instrument tampering & information technology

haven't posted in a while, not too pleased with bean-counting...

anyhoo, check these videos out:

1) a guy doesn't know how to play the instruments suddenly wows us all...



2) middle age tech support. i used to be an abacus repairman a few years back and i was laughing my head off since i remembered not a few abacus users who had these issues. i especially like the part where the user was still clinging on to the old technology... hehehe!



enjoy!!!

Local Language Legacy

It pains me at times whenever we have to “correct” ourselves when we try to explain certain English terms to non-Filipino speakers. Case in point: Comfort Room=Restroom/Bathroom for American English.

If American English, Australian English, Singaporean English (Singlish) or Indian English is deemed acceptable English, why must we classify Filipino English as “wrong” or “inferior”? Why must we ape American English when certain words we have used evolved to how our country has developed? Why must we make excuses for words that have uniquely suited our Filipino purpose?

For instance, is it any more wrong to take comfort in the comfort room than to take a bath in a bathroom when all you need to do is to take a leak or to take a dump? Which is more apt?

I guess this is indicative of how we Filipinos view ourselves; trying hard to be Americans yet never being good enough. Corollary, our language is never good enough.

Well, enough of that! If a certain term become nouns or verbs, is grammatically correct, fits our context, and is still in English, then let’s use it by all means! If someone needs to take a leak, go to the comfort room! If someone gets delayed, there was traffic! If someone has a problem, help him cope up with it! If someone is very ambitious, then he becomes a presidentiable/senatoriable! (A term which, by the way, is less cumbersome than presidential candidate/senatorial candidate.)

It’s now high time for them to understand us, when we have spent decades trying to understand foreigners’ English nuances! Although, I don’t want to be salvaged for suggesting a radical break from all the traditional English-speakers… Hehehe!

vista voyage

My Lakbayan grade is C-!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

and i thought i'd get a worse grade... :P

Missing Mike (Not)

With Team Unity losing big time this last election and the media having an easier time reporting (i.e. lesser libel suits being filed or being withdrawn all together), I'm wondering if this has something to do with Big Mike's absence? Is he the greedy one the empress cannot control previously, causing the derailment of her programs? Is he the Madame to her Macoy? (Not that I'm praising Macoy, but he showed less caprices than Madame.)

Now that with Big Mike indefinitely out of the picture (and will take time to rebuild his clout once he reemerges), can this administration be a bit more open-minded and have more political will to get beneficial projects done?

Too bad he wasn't out of the picture earlier, way before the elections or TU wouldn't have had the kicking it received in the polls. Or if he was still active, the TU would've come out better, but at the expense of more Maguindanaos, probably even Cebu.

City Constituency and Council Chairs

With the increasing urbanization (and globalization) and mobility of the middle-class Pinoy, the traditional method of representation is becoming less significant. A simple case may be an employee going to work at Makati but actually lives in Pasig. In my case, I work in Manila but I’m registered in Batangas. I even have a friend who works in Manila, lives in Alabang (Muntinlupa), but registered in Tuguegarao. And so on, and so forth.

Of course, working where we’re registered is not a currently viable option. Why don’t we just re-register to where we now work/live? Because it’s such a hassle to do so. In an age where it’s a feat just to gather an official birth certificate or to renew a passport, going to the local level on a working day to re-register isn’t worth the day’s work lost. And for what? Councilors & local officials who would have nothing to do with you, since their policies only affect you indirectly through the business owners; more basic things like social security, medical aid, food are taken cared of by your job; infrastructure spans beyond the terms of these local officials. Besides, you really can’t tell the difference between all these candidates with generic photoshopped faces.

In addition, the current political reality is skewed such that the middle class aren’t the target market for local races. Local officials go for the volume vote, which translates to the CDE vote. The candidates would promise filling the needs of these voters, needs that we have somewhat met (with difficulty, but not as difficult as our less-fortunate brethren). These candidates don’t need our support for the numbers or “moral ascendancy”. So they don’t reach out to us. It’s also partly our fault that we don’t try to dig deeper to what they’re saying so that we know what these candidates are promising (forecasting), so we can hold them accountable to their promises (forecasts).

Then we all complain when we say they don’t represent us. And we have an even greater motive to bolt out of the nation.

Hmm. Since I don’t have a net link at work at the moment, I’ll see if Comelec has guidelines on how to re-register at a new locale when I get home.

[at home]

The Comelec website’s taking a while to load… Here's the site where it answers the FAQ on transferring where you were registered and here's the site where it quotes the relevant law.

Wait a minute... So the Election Registration Board has to approve my request? Then the Election Officer from the original area must know that the approval has been processed? Then I have to wait for the snail mail telling me that I can vote there now? What's the processing time in all of these approval & waiting? What if the Election Officer from the original area doesn't get the approval on time, would someone usurp my right there? And how long does snail mail get around these parts; will it get to me on time, especially since the election's 19 days away?

And all these questions and effort to elect councilors and congressmen who do not address my concerns directly? Of course, if I register where I live now, the councilors & congressmen will have a more direct role in my daily life, but only very, very marginally.

Is it worth all the effort?

irritating initiatives

(another one of my forgotten posts; this was written at the height of the cha-cha initiative)

The House of Representatives is hell-bent on ramming the Con-Ass initiative down our throats. If the Supreme Court (with the new composition) does say that Congress votes as a whole and disregarding the Senate votes as separate, I wonder what will happen next? After the postponement of the vote, the new Constitution would inevitably be ratified, what happens with the ratification?

[as it turned out, the Supreme Court turned it down]

People don’t like being removed of their privileges unless there’s a price involved and it’ll take a lot of convincing for the people not to elect the President. The usual more-jobs-more-food-more-roads-more-education tack is standard and unfulfilled, so what else do these would-be parliamentarians have to offer to ratify the change?

With this scenario, these congressmen may be left with no choice but to advance the initiative further by falsifying the results of a massive disapproval of the plebiscite; or not invite the people all together in deciding for the future.

Either alienation will definitely create a bigger disjoint between the people and the government. We’ll see less involvement in the public sector and more in the OFW sector.

[sadly, I see the disjoint even without this initiative coming through]

security sentinels

(i found this post lying in my flash drive; this was written @ the office while waiting for more tasks as a systems bean counter)

Whenever I needed to find a place in the metro (looking for a restaurant or an office), I invariably turn to the nearest security guard for directions. Or when I’m driving to look for a friend’s house in a subdivision, I turn to the guard at the gate for the location. Everywhere we look, we see guards providing security. And in the barangays, I think the tanod (village enforcer) population is also numerous.

Such proliferation of deputized localized enforcers is an indication of how much distrust we have placed on the nationally-mandated security force, i.e. the AFP and the PNP. We are more willing to place our money and our trust to security guards (by paying security agency fees) or to the tanods (by shouldering their allowances) rather than being convinced that our taxes serve well for our national enforcers.

It also doesn’t help that the military & police have taken a rather patriarchal view of themselves as defenders of the nation, more in the sense of an all-knowing overall lord protector than a co-equal partner in nation-building. They possess the management view that everyone is intrinsically capable of doing wrong and must be restrained to do so. Of course, this thinking permeates throughout government, business, and the clergy. But the military & police are armed.

In the course of implementing the state’s directives, the armed forces inevitably trample upon the rights of others, with the “greatest good for the greatest number” theory. If the people don’t follow them, the protectors force them to do so since the protectors know what’s good for the country. They feel that such collateral damage is only minimal and necessary to achieve peace & order.

Unfortunately, recent events have shown that without consultation with the locals, these actions alienate the armed forces from the rest of the populace. People are wary of their protectors, cringing when they are being summoned for any possible & arbitrary infraction of the law. Even innocent people are fearful because of the arbitrariness of the entrapment process (i.e. the cop doesn’t like how you look at them and decide to pick you up) and the lack of protection in the courts (you’re already in jail and it takes a few bags of money to get bail, a lawyer, and time to process your claim/defense).

Faced with this situation, people flee (as indicated by the numerous OFWs leaving the country) or get someone who they do trust (security guards & tanods).

No, I do not ask cops for directions for going somewhere. I might be picked up and be accused as a subversive, or they may kidnap me and receive my family’s savings in return, or they may beat me up for looking at them the wrong way.

bambi's beauty blog!

to all my 2-3 readers; please check out java-junkie's new blog (co-written by liee, not me): Baklitaan! it's a beauty, make-up, kikay blog for the asian audience in general, the pinay audience in particular! enjoy!!! :D

conrado's charm of circumstance

i really wonder how conrado de quiros gets away with ranting against the empress & big mike almost everyday, like this time. i mean, i do agree with him most of the time, especially his rants against the empress & big mike, not always his desired actions, but i do share his sentiments.

is it because of the miranda connection? that his daughter covers the empress? i doubt that the father exerts undue pressure on the daughter by using his daughter as a protective shield, inasmuch as the daughter requests the father to back down due to her job security. i'm sure the empress also has asked the daughter numerous times for her father to back down, but to no avail.

(i guess the daughter has as much power in stopping her father's ranting as much as the empress has in stopping her consort's actions).

but for how much longer, i wonder (if indeed this is de quiros's agimat)?

results reporting rigamarole

as i mentioned in my previous post, i went for a lateral transfer from my original work as systems bean counter to results bean counter. here's a description of the two:

• systems bean counter - deriving from the big jar of beans how many each beans are of what kind, whether they be garbanzos, mongo, peas. i have no immediate idea whether these beans are making money or not. and i work with IT primarily with these tasks
• results bean counter - reporting how much beans the overall company makes to the regional headquarters

yes, i know. i'm not good with folksy analogies.

this was one of the few times i went out, approached the bosses, and expressed my ambition to be a results bean counter. maybe it was the prospect of hitting 30 with still being unsatisfied with my career, or seeing a college classmate becoming the chief bean counter of the same company, or feeling the need to take charge of my career, so i asked.

fortunately, the office needed a results bean counter more urgently than a systems bean counter, so instead of hiring another bean counter to fill in the results position, i got the job. although it is a lateral position, the exposure to information and people would be more critical.

however, i'm still apprehensive of the distinction with the elite & not-so-elite officers status of this company. i'll regale my 2-3 readers on that on a subsequent post.

my rant right now is about turning over the new position. the results position was opened because the current one is resigning out of stress. her concerns are a very task-oriented demanding boss (which i faced to a greater degree in my old job) and a perceived-not-so-competent semi-boss (which i faced to a greater degree in my first job); so these are not really my problems.

my problem now is the way she was handing over the tasks. for her, there is no overriding concept that ties up all the tasks i've been taught. it's just a series of tasks that have to be done before the deadline, there is no chain, no reason, and no encouragement to seek out new ways of working (which i miss with my previous boss). i tried to inject some ways of doing stuff better, but she'd just wave me off as being too trivial, with the focus on submitting the work NOW, not learning how or why we have to submit it. (the fact that she's younger doesn't really help either, plus her self-acknowledged attitude of non-kindness.)

we have this comedian officemate who rewrites tasks using microsoft excel just so he has his own understanding on how this is done (he was assigned to catch some of my tasks and i like his approach on how he absorbs his work). i just wish more people would be that open.

then my not-so-considerate self says, she's leaving, so you can *own* the work, and it can be your diskarte, your own approach.

so by next April, it's my show now.

Shuttling between Stateside Sites

Wow, haven’t updated for a while. Brief updates:

• Regularized & got a new position in the company that makes soap, shampoo, and soup
• Presently in the land of milk and honey for a vacation

Yup, an overseas vacation. It’s more of a family thing, since we haven’t gone to the states together in a while.

At any rate, I went ahead first, because I’ll be coming home first. You see, I’m coming home before April starts, so that I’ll be at the office when we close the books. (Memo to self: I have to update my occupation from number cruncher to bean counter.)

Anyway, the first few days have been spent staying at my aunts’ & cousins’ homes, watching DVDs & US cable. In retrospect, those past few days could have been better spent, since I could’ve just watched DVDs and cable at home. But, I didn’t really take care of my schedule before leaving, plus I don’t expect the people here to change their skeds for me on such short notice. Que sera sera.

Still, I’m looking forward to visiting Vegas, watching Penn & Teller, plus going to the East Coast and watching Les Miz on Broadway, plus seeing various DC sites like the Smithsonian or even the White House!

Then it’s back to the circus that is the 2007 elections, where the choices are even vaguer than the 2004 elections…

Hope to update this blog more regularly soon!

Cashless Congressmen???

I was enjoying my breakfast of leftover sandwiches, when this headline scrolled at ABS-CBN crawler: Congress is raising P1 million in donations for the family of the slain congressman.

WHAT???????????????

So they’re so friggin’ greedy that they even want to raise P1 million from other people for their own kind? I mean, I do send out my condolences to the family, but come on! Congress can reallocate millions of pesos at a whim for their own ends easily! And yet they manage to piss off people by releasing this insane press release.

These are my representatives?

And the rightists wonder why more leftists are being elected to congress; the rightists don’t realize that they have a wide disconnect with the voters, unlike the leftists. Not that I like the leftists, they’re stuck with an old paradigm, but they relate to the pro-poor program very well.

Ugh.

puzzling pldt promo phamplet

I received a flyer from PLDT a few weeks ago with the usual monthly bill. In it was the discounts for several establishments, plus the announcement for the winners of the Fathers’ Day watch promo (PLDT raffles your entry, you get a watch). Imagine my surprise when I saw the following names:

Hmm, where have I seen the name Loida Nicolas Lewis before? Here’s one reference; here’s another; and here’s another…

What the heck would a multimillionaire (in US dollars!) want with a cheapo watch??? She can afford dozens of those without batting an eyelash!

If it were just a simple randomly-generated raffle, one can still explain it away as a coincidence where she had no participation. But I think one has to actively join the raffle to win, so again the question: why would she want to join a raffle to win a measly watch???

Or maybe it’s a different Loida Nicolas Lewis?

======================

i'm posting this on the new pc and i'm really starved for the net (the new office doesn't automatically grant unlimited net access, and i'm hesitant to ask since i know how addictive it can be...); to my 2-3 readers, i'll hopefully post more current entries soon! :P

jostling jumping jeepneys

This is a long-overdue post; in addition, I should be posting on the Milenyo madness. At any rate, here goes my litany against the “folk art on wheels”, the jeepney.

Doesn’t it tick you off that whenever the petroleum companies raise the price of oil, the jeepney operators always raise their fares correspondingly? Yet, when the oil price goes down, no corresponding changes are felt? If oil companies are so heartless yet lower their prices, why don’t the jeepney operators with their “hearts in the right place” lower their prices in the same manner? So big firms are allowed to shoulder losses (like utilities), but the “little people” are allowed to make a killing on the end consumers? Oh come on!

It’s also a poorly-kept secret that the jeepney lobby is pushing against the legalization of routes for the Public Asian Utility Vehicles (colloquially known as FX). They argue that since FX operators should not be legalized since they don’t pay taxes; but they say that FX operators don’t pay taxes since they’re illegal. It’s a patently circular argument.

These jeepney operators don’t want the FX operators for fear of losing their market. They are so greedy that they don’t want to give the riding public a choice between riding a pollution-filled jeepney or riding an air-conditioned FX for a marginally-higher cost. If the riding public can’t afford the FX, they can ride the jeepney.

Are these jeepney operators that greedy that they want to monopolize the riding public? Or are they really scared that the riding public will choose the FX over them, given the choice; and that there is a critical mass of people who would prefer to ride the FX, such that this choice will greatly affect the jeepney operators’ bottom lines?

As it is, the FX operators serve in the gray market as “Metered Taxis”, something like jueteng, I guess. But unlike jueteng, there’s a tangible service being purchased (going from one place to another in relative comfort) from the FX; not the illusory benefits of jueteng (a chance in winning a sizeable amount). So I think legalizing FX routes makes for a better argument than legalizing some forms of gambling.

The jeepney was originally designed to be a stop-gap measure, with the destruction of the railway and bus systems during the war. It has evolved into one of our primary transport systems. It just bugs me to no end that the jeepneys want to impose their own will on the public, threatening with strikes if they don’t get their way, and barring any new alternatives looming in the horizon.

missing makati

Now that I’ve started with my new job, I’m beginning to miss the urban lifestyle in Makati. Don’t get me wrong, the place where I am now is great, but it’s so different from what I’m used to. I guess I should enumerate the things I miss:

• Wearing business attire – although it’s quite relaxing to wear college clothes again, I miss the sense of professionalism a tie or a barong brings. Then again, I guess it’s the actual work that should bring in the sense of professionalism
• High rise buildings – I miss the dizzying heights those magical chests take you from floor to floor then viewing the ground below, the people looking like ants. Now, I stare down from the second floor and I see real ants (though not often, this workplace is quite clean).
• Access to malls – one just has to ride the FX or walk around to go to Glorietta or Greenbelt, or take a short cab ride to Rockwell or the Fort. Here, there’s only one mall in the vicinity, and when I mean vicinity, it’s a long jeepney or expensive cab ride to get there.
• Proper sidewalks – in Makati, one always kept to the sidewalk or in an under/overpass; here at the new place, the compound commands a walking area as well, but once outside, it’s a jungle crossing the street; much like college in the old days… hehehe!
• Nightlife options – not that I have much of a nightlife, but at least I had an option for wholesome activities in Makati

Here are the things I don’t miss:

• Paid parking – since I’m not in Makati, the parking is for free! Gas is a killer though, since I’m nearer to Makati than my current workplace
• Expensive food – there’s an efficient canteen here that serves delicious and filling meals for less than P50 a pop!

Oh well, it wasn’t Makati I left, it was the work; the work now is cool (cool = ok, not cool = hip), good, and better than what I used to do. I guess it’s a risk-returns thing and this time the returns are greater than the negative things of not living in Makati. I still visit Makati, especially when picking up pink princess or my sister.

But one day Makati, I will be back. I will have that corner high-rise office someday.

evening eyesight

this should've been posted long ago, not when i'm about to leave my current company.

when i was starting out here, before the rest of the people came in, it was only me & categorically imperative manning the ramparts. (now, it seems that LIFO is in effect, since i'm leaving ahead of cat.)

at any rate, there was a time where we had to number crunch some figures for a bank presentation, so we stayed here till 11pm. (to those who know cat's infamous dates, sorry, this isn't one of them.) at any rate, we were standing at the lobby, waiting for a ride home, when rico yan's brother (the guy on the top page) went into the office building. this is weird, since we're at the heart of makati and offices had closed by then (not counting the graveyard shift).

we asked the guard what was going on, he said it was aga muhlach's 20th(?) anniversary in showbusiness. he was hosting his party at the top floor of the building, which enclosed a posh resto.

a few minutes later, two nannies (in their white pantsuits) came out carrying aga's twins, atasha & andres. they were going in their expedition to presumably go home after being in the party. imagine my surprise when andres suddenly looked in my direction, reached out, and said, "dada! dada!"

cat & i looked back.

nope, aga wasn't there. nobody was there.

so does that mean i look like his dada? hmm...........................

=======================

i've told this story a million times (as one can imagine) and these are the two theories why this happened:

• andres has poor eyesight
• cat looks like aga/like a man

nobody really wants to admit my, um, looks had any part in it.

ok, maybe andres is blind as a bat....

(inspired to be posted by swipe's post, specifically the last paragraph. yes, my experience did happen.)

boards and bars

The recent news on the nursing board as well as the old scandals regarding the bar and doctor's exams a few years back reminded me of my bean-counting exam-taking experience.

I chose this specific review center back in college since they assured the reviewers that they would be taken cared of, and in a truthful manner. Boy, it was really rigorous; we had three pre-board exams instead of the normal two. And this review center prided itself on an honest system, using its own review materials and shunning other review centers' materials. As such, I knew my strengths (auditing problems) and my weakness (business law & taxation and financial accounting theory).

The more popular review centers were less than vigilant in killing rumors on their access to the test scores, as well as giving special treatment for reviewers coming from prominent schools. I’m saying this euphemistically, of course.

I cannot claim to be a model Filipino citizen and I knew even beforehand that I’d be using my license merely as a formality, but in this instance I put a premium on how I passed this examination, not just the end-goal of passing.

As for the recommendations that the questionable board exams should be validated by making the examinees take the exams again, I’m all for it. If the board results for my batch were dubious, of course I’d be pissed if I had to take it again. But dropping subjects out of expediency’s consideration, just like what the Supreme Court did for the bar exam and what the Professional Regulation Commission is going to do for the nursing board, will make me question if I earned that plastic card. And yes, I’d be ticked off because studying for the board was the hardest I’ve ever studied, even more so than college. But the alternative of doubting your own credentials is unfathomable.

And even if they did truly pass the whole exam, and even if most people don’t ask you what batch you passed and if you’re really good at Mercantile Law or Sets III or V or Auditing Problems; you’d still ask yourself if you’re worth those suffixes at the end of your name (even if you don’t append these initials). It’s like sending a car out of the factory without the steering wheel.

This is when I fully appreciate Conrado de Quiros’s position on the snap election option. The empress may have truly won, even by a small margin of less than 500,000. But going through the garci-calling and the numerous occurrences of vote-padding nullifies whatever she’s done. What does one do, nullify the results for Mindanao for both her and da king, then see if who beats whom? The whole election has been tainted. And a credible election should be in order. An election with a credible COMELEC.

So is this why we’re not pursuing a reexamination of our professionals or a snap election for the leadership, due to expediency?

I just wish the COMELEC can be cleaned though, and start this ball rolling.

return of the raver

pasigraver's back!!!

bean and biker-doctor on the bard's play

rowan atkinson and hugh laurie spoofing shakespeare!

maligning metaphors

(short but graphic post; not for the faint of heart)

you know the expression "get blood out of a stone"? it means to try to do an impossibility.

i've found a way around it.

by making sure you grip the stone hard enough so that blood comes out. from you.