Friday, September 12, 2003

Ragnarok Online

Damn! I think I am officially an addict of this game. This game is originally from Korea and they marketed the game here and it clicked. The type of gameplay is more of a role playing type. They called it a massive multiplayer online game because it is an online game where many people are interacting and it is role played. The killer stuff so that the company that promoted it ,which is level-up games, is that they gave out free cds to potential addicts of the game during the beta test period which they let people play for free. People got addicted to the game so easily that when they already charged for the game many still played the game and they earn by the million. One needed to buy prepaid cards to play the game and it does not include the internet access.

At first, I really don't care much about the game. Most of the time my brothers are the one who became the addicts of the game and I just watch them play. It was too late for me to test the game for I tested the game the time when they are already charging to let us play for a fee. Somehow I got addicted to the game and right now I am craving for more of the game. During weekends, which is usually the days of the week where I am free, I would usually wake up at around 4 am in the morning upto around 8 am just to play. =) I couldn't play during the night upto the wee hours of the morning because my addicted brother is still playing. Talk about common interests. ;)

(by the way for those interested in the game here's a link and for those who are searching for a person who sells internet cards and the game cards just look for me.)

Tuesday, September 09, 2003

Sexbomb and Spaghetti

Someone forwarded me this in my email and I pitty the author of this piece, tsk tsk.......

Friday, 25 July 2003

I can die now. My life is complete. I have heard the latest sexbomb girls album in its entirety and now I have heard everything. My deepest thanks to my mom for choosing to live in a neighbourhood where the people are so 'giving' they will allow you to hear their cd collections for free,at 6 in the morning! every single fucking day! Oh you dont understand it do you? To wake up every single day to the sound of girls who are better off cheerleading than singing; to hear songs about pasta going up and down and sideways and what the hell does it all mean?!!; to hear the words laban and bawi in varying intensities e.g. la la la la la la labaan!! ba ba ba ba ba ba baweeee!!! LAAAABAAAAN! BAAAWIIII! AWWWW! AWWWWW! AWWWWW! YES! YES! AWWWWWWW! It is an experience you should not miss. It can serve both as an alarm clock and my ongoing experiment on the limits of human patience. I recommend it highly.

In the spirit of sharing, I will try-emphasis on try- to review the first single off the album. why only the first single? well, because I dont feel qualified to review the whole thing, that job is reserved for a music critic with a triple masters degree in philosophy, nuclear physics and forensic psychology;The album is that , dare i say it, PROFOUND.Actually, its beyond profound, its....its.... words fail me.

Here goes nothing. The title of the single i assume is 'spaghetti.'The title alone is pure genius. Spaghetti as we all know is a favorite among pinoys of all ages. The message the title is trying to send out is:the sexbomb girls are not only for kids but for all ages.

The song starts with a sound straight from a kiddie carousel or those old owner-type jeeps which plays muzak while parking or backing up. To the ninitiated ,this may mean a lack of imagination on the composers side but alas, the truth is, that intro is meant to appeal to our neotenic(?) urges. In a world filled with stress and anxiety , the intro lulls us into a trance and brings us back to feelings of childhood without worries. It hypnotises us into shedding our inhibitions; to be innocent and childlike once more. Subliminally preparing us for the wrath of the killer chorus.

Suddenly, a guy who suspiciously sounds like Joey de Leon starts counting from 5 to 8. Why the numbers 1 to 4 were left out is anybodys guess. It is one of the mysteries of this song that may never be unravelled, rivalling that of JFK's real killer.It could be part of the bible code.

This is then followed by the girls themselves screaming " Makinig kayo!" Obviously a paean to that very famous Marc Antony speech that goes like;
"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears." this is the girls way of
introducing a bit of Shakespeare to their unsuspecting public.

There is no stopping the girls now.

Apir tayo ( give me five?) ( let us appear?) Sumakit ang ulo ko (my head aches) sumakit ang dibdib ko( my chest aches) sexbomb(3x) Apir tayo sumakit and bewang ko( My waist aches) sumakit ang tuhod ko(my knee aches) sexbomb(3x) The girls are obviously suffering from an existential kind of pain. It is a pain so deep it transcends both the physical and the metaphysical worlds. To give high fives while experiencing a severe form of arthritis and ulceritis is a metaphor for the superficiality of everyday living where outward appearances are more valued; where everything is based on 'pakikisama' even if inside you feel like being eaten alive by amoeba. As long as youre presentable and maintain a good, albeit hypocritical ,realtionship with everybody its okay even if you are suffering inside. oh the humanity!

Here goes the chorus: Spaghetting( still in their shakespearean mode of inventing words, the girls decide to make the italian word spaghetti a tagalog one by adding ING.) pababa pababa ng pababa( going down going down going down) spaghetting pataas pataas ng pataas( going up going up going up) this may sound like a tour guide of an elevator but it isnt. REALLY. Another metaphor for lifes little vissicitude, the girls are obviously referring to the circle of life you dense person you!whatever goes up must come down is what theyre trying to say. Life is but a cycle with high highs and low lows.The spaghetti theyre talking about is US! yes! you and me! Its about being boiled and cooked and overcooked.Its about being paired with cheese and hotdogs and other ingredients that are not supposed to be there. Its about being eaten! Its about being part of a society where everything is the same yet different. Its about being accepted even if youre too sweet or too sour or too spicy. Its about survival .its about adapting Its about LIFE.

Man, these girls and their songs are like the most complex things to ever come out of the pinoy music scene. Ive always thought Radiohead is the most cryptic band there is but now I know im wrong. I have been enlightened.

Listen and you will be, too.

Thank you,

Elaine Santillan

Leadership

"The Power of Leadership Storytelling"
By: Melissa Delin

Heroic Leadership Stories: A Hero For Daisy
Congress passed Title IX on May 22, as part of the Education Amendments of 1972, stating:

"no person in the U.S. shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, or denied benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal aid."

While Title IX was designed to provide equitable treatment of men and women in all aspects of education, it has gained particular notoriety in athletics.

Chris Ernst, a two-time Olympian rower, was captain of the Yale University women's crew team in 1976. She led a team of women who were hardy, fit, and wholly committed to their sport. Although women's crew had only been in existence at Yale since 1972, the team had already captured second place at the national championships in 1974 and third place in 1975.
The Yale University boathouse was not equipped with women's locker room facilities so the university made temporary provisions; during the 1974 and 1975 seasons, the women took post-practice showers in a trailer which lacked hot water and electricity. In 1976, the school provided the team with a new trailer, but dawdled in securing the proper zoning variances. When the men and women began outdoor practices at the Housatonic River in late February, the women's trailer's plumbing and electricity remained unconnected. After grueling early-morning practice sessions, the men took hot showers in their locker room, while the women were forced to wait on the bus with frozen hair, soaked clothes, and chilled bodies.

Ernst, along with her teammates, rightfully resented having to endure such conditions. The women rowers were beginning to catch colds and illness would negatively impact their performance. Ernst and two cohorts decided to stage a protest. They planned a daring action, wrote a 300-word statement, and contacted a reporter from The New York Times. On March 3, 1976, just before practice was scheduled to begin, nineteen members of the Yale University women's crew team marched into the office of the Director of Physical Education, Joni Barnett. Lined up in two military-style rows, the women stripped off their clothing to reveal the words "Title IX" inked onto their bare chests and backs. Ernst read her statement, including: "These are the bodies Yale is exploiting. On a day like today the ice freezes on this skin. Then we sit for half an hour as the ice melts and soaks through to meet the sweat that is soaking us from the inside. We sit for half an hour with the chills… half a dozen of us are sick now."

The New York Times ran the story ("Yale Women Protest a Lack of Crew's Showers") and the matter gained immediate attention. The university was shamed into urgent action; eight days after the protest, the women's trailer was made usable and Yale announced that it planned to build "a permanent locker room for the women similar to the one that the men crew members have" ("Yale's Women Crew Get Locker Room," The New York Times).

Thursday, September 04, 2003

Really Cool Phone!!!!

etaiwannews

Sony Ericsson to introduce three new handsets in Taiwan
New phones heavily focused on mobile gaming, the industry's 'next big thing,'
2003-09-04 / Taiwan News, Staff Reporter / By Marie Feliciano

An employee displays the new Sony Ericsson Z600 with a game controller attached. (Peter Mah, Taiwan News)
Handset vendor Sony Ericsson yesterday said it was banking on feature-rich mobile gaming, cool designs, and diverse applications to shore up its handset sales in Taiwan's fiercely contested mobile phone market.

The Japanese-Swedish venture said it expected its three newly launched consumer-oriented handsets - the Z600, Z200, and the T230 - to be its top revenue-generators in the last quarter of 2003.

In fact, the mobile phone provider said its fortunes had already been buoyed by T610 sales.

"The T610 is the top-selling model in Taiwan today," said Sony Ericsson (Taiwan) Senior Manager Silver Huang, showing off his stylish black-and-orange phone.

Over 10,000 units of the T610 model are being sold in Taiwan every month, Huang said.

Equipped with a built-in camera, the handset has a 65K color display, extensive picture-sharing options, mobile Internet, and multimedia text messaging applications. It also has a polyphonic ring tone - the latest ring tone technology that gives users more authentic tunes - and serves as an ideal mobile gaming platform, added the executive.

"It supports Java downloads, so you can grab the most compelling gaming packages into your handset," he continued.

The phone also supports Bluetooth wireless connectivity, allowing the gadget to communicate with other Bluetooth-equipped devices such as headsets, digital cameras, and notebooks, said Huang.

"Even its body is made from aluminum, not plastic," he said.

The Z600, which will be shipped into Taiwan in October, is the first clamshell mobile phone with complete imaging and messaging capabilities, said the official.

The hardware comes with QuickShare technology for imaging, messaging, and gaming. At a product demonstration yesterday, company officials showed that by pressing a couple of keys, an image could be taken. Press six more buttons and you could send the photo to a friend or family member, Huang added.

The handset, which has exchangeable front and back covers, also boasts of a second display that shows the following information: Caller ID, time, and network and battery status. Users could even create their own ring tones with Music DJ and a four-track music creation tool.

Since operators look at mobile gaming as the "next big thing," the Z600 comes with several embedded games including V-Rally2, a racing game for game consoles. Users who want a real game console experience could also get one of Sony's latest game console accessory, Gameboard EGB-10, said Huang.

The phone also supports the Mophun game engine, a gaming platform that allows end-users to download rich, real-time interactive games from the Internet. The engine is also integrated in the Sony Ericsson T300 and T310.

Another games-oriented phone from Sony Ericsson is the Z200. The handset supports 40 voices, delivering a sound quality that is ideal for gaming, said Huang.

Games such as Mini-golf, Alien Scum, and Honey Cave are pre-loaded into the handset. What makes the gaming experience remarkable is the force-feedback effect: Hit a virtual tree, and your phone will shake and vibrate.

Sony Ericsson's entry-level color phone, the T230, is also heavily focused on mobile gaming. Equipped with sound feedback and vibration for a realistic gaming experience, the T230 also uses the Mophun gaming engine and has a five-way navigation key to enhance play.

"You will only convince end users to buy your phones if you are offering them value for money," Huang said.

"The device should be packed with better technology, it should be easy to use, and it should come with value-added services such as game downloads."

The executive added that handsets with built-in cameras and color screens are the hottest items these days.

"The migration to color screens is inevitable," said Huang. "Those handsets have also become even more affordable."

He also boasted that Sony Ericsson recently released in Japan a 1.3 million-pixel camera phone, the S505i.

"The GSM camera phones that we have today only have 100,000 pixels. That's okay for multimedia services," he said.

"Our S505i, on the one hand, produces images that are so sharp and vivid that you could print them.

Monday, September 01, 2003

Becoming Rich

Everyone wanted to be rich and here's a site on how to really become rich.

richdad

Wish I could follow the steps of his rich dad even with just having a bs degree.

Wednesday, August 27, 2003

MOODS...


What's your usual [mood]?


RELATIONSHIPS....


Do you need a boy/girl friend now?


PERSONALITY TEST

Here's another one of those personality tests that i got from my email.....

These are my answers.....
closed, square, half, porcelain, speed of water - 10, no. of keys - 5, new castle, pick up jewelry, pickup money, medium box, wooden bridge, white horse, nibbling grass, run to the horse, ride on and gallop away

Take a piece of paper and write down the answers. The analysis is in the end....

Situation:
You are in a deep deep forest... as you walk on you saw an old hut standing there
(1) What is the status of the door? (Opened/closed)

You enter the hut and see a table...
(2) What is the shape of the table? (Round/Oval/Square/Rectangle/Triangle)

On top of the table there is a vase... in the vase there is water.
(3) How much water is it filled up with? (Full/Half/Empty)
(4) and what is the vase made of? [(Glass/porcelain/clay), (metal/plastic/wood)]

You walk out of the hut... as you carry on your walk in the forest... you see a waterfall from far... there is water running down...

(5) What is the speed of the water? (Choose a number ranging from 0 to 10)

Some time after the waterfall... you step on something hard on the ground... as you look down...you see glistening gold in colour. You bend down and pick it up... it is a keychain chained with keys...

(6) How many key /keys you see hanging on the keychain? (Choose a number ranging from 1 to 10)

You walk on and on... trying to find your way out... suddenly you see a castle.
(7) What is the condition of the castle? (Old/new)

You enter the castle and saw a pool of murky water with shining jewels floating on it...
(8) Will you pick up the jewel? (YES/NO)

Next to the murky pool... there's another pool... with clear water and money floating on it...
(9) Will you pick the money? (YES/NO)

Walking to the end of the castle there is an exit... you proceed to walk out of the castle. Outside the exit, there is big garden, you see a box on the ground.

(10) What is the size of the box? (small/medium/big)
(11) What is the material of the box? (cardboard/paper/wooden/metal)

There is a bridge in the garden some distance away from the box,
(12) What is the bridge made of? (metal/wooden/rattan)

Across the bridge, there is a horse.
(13) What is the colour of the horse? (white/grey/brown/black)
(14) What is the horse doing? (still and quiet/nibbling grass/running about)

OH NO!!! There is a tornado coming... some distance from the horse. You have 3 options:
(i) run and hide in the box?
(ii) run and hide under the bridge?
(iii) run to the horse, ride on and gallop away?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here are the interpretations:
(1) The door:

opened door - you are a person who is willing to share
closed door- you are a person who is keeping things to yourself

(2) The table:

Round/oval - any friends that came along, you will accept and trust them completely
Square/rectangle - you are a bit more choosy on friends and only hangout with those whom you think are on the same frequency
Triangle - you are really very very picky about friends and there are not many friends in your life

3) Water in vase:

Empty - your life is not fulfilled
Half filled - what you want in your life is half fulfilled
Full - your life is completely fulfilled and good for you! :

4) Material of vase:

glass/clay/porcelain - you are weak in your life and tends to be fragile
metal/plastic/wood - you are strong in your life

(5) Flow of waterfall:

0 - no sex drive at all
1 to 4 - low sex drive
5 - average sex drive
6 to 9 - high sex drive
10 - gone case!!! super high sex drive!!! Can't live without sex...

(6) Keys:

1 - you have one good friend in your life
2 to 5 - you have a few good friends in your life
6 to 10 - you have a lot good friends

(7) Castle:

Old - shows that your last relationship is not a good one and is not memorable to you.
New - your last relationship is good and it's still fresh in your heart.

(8) The jewel from the murky pool water:

YES - when your partner is around you, you will flirt around with others.
NO - when your partner is around, you will stick around with him/her most of the time.

(9) The money from the clear water pool:

YES - even when your partner is not around you,you will still flirt around with others.
NO - even when your partner is not around, you will still think of her and and will be loyal to her, not flirting around with others.

(10) The size of the box:

small - low ego
medium - average ego
big - high ego

(11) Material of the box (outlook of the box):

cardboard/paper/wooden(non-shining) - humble personality
metal - proud and stuck up personality

(12) The material of the bridge:

metal bridge - have very strong bond with your friends
wooden bridge - average bond with your friends
rattan bridge - you are not in good terms with your friends

(13) Colour of the horse:

white - your partner is pure and good in your heart.
grey/brown - your partner is only average in your heart.
black - your partner doesn't seem to be good in your heart and appears to be bad sign.

(14) Horse action:

still and quiet/nibbling grass - your partner is a very homely and humble person.
running about - your partner is a wild type person.

This the last but most important part of the test. From how I ended the story... a tornado approaches... What are you going do? There are only 3 options:

(i) run and hide in the box?
(ii) run and hide under the bridge?
(iii) run to the horse, ride on and gallop away?

What will you choose? Now, the above is signified by these things:

tornado - problems in your life
box - you
bridge - your friends
horse - your partner

(i) So if you choose the box, you keep your problems to yourself whenever you are met with problems.
(ii) or if you choose the bridge, you will go to your friends whenever you are met problems.
(iii) or lastly if you choose the horse, you seek your partner whenever your partner whenever you are met with problems.