Love and Hate : Make English the national language again and get it over with

Love

Tipidpc.com. Because you find great deals like this Gears of War for Windows at less than 40 percent retail value. Gotta love the underground economy.

Hate

Filipinos. Why? Because Pinoys are sensitive, racist motherfuckers that’s why. They look down on people with dark skin and at the same time are overly sensitive when someone makes a bisaya joke. Then they go up in arms about how Filipino isn’t really Filipino but just a dialect of Tagalog. Granted, their arguments are probably valid, but the answer isn’t to give equal importance to other dialects and thus further erode any sense of national unity we have. As much as the Bisayas claim that Tagalogs look down on them, I’ve heard of Bisayas threatening to kill people who speak Tagalog while on their home turf. It isn’t a joke and it’s not funny and it’s this kind of clannishness that fucks up the country. If you gave equal prominence to other dialects you’d end up with certain areas becoming strongholds of a dialect, and when you go there you wouldn’t understand jack shit. That shit’s not funny, I tried it in Shanghai. Charades can only take you so far. I mean, have you ever tried charading to a taxi driver that you wanna go to the zoo? I digress.

Just have English as the national language, seriously. That way everyone’s happy, you can all go write your local broadsheets in your own dialects and make snide remarks to each other that no one will understand, and there won’t be a barrier of communication and people would stop bitching about this nonsense.

22 inch goodness

I finally upgraded my clunky old used 19 inch 2nd hand from Korea to a brand spankin new AOC 210v 22 inch monitor, and I’m still in awe at how awesome it looks. I can’t tell you what a huge difference it makes moving from a CRT to an LCD, and one of this size for that matter. I’d been looking at getting a 19 inch LCD but since my boss subsidized the purchase I figured I might as well go all in and get a 22. Of course the budget geek in me refused to be left unheard, so I did my research and concluded that the AOC 210V is the best value for money 22 inch monitor on the market right now. I got it for 12430 pesos at PC express, on 3 months 0% installment, and got me a cheapo UPS as well just to keep all the components safe. It’s a promo they have on offer right now, so if you’ve got a hankering for gear, I’d say this is the right time to buy.

Interestingly, PC express is selling another AOC unit at the same price, the 223VW, but I’ve heard that the 210V uses a better screen and overall gives a much better experience. It also has 2000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, but I rarely use that anyway. Still, it’s a bonus for the average PC user who just wants to watch movies and play games and doesn’t need to be finicky with all this contrast ratio nonsense.

My only issue? The pics from my camera phone that used to look ok on my CRT monitor now look like total ass on the new one.

Company of Heroes is so awesome

This is not a game review. This is. This is me creaming myself over a video game, which would sound pathetic if you haven’t played company of heroes. But if you have, you will understand where I’m coming from, and I’m sure you would welcome me into your saggy, creamy arms.

Where to begin? The fully destructible environments? The numerous ways you can use to destroy your enemies? The variety of mission types? The fact that this is a world war 2 game that somehow manages to rejuvenate a genre that’s been resurrected 20 times over? The way everything seems calibrated to bring the maximum amount of tension to a situation before granting you a reprieve?

For example. One of my favorite missions is a “defend the base” type of scenario where german panzer companies are bearing down on my HQ. I have no armor, and one measly anti tank gun to fend them off. Otherwise I have to make do with discarded panzerschreks and stickybombs that my valiant riflemen throw onto the mechanical monsters. A timer is counting down the number of minutes before reinforcements arrive. At 2:00, the germans have encroached into my territory, and the tanks are laying down fire on my AT gun. The seconds feel like years as urge my riflemen to play chicken with a panzer to distract it long enough to gain a few precious seconds, madly clicking left and right and watching the turret slowly catch up. The panzer shoots at my squad and I watch as the ragdoll physics of the game enable my men (and their body parts) to fly gracefully into the rubble of what was once a cathedral. The panzers are bearing down on my AT gun. A lone gunner struggles mightily to load the cannon to fire when suddenly…

“reinforcements have arrived”

And they’ve brought Shermans with them goddamit. The shermans take care of the damaged panzers, and in a short span of time, I’ve retaken the battlefield and sealed victory. That’s the kind of experience that Company of Heroes has to offer, so it’s well worth the money. Also, I think certain 8-series nvidia videocards offer it as a free pack-in game, so you can save some money if you’re looking to upgrade your box.

The one thing I hate about COH? The massive patches. I mean seriously, I just want to play online, and I’m now downloading a 1.8 gig patch. I probably have enough time to get my tire vulcanized and be back home before the path is done downloading!

*checks download*

Actually you know what? Scratch that. I’ll have enough time to get my tire vulcanized, take a shower, go out and have lunch, and THEN maybe it’ll be done.

Love and Hate : Rory’s and Mike Arroyo

I’m taking my cue from 1up’s sports anomaly and introducing a new part of the blog called love and hate. Essentially, it’s just me saying what I’m feeling good about, and what I want to take a shit on.

Love

Rory’s bar in Katipunan. It’s the ultimate definition of a “hole in the wall” (trust me if I didn’t know beforehand that it was there’s I’d never have seen it) bar and restaurant opened up by some of Aissa’s friends. It’s right next to Bo’s Coffee and a few stores before Ilocos Empanada along Katipunan Ave. Best bets on the menu are Tofu and Mushrooms, and some sort of fish in mango pesto sauce . No pictures yet, but I’m sure we’ll be back there eventually.

Got to see the Stereolalas and Luna last night in Route 196. She still doesn’t recognize me, but hey the music was great. Had to leave the venue soon thoguh, being crammed in a room full of emo people was starting to get to me.

Hate

Mike Arroyo, for being involved in sports again. I hate this guy for being such an attention whore. He raises funds for sports and the training of athletes for the olympic games simply because hew wants to be seen as the saviour of Filipino sports. I will never forgive him for threatening to cut his support to sports programs because “no one appreciates his efforts anyway”. Fuck you for being a whiny bitch. If you really cared about sports, it would show, and people wouldn’t jeer at you for dancing in the boxing ring when manny pacquiao wins a match.

5 minute sketches : Robodoc

This started out as me wanting to draw a round robot, in homage to GO-TO of KOTOR2.  I still had a bit of time so i thought what the hell, let’s draw a robot arm in the air.  Then I thought well that looks like rubbish sitting in the air, let’s attach a body and head to it.  Great stuff, but now I have a half formed robot in the air and I didn’t want to finish the whole robot body so I decide the circular robot is operating on the droid, who lies on a lab table.  One last issue though, the robodoc’s eye isn’t even remotely looking at the droid on the table, so I draw an extra arm and pretend he’s a medical quack that looks at robot porn while he’s operating.

Street art Manila : Cookie Santi

Spotted under the ortigas/C5 flyover in pasig.

Redneck Robotech

Geek quote of the day from Alex Albrecht of Diggnation:

“I would love to see redneck robotech!”

Referring to a spider mech built by rednecks.  Rednecks or no, this shit is totally awesome.

Street art Manila : CheTARSIER Guevara

I wonder who could have put this in a CR in powerplant? *snicker*

Ryan’s goals

I’m not one for new year’s resolutions, but I want to try to be more disciplined in my life so I’m using joe’s goals to help me keep track of my habits. I have three simple goals this year:

• sketch at least 5 minutes every workday
• try to blog every single day of this year
• exercise at least twice a week

The first two are the literary and artistic equivalent of starting your car every morning during weeks of disuse in order to make sure the battery doesn’t discharge. I want to keep my mind sharp and give my drawing muscle memory a tiny workout everyday so I don’t get rusty when I really want to work on a larger or more detailed piece.

The exercise is just because I’m becoming a fatass from being home all day.

Street art Manila : Cactus boy

Also spotted near my old office, stuck on a signpost along HV delacosta. What, do I look like a map to you?