Photos taken on 2012-Jan-23. Posted for sexy beast Zafar.

Wanna see moar of the flying saucers? Do a Google Images Search.

This is the first of four locations that I will be traveling to within the next 55 hours or so. #ChallengeAccepted

Status posts to the Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr sent via MMS to Ping.fm were failing (AGAIN!) while I was waiting at the airport gate. MMS text posts to my Facebook mobile email address were delayed. What worked best were posts to 2933 (Globe SMS) for Facebook and to 2363 (also Globe). Ergo, I was not able to feed my Tumblr pensieve.

Seeing the sun rising above the plateau that is the Lumbia airport of CDO made me sleepy. I was wide awake during the flight from Manila. I felt so disconnected from the Interwebs while up in the air.

Thanks to my cousin Pia for picking us up at the airport at 0545h.

Thanks to my cousin Ben for letting me squat on his MacBookPro. I am currently getting my WWW fix. The typefaces of the iOS Snow are purrty! Still, the simplicity of this makes me feel like a car mechanic who loves to tweak & tinker, being frustrated with the new cars of today that do not require nor allow much tinkering nor tweaking. Win-OS-dinosaur-me is using a MBP in memoriam of Steve Jobs.

I keep trying to CTRL+C and CTRL+V. Ben has told me they use Command+C and Command+V on this thing.

Thanks to my Tito Boy (we are truly Filipino! LOL) and Tita Mayette who are letting me crash at their house until I go on to my next destination at dawn on Sunday. My uncle has Anne Murray Christmas Songs playing from his iTunes in the other room. I hear he downloads Torrents, too! Cool. #OldButHip

I have been awake for more than 23 hours now. I should lie down. Time to crash soon. I leave you with Crash City’s cover of Rebecca Black’s “Friday”:

OTHER smart, creative, generous, kind, loving, and good-looking people born on May 25:

• 1975 Lauryn Hill (singer, The Fugees)
• 1963 Mike Myers (comedian, actor, Wayne’s World, Austin Powers, Shrek)
• 1944 Frank Oz (puppeteer, The Muppet Show’s Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear, Little Shop of Horrors, Star Wars’ Yoda)
• 1927 Robert Ludlum (actor and writer; the Jason Bourne novels)
• 1803 Ralph Waldo Emerson (writer)

Star Wars Birthday. “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope” was released on May 25, 1977.

The month of May is always Star Wars month, and aside from “Star Wars Day” on May the 4th (be with you), Universal Day of the Jedi (UDOTJ) also happens on May 25. George Lucas’ birthday is on May 14, and ThinkGeek.com once suggested we also celebrate “Revenge of the 5th”!

Addendum: Also, May 25 is Geek Pride Day. It invites everyone to embrace their geekiness or nerdiness. How? Some examples:

• Carry around a towel as part of Towel Day (also May 25), an annual tribute to author Douglas Adams (“The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”).
• Watch the original “Star Wars” movie; costumes are highly recommended.
• Alphabetize and organize computer files, folders, books, DVDs and CDs.
• Wear a geeky T-shirt to work.
• Bake some cupcakes and decorate them with Pac-Man, Star Wars or a math theme.

Geek Pride Day originated as a way to celebrate the first “Star Wars” movie premiere/release on May 25, 1977.

“Filigree, apogee, pedigree, perigee!”

- Eglentine Price, Walt Disney’s “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” (1971 film)

For info about the lunar perigee photo above, click here.

There was a blanket of clouds over Metro Manila pretty much the whole night and so the much-awaited (2:10 A.M. March 20) supermoon experience was disappointing. I’ve seen much better of non-supermoons. Below are the ones I took using our trusty ol’ home-use point-and-shoot and without a stand:

I can almost make out the Man in the Moon below:

Presidential Quality Matrix. Click thumbnail for full size.

As a colleague, Fred Lopez, says;

We should stop looking at presidentiables as heroes who will save us. They are asking us to trust them with our family’s future. So we better give the job to the most capable candidate and his team. Study your choice well.

All political candidates are basically job applicants. Vote wisely on May 10, 2010.

Mabuhay ang Pilipino! Pero hindi lahat. Mabuhi ang Pilipino! Pero dili tanan. – Gerry Kaimo

‘Nuff said.

At Rustan's Supermarket on Katipunan Avenue

I cannot say for sure if the above left photo really is Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s son, Congressman Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo, allegedly browsing the booze / hard liquor section of Rustan’s Supermarket on Katipunan Avenue, as Typhoon Ondoy/Ketsana raged on (which submerged Metro Manila in 410mm rainfall – a month’s worth in just 12 hours!). The image is blurry and inconclusive. Mikey has publicly denied it is him (see Mikey’s statement on Tumblr).

However, on the right, we are definite that that’s me and my son earlier tonight (photo taken by my lovely wife). We were shopping for Marie (TM) soft biscuits for him to munch on. He is teething – like any 8-month-old baby should be.

Note that there is a difference in camera angle between the two photos.

Goodbye YuBin Kim (UglyYuBin) on Twitter

I first read about the anti-Filipino Twitter account of Kim Yu Bin (user name UglyYuBin) via this post on Plurk. Here is a screen shot showing the last couple of Tweets posted on the said account (before the account was removed or suspended); click the thumbnail to enlarge:

Screen shot of Twitter user YuBin Kim (UglyYuBin)

Upon going to the Twitter account itself, I found that:

• All tweets on the account were @ replies, mostly to heckle Filipino users on Twitter
• The first/oldest Tweet was only three days old, dated September 25
• The avatar and background images used were that of a Korean-looking woman

Also, anyone of any race could have created the account using a Korean name – even a Filipino “monkey” that had nothing better to do.

At the end of that particular Internet troll‘s brief stint of notoriety (more like, desperate call for attention), I was just too happy to take a few minutes to point the creature out to Twitter support, as if it were a pile of dog poop for disposal.

So long, UglyYuBin. You will not be missed. You just got pwned, suckah.

2009-Oct-06 UPDATE: Be my hero (user name “beahero”, a.k.a. Dana/Beatriz) on Tumblr, posted this below:

UglyYuBin isn’t Kim Yubin! That’s just a poser. In case you didn’t know, Kim Yubin is a Wonder Girl. :-bd & Her official Twitter Account is: WGyubin :>

‘Nuff said.

The lost art of handwriting (in pencil)

The lost art of handwriting (in ink pen)

Would these sentences above have passed the inspection of Jessica Zafra’s second grade teacher? Would Umberto Eco gauge my cursive handwriting to still have “soul, style or personality”? I also write in all-caps, which I attribute to my being a Gemini and being born in the Year of the Horse (notwithstanding my three years of studying Architecture at University).

The days when children were taught to write properly are long gone. Does it matter? Yes, says Umberto Eco. In The Guardian: Umberto Eco regrets the passing of good handwriting (Posted on 21 September 2009).

Recently, two Italian journalists wrote a three-page newspaper article (in print, alas) about the decline of handwriting. By now it’s well-known: most kids – what with computers (when they use them) and text messages – can no longer write by hand, except in laboured capital letters.

In an interview, a teacher said that students also make lots of spelling mistakes, which strikes me as a separate problem: doctors know how to spell and yet they write poorly; and you can be an expert calligrapher and still write “guage” or “gage” instead of “gauge”.

The tragedy began long before the computer and the cellphone.

The crisis began with the advent of the ballpoint pen. Early ballpoints were also very messy and if, immediately after writing, you ran your finger over the last few words, a smudge inevitably appeared. And people no longer felt much interest in writing well, since handwriting, when produced with a ballpoint, even a clean one, no longer had soul, style or personality.

Why should we regret the passing of good handwriting? The capacity to write well and quickly on a keyboard encourages rapid thought, and often (not always) the spell-checker will underline a misspelling.

Although the cellphone has taught the younger generation to write “Where R U?” instead of “Where are you?”, let us not forget that our forefathers would have been shocked to see that we write “show” instead of “shew” or “enough” instead of “enow”. Medieval theologians wrote “respondeo dicendum quod”, which would have made Cicero recoil in horror.

The art of handwriting teaches us to control our hands and encourages hand-eye coordination.

The three-page article pointed out that writing by hand obliges us to compose the phrase mentally before writing it down. Thanks to the resistance of pen and paper, it does make one slow down and think. Many writers, though accustomed to writing on the computer, would sometimes prefer even to impress letters on a clay tablet, just so they could think with greater calm.

Related links:

• Umberto Eco on the lost art of handwriting [JessicaRulestheUniverse.com - Twisted by Jessica Zafra]
• Umberto Eco: The lost art of handwriting [The Guardian - guardian.co.uk]

The solar eclipse of July 22, 2009, will be the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, lasting at most 6 minutes, 39 seconds.

This solar eclipse will be the longest total solar eclipse that will occur in the 21st century, and will not be surpassed in duration until June 13, 2132. Totality will last for up to 6 minutes and 39 seconds, with the maximum eclipse occurring in the ocean at 02:35:21 UTC about 100 km south of the Bonin Islands, southeast of Japan. The uninhabited North Iwo Jima island is the landmass with totality time closest to maximum, while the closest inhabited point is Akusekijima, where the eclipse will last 6 minutes and 26 seconds.

A partial eclipse will be seen from the much broader path of the Moon’s penumbra, including most of Southeast Asia (all of India and China) and north-eastern Oceania.

Says the Philippine Daily Inquirer;

If the weather in Metro Manila is clear, the moon can be seen covering the sun by as much as half, or 49.5 percent, by Gabriana’s calculations. The eclipse can be viewed by residents in the metropolis from 8:32 A.M. to 11:01 A.M.

Check out the photos I took below:

To view and photograph the eclipse, I initially used a glass plate with a candle-smoked bottom. I was also wearing my X-Men “Cyclops” ruby red wrap around sun glasses. Then, a neighbor saw me and joined in on the fun. He lent me a glass slide from a welding/welder’s helmet. Salamat po, Mang Bing!

A couple of these once-in-a-lifetime shots would make great submissions for the now-defunct Mirror Project, don’t you think?

I’m flying away
Running like the wind
As I chase the sun
Up spinning around
Circles in my mind
Sailing over ground

- “Chase the Sun” by Planet Funk, circa 2000-2001

Related links:
Solar eclipse of July 22, 2009 [Wikipedia]
Partial solar eclipse to be seen July 22 [Inquirer.net]
Listen to “Chase the Sun” by Planet Funk [EJ's Blip.fm music channel]

Below is a compiled list for your reference, for when they will suit you the most. Hooah!

* * *

• AMF-YOYO – Adios Mother Fucker, You’re On Your Own
• BOHIC – Bend Over Here It Comes
• BOHICA – Bend Over Here It Comes Again
• Charlie Foxtrot – From the phonetic alphabet letters C & F, meaning Cluster Fuck
• DILLIGAF – Do I Look Like I Give A Fuck
• DILLIGAFF – Do I Look Like I Give A Flying Fuck
• DILLIGAS – Do I Look Like I Give A Shit
• FIDO – Fuck It! Drive On!
• FIFI – Fuck It! Fly It!
• FIGMO – Fuck It, I Got My Orders – Viet Nam 1968
• FISHDO – Fuck It, Shit Happens – Drive On
• FNG – Fucking New Guy (used for all new people in a squad.)
• FUBAB – Fucked Up Beyond All Belief
• FUBAR – Fucked Up Beyond All Repair/Recognition/Reason
• FUBB – Fucked Up Beyond Belief
• FUBIJAR – Fuck You Bitch, I’m Just a Reservist (US Army Reserve)
• FUBISO – Fuck You Buddy, I’m Shipping Out
• FUJIGMO – Fuck You Jack, I Got My Orders
• FUMTU – Fucked Up More Than Usual
• FUUSAB – Fucked Up Until Space And Beyond
• JAFO – Just Another Fucking Observer (guy who sits in the back of the vehicle)
• JANFU – Joint Army-Navy Fuck Up
• KMACYOYO – Kiss My Ass Colonel, You’re On Your Own
• LLMF – Lost Like a Mother Fucker
• SNAFU – Situation Normal: All Fucked Up
• SNAFUBAR – Situation Normal: All Fucked Up Beyond All Repair / Recognition / Reason
• SOL – Shit Out of Luck
• SRDH – Shit Rolls Down Hill
• SSDD – Same Shit, Different Day
• SUSFU – Situation Unchanged, Still Fucked Up
• TARFU – Things Are Really Fucked Up, or Totally and Royally Fucked Up
• TAUFU – Totally And Utterly Fucked Up

* * *

Related links:

• SNAFU definition [Wikipedia]
• FUBAR definition [Wikipedia]
• List of government and military acronyms [Wikipedia]