-sized shift key for P2000 less. My weapon of choice now is the Acer Aspire One.

At least until the next model comes along.

Morons writing to newspapers II

Arnel was right, this is the gift that just keeps giving. Partida, Inquirer pa lang ito.

So this lady writes about her opposition to condoms and the reproductive health bill.

The use of condoms will not stop the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Health Undersecretary Mario Villaverde himself said that condoms have a 95 percent protection rate. In other words, the use of condoms does not guarantee that it will prevent, 100 percent, the spread of AIDS from one person to another.

Of course it doesn't. It guarantees 95 percent, which is way better (95% better!) than o%. I don;t know where she got the idea that 95% = 0.

The microscopic holes in condoms are large enough for the AIDS virus to pass through. That’s why there has been no decline in the number of people contracting AIDS in countries promoting the use of condoms. On the contrary, there is a growing number of people with AIDS in those countries.

Wrong. If the microscopic holes are large enough then it will prevent transmission, oh, 0% of the time. The rest she's just making up. As for Lagman's bill:

It will mandate sex education for young people, which means they will be taught how to have “safe sex” by using contraceptives. The youth need education in chastity and true love. If we really want to avoid teenage pregnancies and prevent the spread of STDs, the best and safest way is to teach them self-control, abstinence and the value of keeping sex within marriage.

Again, wrong. the best and safest way would be to ENSURE that they have self-control, abstinence, and keep sex within marriage (both of them). But since it's impossible to do that (I'd give it a less than 95% chance), teaching them safe sex (kahit 95% lang) is way better.

Statistics show an increase in the incidence of teenage pregnancies and STDs in the United States where American youth receive extensive sex education in school.

Again something out of her ass. The Bush administration has received a lot of flak for their "abstinence-only" sex ed classes (the kind the letter-writer is advocating).

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My question is does the editor publish stuff like this to amuse people like me? Or is it a fair representation of the letters they get?

Morons writing to newspapers I*

Next to coffee, the thing that never fails to wake me up every morning is reading the newspaper, especially when there are idiots like Philip Francis Sy who write letters to the editor. The guy tries to get away with barbershop logic. He makes statements like this:

China may have cracked down on rioters and secessionists, but look at where it’s going. If the number of gold medals it garnered is any indication, the world’s biggest communist country and others like Vietnam have far surpassed us.

No, you moron, the number of gold medals it garnered is an indication only of the effectiveness of its sports program. And did China really need to crack down on rioters to get the Olympic gold? This is, at best, a poorly constructed sentence. More probably it's a sign of bad thinking.

Oh, and China progressed economically only after rejecting the basic tenets of communism. It retained the totalitarian bent while using its cheap labor to smother western markets. It's as capitalist as hell.

But what really got my goat is this:

So much for human rights, democracy (American style) and all the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s freedom bulls**t. At the end of the day, what’s more important are: putting food on the table, a roof over our heads and clothing on our backs. “Aanhin ang demokrasya kung patay-gutom ang mga tao?” [Of what use is democracy when people are starving?]

I don't get the hate for democracy. Why are people like this idiot complaining about the US or the Inquirer asking China to "stop being creepy?"

More importantly, though, he commits the barbershop mistake of "either/or." The mistaken assumption is that we need to stop respecting human rights and democracy in order to put food on our tables. I don't know where he got the idea that democracy and progress are incompatible.

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* I can feel this turning into a series