Of Fictitiousness of the Non-Fiction, Comics and Etc.

The Bible, the Koran, history books, self-help books, and the Kamasutra...

Okay, scratch that last one.

Those are just some of the works considered by many as non-fiction, books that contain accounts of past events and guide of how people must act in the present or in the future. But as years go by, the terms "Real" and "True" have lost much of their meaning for most people. Such terms have been reduced to "who's real or truth is it?". "Real" and "Truth" have become an options or choices. Since, there are seemingly countless real's and truth's, it's only a matter of choosing what to believe or what to accept.

There is no wonder why "Calvin and Hobbes", "Dilbert", "The Phantom" or "The Amazing Spiderman", works labeled and considered as "fiction", are more acceptable and greatly enjoyed by audience.

Why? Because materials simply labeled as "fiction" causes people to ease up, put their mental guard down and say "hey, this thing is just fiction, it wont hurt my faith" or "at least, these things dont try to sell things to me or forcibly push thoughts upon me".

Comics generally don't offend non-believers in the way literary works of one group offend members of rival groups. Comics are generally seen as neutral and casual and hence more widely accepted.

In the realm of non-fiction, there are believers and non-believers. In the realm of fiction there are only fans and those who are not

(But of course, there are extreme comic fanatics of Marvel and DC who would say otherwise, but that is a topic reserved for another blog post).

Works of non-fiction are hailed as non-fiction only by believers, and as fiction by non-believers. For fiction, there is no obvious strong urge or sense to make a choice. Hence, the response from audience is merely to like or to not like.

Much of what have been considered as fiction contain stories of family, brotherhood, friendship, love, forgiveness, reconciliation, hate, vengeance, war and all bunch of things that the non-fiction are also about. The difference is that there is no strong explicit call to act
or to make audience believe what is being presented. Fiction dont shout "Believe" as loud as the non-fiction.

The works of fiction are a bit like positive reinforcement strategies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_reinforcement). They are most likely can and possibly be already effective in making people and act without "obviously" doing so. A lot of things that are more likely "truth" and "real" can be passively disseminated or spread via works of fiction without much friction.

But of course, through the years, content in the realm of advertisment and marketing - materials often considered as things outside of non-fiction - have been utterly successful making most people respond(believe and act) according to their objectives. And there have been novels published as fiction which hint of actual political and historical events. Songs, too have been instrumental in spreading awareness, whether of principles or commercial products.

Thus, acceptance of all content, whether fiction or non-fiction should be a matter of choice. One must be trully aware of what is implicitly or explicitly being stated by people or characters named Jesus, Mohammed, Elijah, Hitler, Obama, Ghandi, Cobain, Elvis, Lennon, Sinatra, Haile Selassie, Rizal, Dilbert, Calvin, or Sleepyhead(me).

Evading "it" is a lot harder than finding "it"

It’s all about it...

A few nights ago, I have confirmed I have neither aptitude nor practical desire for indulging or availing services from massage and spa shops/parlors.

Whether it will be described as a physical excursion that is primarily effort-oriented (ex: pick up lines, game moves) or a service inclusive in a business-arrangement, I have no real interest in it. Theoretical interest? Sure - lots of it. Who doesn’t? Who wouldn’t?

Okay, here’s the definition of terms… By “it”, I mean “unofficial sex”. By “unofficial sex”, I mean “any sexual activity between two or more persons who are not a couple (ex: husband-wife, gf-bf, gf-gf or what-have-you)”.

And why must I evade it? The reason is not love for my spouse, not lack of lust (‘coz I have tons of that) not even fear of a higher being or ultimate punishment or eternal damnation. Not because it’s illegal or any of the sort (it’s legal right?). I’m not gay and most certainly not evading because of health reasons (who worries about STD’s before sex?). And honestly, I believe I have good skills and often feel an obligation to share them. The reason, I’m now more convinced of, is just love for my own self… or more precisely, the fear of my own conscience, or whatever that means.

Hey, don’t get me wrong I’m no Don Juan oozing with sex appeal, but the idea that “sex is hard to find” is absurd. Hollywood movies about teenage boys begging for sex may be a bit closer but those movies about working men desperate for sex – now that’s fiction.

After high school, evading sex is a lot harder than finding it.

Take note, the operative word is “find”, "hunting" is not needed, people only need to welcome it. The whole world smells of sex… even Barbie and Ken (Don’t know these two? They’re the favourite gift products from Mattel - your niece, girlfriend or sister at one point must’ve begged mom and dad to buy one for her birthday)

Evading sex is a lot harder than finding it, especially if you’re the only married guy among a crowd of healthy bachelors. Well, truth to be told, I’m most probably the first among my high school classmates who got married(and yes, my first born beautiful daughter was a result of unprotected pre-marital sexual intercourse between two college sweethearts) - so for a considerable amount of time, the atmosphere or environment for reunions and annual get-togethers were primarily for bachelors and for singles.

Over the years, I must admit I must’ve been to every famous bikini or strip bar where I work. I’ve worked for Japanese, Korean and American executives/companies, and I have grown fond of the bikini bar culture. Here’s info/tip for the bible lovers, bikini bars are not necessarily prostitution shops, some of them are actually good dining places and hangouts… but yes, sex is there too. One only needs to welcome it. But what do I do? I act as a first-timer and pretend to be a wildlife researcher and interview the enticing ladies (who have been assigned to me and have already been paid for by the boss) about their life and their view points. Yes, I know, I know, I know – it’s a place for welcome not interview (Silly me, what’s freaking wrong with me?!)

What is probably pre-marital sex for singles is most certainly extra-marital sex for those who are married.

Once again, this is not about being a saint or about Roman Catholicism’s holy matrimony. For starters, my wedding was civil and was not an official Christian ceremony, and I’m not exactly a Christian by Christian standards. I could’ve and can still use that as an excuse for involvement in unofficial sex activities (I’ve heard more lame excuses than that)

And even if I do agree that a man’s taste in women is inversely proportional to his age (as a boy, he gets infatuated with his school teacher; as a high school lad, he’s into girls of his age, as an old man, he’s into fifteen year olds), it doesn’t mean I’m actually going to be indulging in extra-marital sex or start preparation for my DOM(dirty old man) years.

Our regrets will not be about the things we have done but on the things we didn’t (or shall I put it: our regrets will not be about the people we did but about the people we didn’t do?). If that’s the case, then so be it.

Let the regrets come.

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Psst..

By “come” in the last sentence, I meant “come”. I have observed that most people after reading or hearing the word “sex” from me, is bound to interpret “come” as “cum”, “orgasm”, “climax”, “release” or whatchamacallit, fooling themselves into thinking that my sentences are filled with double, even multiple meanings. So there, I just thought I ought to be clear. And no, “regrets” in that last sentence is not to be meant to be substituted with “girls”, “bikini babes” or “lovers”; “regrets” means “regrets”, capish?

I fear judgement coming from my inner self. My inner self is a whole different parallel version of me. I might probably the sanest schizo there is. My inner self(or selves) is fond of whispering side-comments and commentaries to me, whether it’s a blissful, tragic or embarrassing moment. In fact, I feel it’s the part of me that is dominant when I write or blog…

But of course, I have added the last paragraph as a vain attempt to add a touch of comedy, macabre, eeriness, humour or utter silliness; it’s that or it’s just a silly attempt to make a zen proverb afterthought at the bottom of this otherwise boring post.

Oh, before I forget…

Warning: Evading OFFICIAL SEX is dangerous to your health.

Nobility of Professions.

Some professions have nice little ring to their namesAnd the corresponding professionals who practice such professions are the ring-bearers:

"I'm a doctor. I save lives"

"I'm a journalist. I'm a vanguard of Truth"

"I'm a lawyer. I'm a protector of Justice and the oppressed"

"I'm a mayor. I'm a Public Servant. I help my fellow citizens"

"I'm a priest. I help people get in touch with God"


These professions have all the BS(b*llsh!t) already packaged. No advertisements are needed. People have come to regard people with such titles as being more responsible and more trustworthy than they truly are.

Truth to be told there are thousands of dim-witted medical doctors out there, bowing their heads to their more dim-witted supervising doctors and just prescribing any medicine recommended by the pharmaceutical companies. There are also lots of enterprising journalists telling only the stories of their favored side. The lawyers, are no exceptions, it's not uncommon to hear stories about that "dumb lawyer". And let us not get started about the public servants and the priestly folks.

Most professions are only treated as MEANS OF LIVELIHOOD and EMPLOYMENT and nothing more. There is nothing noble about that.

Here in this part of the world, titles are almost everything. Facade and masks.

My parents were right, after all, titles do matter. It may not be fair, but it's the reality.

But on a personal level, I will always be me. If ever the past is rewritten, I will always be a maverick among my peers and will always be different. But that would mean, I'd be dead by now if I were a journalist or probably has been ostracized by my colleagues if I were a medical doctor or a lawyer.

Even in the corporate software development world, I have been considered talented but deviant and strange. But as the years passed...

I'm no longer that. I'm just deviant and strange now .

Sigh.

But if there was a choice to be made in a thousand ground hog days... I wish to be a doctor... I'll be a true savior of lives instead of a programmer who saves his boss's ass.

"I saved a life" sounds and feels better
than "I saved my boss' ass"

Amen.

Kids and Other Stuff in one of those books about the Visibility of Trends and Perception of the World

People talk of trends when a trend becomes "visible" and overwhelming. People account their effects and their causes to and from all sort of things. Each account have their own studies and records, all attempting to explain the observable trends.

I read one of the books that contain such accounts. In one page there is a paragraph stating something about that kids can watch a kiddie show while playing at the same time... Isnt that familiar? Isn't that the line that kids used to say before being admonished and programmed by grown-ups?

    "But Dad, I can watch TV while doing my homework"
    "I can do both, Mommy. I can listen to you admonish me while Im playing"
    "But I can brush my teeth and make my bed at the same time"

Kids can multi-task and grown-up people can multi-task. It maybe that in their part of the world, the grown-ups have lost that ability.. and most probably didnt know they had that.

"Grownups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always forever explaining things to them"
- The Little Prince

In another chapter, I read some bunch of psychologists allegedy say that small kids because of something called principle of mutual exclusivity, have difficulty understanding "that any one object can have two different names".

Perhaps the psychologists were referring to the kids in their population. It was an erroneous statement. A generalization made on the part of the author to include something scientific as an explanation of certain circumstance, or worst, a generalization by the psychologists he was using as a reference.

It is silly to say that what MIGHT, JUST MIGHT be true in one place would be immediately be a universal truth.

Kids here in our place, because of the wide usage of mixing constructs from two or more languages/dialects, can identify multiple labels for a single object. Kids here know that a dog can be called/referred to as "dog" in English or by the equivalent words in our local dialects.

It's a shame really that editors in the author's part of the world dont know anything about reviewing something that they have published for international reader consumption. Or is it perhaps they have assumed everything written from their end to be universallly-applicable truths or do they just like to ride on international-bestseller trends while it's hot?

It's funny that most international bestsellers that deal on trends contain little or no discussions at all about the trend basis for making international bestsellers.

But nonetheless, despite its flaws, the book was still worth reading. If anything, the book was good source - a great reference on how other people view the world and yet another example of trends - on how easilly the readership can accept and indulge in the author's way of thinking.

If I may be bold to comment, the author should add another type of personality in his book: "Drone". This would basically be the category where most of the people in the author's part of the world would fall in.

Everyone is a drone, one way or another; some at times, and most people, all the time.

Drones: Buzz. Buzz. Buzz

The Pursuit and Maintenance of a Routine.

Routines...

Life in the city follows a routine. For the average citizen, he lives in stages, there's the gradeschool stages, highschool stages and college stages, and ever after that, the individual would eventually either work as employee and would basically follow a career path or start his own business and follow a business plan.

Routines, routines, routines.

Man in his work. That's a familiar psychology subject.

Life is all about routines. Whether it's a traditional one(often considered as boring and akin to a sheep's life) or the adventurous variations. Whether a lifestyle is about following a certain fixed pattern of activities or a seemingly random, free-spirited lifestyle. The pattern is still there. The pattern of randomness - the routine of deviating from yesterday's or last week's routine is no more than a routine.

It is said no one is as restless as the one who feels and gives in frequently to the impulse to relax. Many people live their routine with frequent bar-hoppings, leasuire travels, and romantic entanglements. In the end, they are busy with "relaxation activities". Non-job-related, but routines nonetheless. Each individual has his own routine no matter how hard he tries to pretend he's not living one. The one who claims he doesnt follow any rules, is truthfully following one rule - his own.

For most people, work is a means of livelihood... but in the end it would become a life practice. A man's work would eventually define and would become his "life". Work would no longer be a means to an end, it would become the journey.

Many of us can hope to follow two or more "subroutines" in our biological lives. But of course, those who have plenty of resources at their disposal and the right amount charm and luck, can live a routine that span across different job fields and social areas. They can afford to forget their "past life" and "begin" another one in another place. They can build another profile - another identity. They can afford to fail a hundred times more in their journey. Yes, all these are just steps to the pursuit and maintenance of a routine.

Whether we are aware that we have a choice in what routine to choose or maintain, or not, our circumstances are not that different. The specifics may differ, but the outline is the same. We are not that different.

Our routines are our lives; love it or hate it.


II.

We fill our lives with routines. Doing things that we like or things that we have accustomed to doing. We incorporate activities and shed off some as we live our lives. What would life be without work activity? It would'nt be called "living" if the entirety of our biological life were spent in a vegetable state - we would have no "life" both in the dream world and in the physical world.

All throughout the ages, man have attempted to transcend individual life to a higher meaning. Legacy is also a thing that people have become concerned about. Some would say that individual life is just but a speck, chain link or a dot in the bigger journey of his clan, nation or race.

But in this day and age, "lineage", "community" and "society" are terms that have become so important that they have lost their meaning in the air. The common "individual" is often forgotten in the law of the majority and sadly often only remembered during church sermons and in election campaigns. The present circumstances might have possibly severly degraded the essence and meaning of individuals as mere statistics. People are now frequently speak in terms of mass nouns and generalizations (the author of this blog post is no exception).

Society, its technologies and by-products have intentionally or accidentally engineered the routines individuals may take. Now, more than ever, current routines are the outcome of the routines maintained by people in the past. People may think that new job fields, new lifestyles and new perceptions have been opened, when in-truth they are the same old ones just with a little bit of sugar and salt added... and if there is truth to be told, it is that the actual options an individual can take have lessened. A vast majority of the activities we live out are mere subroutines of society. Y es, this is also true in the past but the difference is that now, only a few know and understand of the direction where our society's journey is heading to, and that even fewer know who are in control and there is a big chance that those who are in control are NOT numbered among the people who understand. In the past there were already monarchs and leaders of men, but the routines of humans abide by the earth and the other inhabitants, whether it is by ignorance, by fear or because of respect and reverence.

Now, the earth is bound to the human routines. "Life" is no longer something about life in general, but specifically about "human life". Human routines do not just affect the turn of human events but the events of the whole world.

Human routines have direct and strong impact upon the Earth. In the old days when Buddhism was born, the effects of an action are like the silent ripples created by a small drop of water... but in this age, where all nations are now linked in many ways, effects of a single action are like big thundering waves. Each day, the effects of human routines have become bigger and bigger, stronger and stronger. It is now becoming apparent that many of the effects may not have been all positive, and on the contrary, quite silenty severely negative.

Routines, routines, routines...

Where shall our routines take us?

Measuring the effectiveness of online activism

[From an article by Sruthi Krishnan in The Hindu, 21 June 2009]

There are forms of social activism, which are not looked upon favourably

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After the Iran elections, social networking sites are used by supporters of Opposition candidate

For the success of an online campaign, the power of the message also counts

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CHENNAI: Sit-ins and police arrests. Placards hoisted high and slogans rippling through the crowds. Pamphlets distributed at the dead of night. It was called activism and is still called that — just that the cat and mouse game with the Big Brother has a binary code underlying it.

Social activism in the world of Web 2.0 follows most of the rules of the real world. But the nature of the medium does have an impact on the message, and the jury is still out on how effective activism is online.

After the Iran elections, social networking sites are being used extensively by supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has challenged the validity of the elections. As the Iranian government has placed restrictions on the traditional media, the supporters have sought refuge in the electronic world.

If you search for #IranElection, which is the tag on Twitter, a messaging service, for any update related to the Iran elections, there are minute-by-minute posts by users around the globe. The effects of this decentralised campaign are manifold.

“This raises the awareness of the issues among the people who may not have been exposed to these issues because of the space constraints of traditional media,” says Sunil Abraham, director-policy, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. “It encourages activists on the ground in Iran because it clearly demonstrates global solidarity.” The increased transparency also has a pre-emptive effect by making it more difficult for states and corporations to engage in repressive activities without attracting international condemnation.

But there are forms of social activism online, which are not looked upon favourably.

Campaigns urging you to ‘Click on this link and eradicate world hunger’ lead to an oxymoronic state of sedentary activism or ‘slacktivism.’ Evgeny Morozov, a fellow at the Open Society Institute at New York, has coined this term to describe “feel-good online activism” that has no political or social impact. On the one hand, it will be easy to dismiss the click-to-participate campaigns as being useless. But they could attract people who would have normally not bothered with the issue. Mr. Morozov concludes that the only way to resolve the debate is by surveying campaigns to analyse impact.

“As far as I know, there are no such studies. But there is anecdotal evidence that clicks on a Web 2.0 system can lead to deeper engagement with social campaigns,” says Mr. Abraham. He cites the example of Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa, who was able to get some members of the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group (with over 90,000 members) to raise questions during open houses called by Canadian Members of Parliament. Thanks to this campaign, the government backed down from legislating anti-consumer intellectual property laws, he says.

For the success of an online campaign, the power of the message also counts. Here, Mr. Abraham refers to the Pink Chaddi campaign. “It did not directly respond to the arguments of the Ram Sene. It used humour to mock the fundamentalists into irrelevance.”

Though there is no clear path to an effective online campaign, the successes have demonstrated the potential of the medium that promises to connect millions with a click. But just as a message can grow stronger as it reaches more people, it can also be spread wafer-thin and lose significance.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu

Original Article:

http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/21/stories/2009062154641300.htm

Link to "The Centre for Internet and Society" article :

http://www.cis-india.org/news/measuring-the-effectiveness-of-online-activism

Farewell to the Queer-King of Pop: Michael Jackass err Jackson

Okay, I got too rough with the blog title...

He was famous, weird and controversial at the very least.

All throughout the 80's, his songs dominated the air waves (but of course this is just some flimsy BS generalization when there are other billboard topnotchers with their own army of fans like Madonna during that time).

Anyway, I was born in the 80's, when the "moonwalk" was not something that was attributed to Neil Armstrong(who's he? The man who allegedly took the great leap of mankind with a single step on the moon). Michael Jackson was the "moonwalker" and not an astronaut from NASA.

Performers, especially here in this little part of the world, wanted to have the same intensity and energy and tried to become all-around performers of their own right(yeah, right). A local performer here, Gary Valenciano have some fans who have cited that their idol have started his career independently and that his career was not influenced by Jackson's(Yeah right, a kid with feverish energitic dancing in 80's? Come on!)

And now that news will be spreading fiercely both in the local and international scenes, there would be plenty of I-miss-him coverage. I imagine the local news in this country would cover celebrities saying stuff they dont even know about and would go about pretending like they are grateful to the King of Pop (you know the drill).

------------

I can't help remembering one of my highschool buddies who was such a fan of Michael Jackson that he would passionately defend his idol when somebody talks about the dark rumors (homo, pedophile, alien, the stuff). By passionately, I mean, beating the crap out of "violators".

Now that Jackson's gone, I can recall reading something about one of the lines of his song, "They Don't Care About Us"...

The line was "Jew me Sue Me". In those days before the golden age of blogging, songs were embedded with hidden meanings and intents, some of them less "hidden" than others, they still are , but now, people primarily rely on reading blogs for those "hidden meanings and intents".

It was a Reader's Digest article by the way(please google for it. No need to put bibliographic references in this post when there are many search engines who can verify).

Jackson was reportedly referring to the family(primarily the father) who filed a lawsuit against him. The lawsuit was child-sexual-harrasment related(again, Im not copyrighting nor copy-pasting in this post since most of my blogs are purely from my memory and my from my wicked imagination - I could be wrong but I highly doubt that). It was also specified there that Jackson had the PR advantage to that case since people had to read to know the side of the "victim's" family while alot more people can just hear and watch Jackson's side of it just by watching Oprah(whoohooo! Oprah again, I better make that a "tag" here in my blog).

Jackson said something like "any kid can come into my room". When in fact, as his detractors claim, his entire house is packed with security cameras and other security measures that virtually no one with unauthorized access can gain entry into.

------------

Okay, enough about the Reader's Digest article and back to my highschool memories...

Back in highschool, my friend also played "Michael Jackson" in an interview-drama-play and audience would act as reporters. I can still remember my question:

"You're the King of Pop and you married the daughter of the King of Rock, why?"

Of course it was a dumb question, I just liked the ring of it.

------------

Despite of all the scandals, Jackson would be remembered for his songs that seemed to bridge the "black" and "white" boundaries. His "Black or White" music video, in fact, was something about the entire human race and the abandonment of color boundaries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVoJ6OO6lR4



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWOBHVPvi-s




It's sad that Jackson didn't get to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize unlike Bono of U2 (oh well, better luck time in the next life). In his lifetime, Michael Jackson made plenty of contribution to the plight of world peace, humanitarian causes and other pressing world problems.

Okay, okay. Some people might be thinking of adding the phrase ".. by adding to them." to the previous paragraph but hey whatever works.

Even after his death, Michael Jackson will continue to be a source of entertainment for millions of people (and I say this with both respect and with pun intended).

Let's Protect our Coco Crunch, Guys!

Unfortunately this is not about Coco Crunch the cereal nor about that Koala(mascot/trademark of that cereal), but I do think that animal with all his jumping around might also be interested in this post.


Have you (yes, you! assuming of course, there's someone else other than me reading this blog) given much thought to the ways you can protect your jewels (a.k.a genitalia)?

For the averate city guy, the words "protection" and "genitalia" would mean only one thing: condom.

Yes, it's sad but true. But this is post is simply not about contraception.

The female members of our specie are more fortunate. There are lots products on the shelves of grocery stores that are geared towards feminine hygiene, but guys, on the other hand, are ever so reliant on the old-soap-shampoo-thing.

I've read some tidbits of male genitalia hygeine in short articles of men's magazines (like: FHM, Penthouse), but they're mostly about watching out for food that would give semen a bad taste for women(?!)

It might come as a shock for most guys, but Oprah(yes, the only and one Oprah, Goddess of TV ratings) did feature some interesting info regarding the male human body. She even had something about a "Broken Penis".

And no, this post is not an pro-Oprah ad.

[Defensive Mode] I'm not a fan of Oprah and her gang of specialists. I can never understand why people are so awed by the Prince of Decor when the guy is so lame and just helping out lame people whose worst problem is how to decorate their homes and who somehow act as if a well-decorated house is a prerequisite for happiness. But I have developed a certain level of appreciation for many of Dr. Oz's advice, especially when he's not talking about the diseases and illness brought about by the use of vanity tools of women(makeup, etc).

If you're a guy and you hear a doctor talking about a "broken penis", you'll probably watch and listen too(or at least end up listening to the Oprah Doctor while pretending to read the sports page of a month-old newspaper).

I had the same sentiments of Dennis Leary(US actor) who initially planned to make fun of Oprah but ended up watching more and more of her show because of the male-oriented topics(or so he claims).

And so back to "broken penis"... Guys should watch where they put their stick.

And by the way, if you are among the few readers of this blog and have reached this part. There is no practical advice here about "protecting" your "coco crunch" and no further details about the "broken penis". This post is just one big rhetorical statement - one big thinking-out-loud episode that I had.

So everytime you see the koala guy and his bowl of cereal, you better remember that bulge/mound between your legs. He/she/it (or whatever name you have christened it/him/her/etc) do need protection.

So guys and gals, let's protect our coco crunch!

April Fool's and Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy?

Yep, he's the guy who wrote Anna Karenina.

No no no, I'm not referring to a tv soap series once aired in the Philippines. That series mangled the image and memory recall ability of the citizens. Each time you talk about "Anna Karenina" people would think you're a fan of tearful Philippine tv soap series of the 1990's.

Leo Tolstoy also wrote another novel, War and Peace.

I wouldn't have imagined bringing myself into reading such literature. I only came upon a soft copy of the novel while browsing a supposed-developers guide to Magento(a now famous php-based shopping cart framework).

The "tutorial" was supposed to be an April Fool's joke that is apparently still actively floating in the hyperlinks of the internet. And to think it's now June!

Thankfully, I got bored reading about the life of pre-communism Russian aristocrats and decided to read the lame developer documentation found on the shopping cart's web site.

--------

Hmmm...

What if I wrote my own "tutorial" and have the file buffed up by a couple of scanned copies of one of thousands of hentai literature out there on the web...
  
Would unexpecting readers/developers read the "embedded" literature??


  

YAC: Yet Another Constitution

We, the sovereign Filipino people would always want to modify our Constitution for the nth time.

That would be an accurate first sentence for our preamble.

Speaking of preambles, here are the preambles over the years:


Version 1.0 - 1899 version
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"Nosotros los Representantes del Pueblo Filipino, convocados legítimamente para establecer la justicia, proveer a la defensa común, promover el bien general y asegurar los beneficios de la libertad, implorando el auxilió del Soberano Legislador del Universo para alcanzar estos fines, hemos votado, decretado y sancionado la siguiente" ”

(We, the Representatives of the Filipino people, lawfully covened, in order to establish justice, provide for common defense, promote the general welfare, and insure the benefits of liberty, imploring the aid of the Sovereign Legislator of the Universe for the attainment of these ends, have voted, decreed, and sanctioned the following)

NOTE:
Look Ma! Spanish!
I wonder if the common citizen could expertly read Spanish at that time.

Of course, this version wasn't created with the approval of the then-owner guardian of the Philippines, Good Ol' Uncle Sam. So this might be called version 0.1 and have the versions of the other modifications renumbered.

Apparently, the former inhabitants of the country ignored the arrival of the Americans as the new boss of the town and pretended they were gaining independence and had won over the Spaniards when in fact, the independence battle (like what others would say about the NASA landing on the moon) was a hollywood scripted act that came into play when Spain signed the country over to the Americans.


Version 2.0 - 1935 version
-----------------------------------------

"The Filipino people, imploring the aid of Divine Providence, in order to establish a government that shall embody their ideals, conserve and develop the patrimony of the nation, promote the general welfare, and secure to themselves and their posterity the blessings of independence under a regime of justice, liberty, and democracy, do ordain and promulgate this constitution."

NOTE:
This version had the stamp of approval from Dear Uncle Sam and one of the deemed prerequisites for Uncle Sam's grant of independence.

Ah, the teenage life!
Asking for independence by writing a constitution as proof of maturity! How about that?

Please Uncle, please!


Version 3.0 - 1943 version
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"The Filipino people, imploring the aid of Divine Providence and desiring to lead a free national existence, do hereby proclaim their independence, and in order to establish a government that shall promote the general welfare, conserve and develop the patrimony of the Nation, and contribute to the creation of a world order based on peace, liberty, and moral justice, do ordain this Constitution."

NOTE:
This was during WWII.

Remember the Nazis, the Japs and the Marios?
The axis powers versus the Allies headed by the Big Three (Russia, British Empire and whad'ya know US)?

Anyway, the country was under the manufacturers of anime and they love dolls and puppets so much they allowed the puppet government to write a constitution.


Version 4.0 - 1973 version
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"We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Divine Providence, in order to establish a government that shall embody our ideals, promote the general welfare, conserve and develop the patrimony of our Nation, and secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of democracy under a regime of justice, peace, liberty, and equality, do ordain and promulgate this Constitution.


NOTE:
This was during the reign of King Marcos. With his gallant hand, he has set forth the holy age of the country called the "Martial Law Regime".

It was a Golden Age, they say. Apparently it was only the "cronies" who mentioned that and they only said those words during the era of King Marcos.

King Marcos was able to fool convince the authors of the wikipedia the revised Constitution to give him unlimited number of lives in the presidential game.


Version 5.1 - 1987 version
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"We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God, in order to build a just and humane society, and establish a Government that shall embody our ideals and aspirations, promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity, the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace, do ordain and promulgate this Constitution."

NOTE:
This was during the real Golden Age, or as what the supporters of the Aquino Administration would say. This was the era after King Marcos where a "plain housewife" took the throne, err, given the presidency by the people, or so history would say.

This was after the People Power Revolution now commonly referred as "EDSA I", which is the name of a busy street in the country's capital where there is a flux of traffic jams and vehicular accidents.

Why 5.1?
There was something called a "Freedom Constitution" during 1986, but it there was no Preamble. So tough luck!

Oh oh!
By now, you would've noticed that this is the version that the word "GOD" is first used in the preamble.
I dunno why the other versions had used more eloquent and fancier words. Perhaps, the authors had tried to make the country appear liberal and that there was an overflowing atmosphere of religious tolerance. It's either that or the authors just wanted to show future readers they are well-informed and have richer vocabulary. Perhaps the next version would have something like "with the aid of the FORCE" or "the aid of Big Brother" or "the aid of the United States" or even simpler like "the aid of the Boss" or "the aid of the One" or "the aid of the Many" or "the aid of No One Else".

Anyway At this time, the Constitution wrote off the historical ownership rights of the country of historical territories like Sabah by the deletion or exclusion of some lines in the territory section. Anyway, who cares about such stuff?

Anyway, this is the constitution that is currently being targeted for modification.

And in case you get to join the Constitional Committe,
please have the word "Sovereign" removed!

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Alas, the above list might be needing modification in a few years or so depending whether there is a new revision and when that revision would be released.

And if someone might ask
"why should I care about the constitution? We didn't even cover that one in our ultra private exclusive university"

Then tell them what I told my history teacher in college when he wondered why a study of the constitution is part of the curriculum.
"It's written in the Constitution, Article 14, Section 3"

Our Constitution is the single most valuable paper-based product there is (other than the napkin, the toilet paper and your birth certificate).

It's the thing that protects us from the well-informed, educated, well-bred money-having power-greedy bastards. Although if the problem is about common barbaric ruthless crime elements then that's another story since there is no protection against the money-having power-greedy bastards who are neither well-informed, educated nor well-bred. That's where the Divine Providence, Almighty God, Soberano Legislador del Universo come in.

Anyway, think of the Constitution as a condom and a fertility idol wrapped in one package. It defines your "nation", it defines the boundaries of your territories, it defines your rights, it defines your population, it defines peace, justice, equality and liberty or whatever those terms mean.
(I may be wrong, though )

Sigh. Pinoy Charter Change

I used to think that the Charter Change movement was just for-show and would never get serious approval in the lower house, that the current president is now more concerned about how history books would describe her and her administration and that all the fuss is one fiasco setup by rival political groups so they would have enough reason to appear daily on national television even though they can easily kill any bill in the Senate since they seem to have the majority there.

Some even say there wont be an erection.. er.. election on 2011.

"Cum and be Cunted on Erection Day", I used to say.

Anyway, I wonder if the line "We, the sovereign F******* people" in our Constitution would get revamped.

No no no.

I'm not referring to the 4th word and those asterisks don't stand for letters of a famous word used in profanity. Those asterisks actually stand for ILIPINO, although replacing the 4th word entirely with F*CK*NG! would be a good alternative especially with today's current events.

Okay, let us recite the "amended" phrase 3 to 10 times:

We, the sovereign F*CK*NG! people
We, the sovereign F*CK*NG! people
We, the sovereign F*CK*NG! people

Wow! That brought me whole mountains and waves of realization. We really are a bunch of sovereign f*ck*ng people!


Anyway, I really want the term "sovereign" scratched, it's makes the whole line way too trying. And like almost everything in our political environment, that line was obviously copied from the Anglo-American "We the People".

Their line was stated from the self-assured, self-confident perspective of active common citizens. The authors didn't bother putting in words like "We the Brave People" or "We the free People" or "We the superior and arrogant People" or "We the dumb-shit People".

Our intro-line in our Constitution smells of inferiority complex. Well, anyway, I wonder what exact lines, paragraphs or sections will be revamped, added or deleted.

Maybe the guys pushing the bill just have the overwhelming desire to correct some grammar and typographical errors in our Constitution.

All for the sake of Nationalism, they say.

In today's age, people should be more pragmatic and be less nationalistic. Nationalism is overrated. Why, if other nations were so nationalistic, they would'nt have bothered voting for our films and showcasing our singers and athletes in their stages.

Nationalism is the parent of Regionalism, it's vain and one-sided...


Argh! Where am I?! I'm off-topic!! Okay, back to the topic at hand...


To the constitution-author wannabe's,

Please please hear my request... just revamp that first line!

I don't care if you put lines that would be instrumental for world-domination or for the dominion and creation of your own personal city or barangay or for the spreading of your own personal beliefs as a national doctrine.

Just revamp that first line and you can go ahead with your power-writing and power-playing or practice of civic-duties or whatever it is you use to describe the thing you do.

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Take note, if ever there is a confusion on which version I'm talking about because the Constitution have been modified frequently over the years, I'm referring to the most recent version, the 1987-version. And I do hope when they make the next revision, they would add or attach a changelog or a revision history to it.

Environmentalists - Do They Use Toilet Paper?

I was "thinking out loud" a month ago (Come to think of it, I always think out loud)
and these are the questions that popped out:

Do green-loving people use both sides of a toilet paper?

Do they even use toilet papers?

Or do they use dried leaves or some other ethically-friendly and bio-friendly material?


Those questions should be the top 3 questions people should ask when they meet people who claim to be environmentalists.