Mosquitoes like relaxed people

I'm back and for this entry my comeback entry would be about mosquitoes. Yeah, those annoying species of insects that you wish are extinct. They would suck you dry and then leave you with itchy blotches on your skin. Those pesky things that don't let you sleep during hot summer days.

But do not despair. Some scientists who, like us, hates these creatures have conducted studies on how to discourage mosquitoes from biting. And one of their findings was that stressed people don't get bitten as often as relaxed people. Interesting, right? It turns out that the body chemicals released by stressed people makes mosquitoes "think" that they are diseased or sick and "not a good quality blood meal." And who would want to suck the blood of sick people? Not Ms. Mosquito...

So that's why there are mobs of mosquitoes in Pinas. Pinoys are one of the most relaxed race in the world and no amount of problems can stress us enough. I lol'd at the idea...

Gundam Invasion

I was in highschool when gundam invasion happened. My brothers were hit and was assembling gundam models they bought from manong sidewalk vendor (Mom was too cheap to buy us the real thing). The real fun for me is assembling the mobile suit models. For my brother it as putting on the stickers and designing the look. For our youngest brother it would be the fun of destroying the mobile suit after assembly. I miss those days...

Well, for some crazy reason, some Japanese individuals decided to assemble a mobile suit model in Tokyo. My friend showed this to me and this is F-ing awesome. This is what I like about Japan and Japanese. Creativity and boldness. They are not afraid to release their inner child. Anyway, these guys assembled a model complete with lights and effects. I just wish it has a real-life cockpit as well as movement. When I became an engineer, my initial dream hobby was to create a cross between a mobile suit and C3PO. The dream was ruined by the endless search for money. Someday... Enjoy the videos...

Mayweather-Marquez Postponed

The somehow predictable thing has just happened. I'm not saying that this is a farce since I'm not by PBF's side but this does not surprise me. After retirement, one cannot expect PBF to be actually in shape. If this is really an injury, it's not how hard he trained but rather how his body was unprepared for the training. Boxers train hard all the time and to be injured during training tells much about how unprepared the boxer's mind and body is.

On the other hand, if this is one of PBF's delaying tactics then the same can be said. PBF is not yet ready for his comebacks. This might be one of his mind-games where he wait it out because he has an X% chance of losing.

I'm wondering what's actually the real score. But whatever the real reason is, PBF is not yet ready. If he wasn't injured, Marquez would probably injure him on June 18. The big question is what could be the implication of this to the possible fight between Pacman and PBF considering that Manny might run for Congress. We'll see...

Speaking of Congress... If con-ass pushes through and Manny Pacquiao win a congressional seat next election, there is a slim chance that we would have Pacman as prime minister... I shudder at the thought...

Reaction to Mayweather vs ESPN's Brian Kenny

Yesterday I came across this entry by Tim Sparks. This entry features two recent Mayweather interviews which basically can be summed up by any mind as "It's all in the money" and "I may have fought mediocre fighters but still I'm undefeated so I'm the P4P king". That's PBF for you. Good Job Mr. Kenny. Your questions were straight to the point but they hit the spot. As for PBF's answer, as the video progresses it becomes more and more shall we say... selfishly self-indulgent.

I hope Bob Arum, or whoever is promoting the fight (if ever PBF wins over JMM), would cough up enough dough to make it happen. Or else, PBF might again just settle to waiting it out again. It's all business.

Seeing this, I'm undecided if I want a PBFvsPAC or JMMvsPAC given that the winner of PBFvsJMM would face Manny. Eitherway I wish someone would clear the air out of this guys head.

Deja Vu?

The countdown is on for the circus act otherwise known as the Philippine elections. Political parties are now starting to maneuver their social status and political stands to optimize their chance of being elected. It's actually sad how these people, who are supposed to be our future leaders, become chameleons every election. Their focus is actually how to get more votes rather than what they can do for the country.

However the biggest news: if Erap is eligible to run for presidency. I was one of those who supported his ouster. And even if those who led that ouster apologize, I will not. Now he is aiming to run again. For me it's sort of crazy that Erap said that it would be a "battle royal" if he and Kabayan Noli both run for presidency. Where did he based his prediction? Well, the only thing is because both of them have the most "masa" following.

I still believe most of these people under the class "masa" are smart enough. Or not... I guess we will find out next year.

How famous (eerrr...Legendary) is Manny Pacquiao now?

So to anyone who has no way to measure how famous Manny Pacquiao is, see this video. Historically, only the most famous, overpowered, envy-generating and charismatic person are label demonic or possessed. Examples are the Beatles, Led Zep, E-heads, etc (I can name only in the music genre...). Of course there are some who are "naturally" evil and I will not name them here. So in relation to the showing of Angels and Demons(gotta watch that...),here is a "funny" video accusing Manny of being an Illuminati...



My Reaction: hahahahahahaha.... cough... cough... hahahahaha...kthnxbai

Nash wants to be an Honorary Pinoy

Hmmmmm time to plagiarize to boost more pinoy pride, if there's any room more to go up a notch (screw the economy, pacquiao won... just joking... work back to work JP!)

My friend Marvs showed me this article awhile ago (interesting blog name, i might add). Wow. One of my NBA idols, Steve Nash wishes to be an honorary pinoy. Well, I haven't been able to watch Stockton play a lot (not yet focused on sports at that time) so I Nash is the best point guard in my book. For him to twitter this was like Ali wanting to play in PBA.

Best day evaaa!

I haven't blogged for awhile due to my busy schedule but today is special. This day is one of of happiest days so far this year. Why?

First,



I know... The Celtics would find it diffucult to compete with the Cavs or the Lakers without their defense leader Kevin Garnett (still you don't know what will happen. BIG BABY GOGOGO). But heck, this series has been a heart stopper. With several OT games, these two teams are arguably the most tired teams in the playoffs. I hope the finals would live up to this series. This for me is the series of the year so far. Even if the Celts lose in the conference semi-finals, at least they will forever be immortalized in highlight reels for this series.

Second,



This fight made me nervous. Frankly, I didn't believe that Manny can pull this one off as easy as this. No offense to Hatton fans, but this fight made it appear that the Pacquiao-Dela Hoya fight was a difficult fight for Manny. I was actually 50/50 in who I thought would win (syempre manok pa rin si Manny kahit may kaba. >8< Pinoy Pride FTW). Next stop, Floyd Mayweather Jr. Manny silenced the Senior's cockiness (so how's the amateur now?), now its Junior's turn.

Scholars Wanted

Year 2009 Korean Government
Scholarship Program for Graduate Students

1. Program Objective
The objective of the Korean Government scholarship program is to provide international students with the opportunities to conduct advanced studies at higher educational institutions in the Republic of Korea in order to promote international exchange in education and mutual friendship between countries.

2. Total Candidates for Selection : 30 persons

3. Academic Programs & Institutions
(1) Academic degree program : master’s degree and doctoral degree (Ph.D.)
(2) Institutions : all graduate schools in Korea
※ Those who want to enter specific graduate schools, such as MBA, international studies, medical, dental, or law schools, should get a separate permission from NIIED.
(3) Applicants who will major in science and engineering will have priority.

4. Duration
Master's course : 3 years (1 year of Korean language course & 2 years of master's course)
Doctoral course : 4 years (1 year of Korean language course & 3 years of doctoral course)

6. Qualifications
- Both applicant and his/her parents must possess the citizenship of a foreign country.
* Applicants and his/her parents should not hold the Korean citizenship.
- Applicants should have an adequate health, both mentally and physically, to stay in a foreign country for a long period of time
* Persons who are pregnant or having serious illness are not eligible.
- Persons who can contribute to promoting the mutual friendship between Korea and the country of origin
- Should be under 40 years of age as of September 1, 2009
- Hold a bachelor degree for the master's course, or a master’s degree for the doctoral course as of September 1, 2009
- Obtain a grade point average (G.P.A.) above 85% or 5% in rank from the top, from the last institution attended

7. Scholarship Payment
(1) Scholarship Period : 1 year of Korean language course and 2 years of master’s degree course, or 3 years of doctoral degree course
(2) Payment
-Airfare : A round-trip economy class ticket
-Monthly Allowance : 900,000 won per month
-Research Allowance : 210,000 won for students in humanities and social sciences; 240,000 won for students in natural and mechanic sciences per semester
-Settlement Allowance : 200,000 won upon arrival

8. Schedule
- Submission Deadline: May 15, 2009
- Final selection by NIIED : end of June
- Result notice : beginning of July
- Entry to Korea : August 25~28, 2009
- Korean language course : September 1, 2009
- Entrance to graduate school : September 1, 2010

Note:
• Applicant’s Requirement Submission deadline: May 15, 2009
• For submission of Required Documents and other inquiries, contact JP Torregoza at jp_kulit@yahoo.com or keitaro310@gmail.com.
• If you need help on filling up of prescribed forms you can also email JP.

Research Topics:
• Cognitive Radio Optimization
• Game Theory Distributed Decision-making
• Possible implementation of a Cognitive Radio Testbed
• Other IT topics may also be suggested.

For details, email jp_kulit@yahoo.com or keitaro310@gmail.com. Or you can download here if its still up...

April Fools Day

Yesterday, tricksters let loose their creative minds to performs some of the wildest and most innovative tricks on unsuspecting victims (well some are paranoid but still get tricked). In this modern age, people have brought April Fools Day to what else but the world wide web.

For example, on one anime streaming site I visit frequently, what they did was they hid a flash music player on their page and played some annoying music while you're on the page. The trick is you have to find how to turn it off or just settle to muting your PC. The result you cannot watch anime if you cannot turn it off.

Google, on the other hand, victimized people by introducing an AI(Artificial Intelligence) named CADIE and an "autopilot" tool for its gmail. There's also the Google Brain Search Tool that supposedly uses CADIE to scan and index the user's brain. CREEPY and FUNNY.

And finally, who can forget Youtube. This year, their prank is that when you view the video everything would be upside down. Even text for comments and titles are upside down. Smart people those Youtube web designers. To emulate the April fools joke, just add &flip=1 to the end of the URL you are trying to view. They even put up a page on how to view these flipped videos.

These ideas are how I like April Fool tricks to be. Simple but funny.

Cheap Chow

This weekend, news was shown about this journalist named Cheap Chow, errr... Chip Tsao who released an article about his views on the Spratly Ownership Issue between China and the Philippines. In the article, he called our country a "nation of servants".

This morning I was doing my morning routine of looking at news in inquirer and reading blogs of people and I saw a copy of the article posted in Gerry's blog (this guy has some interesting blog entries). The article has been taken down but you can read it at Gerry's.

This guys has written many "satire" articles which readers might call racists. This was actually at least the second time he has made racist remarks against Filipinos. The other one that I know of, also from the same publication, was made as an insult to Chinese made products. This was at the height of the poisoned milk controversy. You can read the full article here. In this article, he has made remarks of Pinoy nurses. Another article was about Western foreigners in China and how they are now not "fashionable" for HK women. You can read it from Friskodude's entry.

This guy just doesn't learn, doesn't he? I hope your Pinay maids are kind enough to not retaliate on your Cheap Chow, Mr. Tsao.

Sino Iboboto mo?

With the upcoming Philippine 2010 elections, it is only normal in our beloved country to discuss candidates even if it's still more than a year before the actual elections. Potential candidates at this time would start "Stealth Campaigning" (although stealth is a fallacy, kapalmuks eh) to determine if they have the capability to fool... errrr... convince people that they are the right ones for the job. At this point, I haven't seen any candidates yet that could help my motherland gain her dignity back. Viewing the news and seeing these potential candidates do their PR things, I realized what my standards are for my chosen candidates. I remember Carlos P. Romulo. Now this guy is a true hero for me. If he had run today I would have voted for him.

Years ago I read an article about him from Reader's digest (1989) I was walking around the mall one day and bought those cheap reader's digest compilations from a second hand bookstore. It so happened an article of Romulo was there. There were some anecdotes and the one that really captured my mind was the story about the UN flag. It turned out that there is a "dot" in the UN flag that was supposed to be the Philippines due to the insistence of Carlos Romulo. Now that is what you call true love for country. Simple, yes, but so meaningful. That story told me to fight for your country's dignity, even in simple ways. If there is any candidate as nationalistic as him, I can be assured that our country will survive.

Barack's budget priorities and Pinoy's Stagnancy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I just watched Obama's second prime-time news conference and there was this question that gave me nostalgia of how our country was decades ago.

The question voices out the critic on White House budget which focus on education, health-care, and energy. The answer of Obama clearly shows what made him win the presidential elections: improving education, health-care and energy makes people grow.

This made me remember of how we were as a country. Decades ago, I remember going to IRRI for our field trip. I remember seeing the research done by the institute. I remember seeing many Thai and other foreigners that were at the institute to learn about IRRI's findings. Now, Thailand is one of the leading exporter of rice in the world. We, however, have become one of the biggest importers. The "teacher" has been surpassed by her "student". What happened?

Let's face it. One of the reasons for this is that Filipinos have gone stagnant. Science and technology evolved around us while we are concerned with politics. There are two reasons that I believed caused this. One, the government priorititized giving people food (not to mention robbing people's money lol) and Two, people became too contented of living the way they were living. In very simple terms, the people and the government have focused on picking food from the tree and not how to plant the tree. We rely on the "environment" providing us our food rather than producing it ourselves. When food runs out and no one helps us, we are dead.
For instance, I believe that signing international business agreements to find our workers jobs is not a good idea. We are now a country running on OFW remittance because of this. I hate that we are the world's source of laborers, maids and factory workers. We've become soooo dependent to other countries.

I just dread the day when our country becomes a bunch of "stone-age" people watching political drama in TV after a day of being slaves to "high-tech" foreigners.

R.I.P Master Rapper

Thank you for "Mga Kababayan ko" , "Kaleidoscope World" etc and all the good things you did for our country. Rest in peace Kiko.

Who are Filipinos?

This was THE question asked by Anthony Bourdain several times to different Filipinos who guided him throughout his tour around the Philippines in a quest to taste what is pinoy. And frankly speaking, similar to most Filipinos, would find it hard to answer this question. We have always had an identity crisis. With all the cultures we've been exposed to, as well as media influence, we have really lost the definite answer to who we really are. What trait is uniquely pinoy? The best answer for me is the answer given by Bourdain's Cebu guide. I think I would have given the same answer. What he was saying was that Pinoys easily and readily adapt to whatever situation there is. The culture is kinda secondary and is readily subdued in order to survive. Well, not necessarily bad though it may have some dire consequences in the future.

Hmm... makes me kinda wonder about that last statement. Is the reason for our poverty somehow connected to the notion that Pinoys are slowly adapting to being poor? I wonder...

The best thing about this coverage is that Pinoy food has been featured. And Anthony always had SMB Pale Pilsen in his hand. Way to go... Gosh seeing all that crispy awesomeness made me hungry...

Dragonball Movie

The new Dragonball: Evolution film is a case of directors and writers not knowing where their movie is based on. The story is quite far from what the anime originally is. The actors' portrayal of different characters is way way different from how these characters are written in the original story. This movie is marketed more for the special effects than the story. People might watch this simply for the curiousity in the title. I'm guessing all the fans and followers of this classic anime would be very much dissappointed like me. Dragonball started in me the love for japanese animation. Not Astroboy, not Voltes V, not Daimos. Don't get me wrong, Daimos and Voltes V are good. But Dragonball makes one want to watch the episode because the story is based on arcs, unlike Daimos and Voltes V where episodes are practically "stand-alone" except for the beginning and final episodes. I'm guessing a number of people would still go watch this. I imagine two people coming out from cinemas: (1) people disgusted (people who actually know the story) (2) amazed at the effect (people who haven't watched a single episode of DB).

Some people might say that, like Transformers, this movie is just an adaptation. Well I say this, at least the Transformer movie still followed some of the original transformer facts. And also at least the robots look similar to the original bots and created nostalgia among fans. This movie however would say, "wow, is that the monkeyboy Gokou?"

The cast suggestion below would have been better... I love the choice for Chao Zhu.

TV shopping gone wrong...

Today I'm feeling kinda down socially and professionally. Para akong nasa mundo ng orocan. Anyway, maybe I'll blog about that in the future...This video kinda cheered me up. Enjoy.

Panalangin ko sa habang buhay....

UP Student's Prayer

Now I lay me down to study
I pray the Lord I don't go nutty.
And if I fail to learn this junk,
I pray the Lord I do not flunk.
And if I die, don't bury me at all,
Just lay my bones on the study hall.
Pile my books upon my chest,
And tell my profs I did my best.
So now I lay me down to rest,
And pray I pass tomorrow's test.
And if I die before I wake,
That's one less test I have to take.
Amen.


This prayer made me cheer up and saved my ar** so many times back then. God, I never thought I'd miss UP days. Back then I was thinking I missed highschool days. Now, i miss UP days and highschool days. How time flies. When I return home for vacation, I'll definitely go back to Diliman and eat in all the places there. I'd probably lie down in sunken garden and reminisce.

Slumdug Celebration

As I remember the plot of Slumdog Millionaire, I wonder if some of my fellow Pinoys felt the same way as the contestant while watching the 6/49 Lotto draw. To the two people who won, congratulations. Use the money well. Ingat sa nanghihingi ng balato.

Van Halen's Invincible Guitars

This guitar is promoted to be a toughie just like Eddie. Its called the EVH Wolfgang, named after his son and current bassist of Van Halen. With some parts made from materials used to make medical equipments, this guitar promises to endure Eddie's lick tortures. This baby costs about $3000. Doesn't look anything special but heck I'd want one. lol.

Still, Eddie breaking volume and tone knobs looks cooler. Let's face it, destroying a guitar in a performance without banging it on the floor is ownage!