On Language

Found this tidbit while reading Lee Kuan Yew’s entry in Wikipedia:

Designating official languages

Lee continued the colonial legacy of imposing English as the language of the workplace and the common language among the different races, while recognising Malay, Mandarin Chinese, and Tamil as the other three official languages. All state schools use English as the medium of instruction, although there are also lessons for their respective mother tongues.

Like I said before, that’s what we should do.  Have English as the language that bridges the communication gap.  Have it as the medium instruction and shore up the little advantage we have over other southeast asian nations.  At the same time cultural groups that speak a certain dialect can freely use it amongst themselves and keep it alive in their land.  It shouldn’t be the government’s fucking job to keep your language alive, it should be yours.

Guiltily Pleased

I’m sure this is something that every OFW or Filipino earning in dollars must have felt at least once.  That strange feeling when you see that the peso is weakening due to turmoil in the government.  On the one hand, you’re pleased because your dollars are worth more but on the other hand you’re saddened by the fact that this is only due to the fact that corruption is once again becoming rampant and obvious, and investors are being driven away, which will be worse for the country in the long run.

I’ve found myself watching the news and waiting to see if the Peso weakens further before selling my dollars, and while I know I’m simply being practical, a little part of me is disgusted with what I’m doing.

Our senators need to learn the art of brevity

It is frustrating to watch the senate hearings sometimes, or at least watch senators grilling Jun Lozada with novella-like questions that could very easily be said in a few words.  I feel almost as frustrated as Lozada looks when trying to comprehend why our senators choose to speak in long winded roundabout ways when simply coming straight to the point is much more efficient.  I’m looking at you, Dick Gordon and Loren Legarda.

Jun Lozada’s a funny guy

Jun Lozada, star witness against the First Gentleman Mike Arroyo and former comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos, apparently has a sense of humor. He looked tired, weak, and genuinely exhausted but managed a joke while being grilled by senator Pia Cayetano. When questioned about his talent to “mitigate greed” and his knowledge of the government’s procurement system (with which anyone who knew it well could abuse it for improper gain), he had this to say:

“ah, idadagdag ko lang na talentado ako, hehe.”

In English “I’d just like to add that I’m talented.” Talentado’s also a pun on the Filipino word tarantado which roughly translates to “jerk”,”prick”, or “cockmuncher” in english. The fact that he has such self awareness in acknowledging that his knowledge of the government’s procurement system made him an accomplice in the aforementioned “greed”, makes him a little more genuine in my eyes. At the very least a lot more genuine that say, Chavit Singson, who whistleblew Erap into house arrest.

As an aside, this might be strange but I find Pia Cayetano attractive. She has very good fashion sense.

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.

Trillanes and company were lucky

Senator Inmate Trillanes is a fan of hyperbole:

“now we see just how far this government is willing to go to stay in power”

Well thank god, if that’s all they’re willing to do. I mean really, as much as I hate to admit it, the government was pretty efficient in handling this particular crisis (course they had practice a few years ago with the same bunch of guys, so that must help some). They managed a show of force without any casualties whatsoever. Of course one might call their show of force overkill since Trillanes and his buddies didn’t have the balls to fight back anyway, but I assure you that had this happened in Russia (hello Chechen separatists) or Pakistan we’d be reading about a Magdalo massacre right now.

Good games and good booze

Thanks to everyone who came out to the first official DS night in Grilla Kalayaan! It was rough going at first (for the first hour or so there were maybe 6 of us in total) but then people started pouring in and it was a blast for everyone involved. I personally met some great people, and got my ass handed to me in mariokart and brain age (poor penmanship’ll kill ya). Of course I was boozed up, so I got an excuse.

Pics here, but I’m pissed at Jayvee for picking the absolutemotherfucking worst pic of me evar.

Classic 80s collectibles and toys sale in Greenhills!

If there ever was an event that geekofalltrades was made for, this is it.  So apparently they’re selling these old toys and stuff in greenhills (it says behind Tropical Hut, I’m not entirely sure where that is though).  Sale’s good while supplies last, and Toni from Metroblogging Manila got her hands on some really interesting stuff:

I went there last weekend and got an old Dragonlance Atlas, a 1985 Dragonlance calendar, a Marvel Superheroes RPG, and my husband got several old toys from his childhood like GI Joe. There’s a mix of things — old paint-by-number kits (I’m not sure about the paint’s quality though!), old Lisa Frank stuff, old figures and dolls whose names I don’t remember, lots of old fantasy books.

A Dragonlance Atlas! Wow! Who would thought?  Hey ET, let’s go bully some kids into giving us their GI Joes!

Kasal, Kasalo, Kasali getting much love

My blog’s getting more than its fair share of hits lately, and a lot of it’s been because of my KKK entry. It doesn’t mean much for the blog, but I’m sort of glad that the movie’s getting the attention it deserves. I love how wordpress lets you check these google searches, although I wish you could go back and check earlier dates, and not just the current day.

Wii for 18k in Datablitz confirmed.

That, along with a 47(?)k PS3 that comes bundled with the game Genji should give rabid Filipino gamers at least another option from Every other shop that seems to want to milk the next gen consoles for all they’re worth (coughToyKingdomcough).

There is a catch though, they’re out of stock at the moment with no word yet on when they’ll get new shipments. But for a price difference of 12k, you’d be stupid not to wait it out. Just keep bugging your local datablitz to force them to start getting more units and you’re good to go.