Road Retards

I've had my share of drivers who are, well, retards. Jeepney and tricycle drivers mostly fall under this category. The former block the road and cut you like mad, and the latter still think they don't have a sidecar attached and try to get into the little gaps they have no business of being in.

Let me give you a situation. You're driving an airconditioned FX, minding your own business, driving down the SLEX. (It's a highway. South Luzon Expressway.) It's a good day, your passengers are asleep.

In the corner of your eye you see this PNCC jeepney thing. They're police, sort of. It's better if you've actually seen them so you can have a better picture of this situation. As most people who drive down the SLEX know, there's the innermost fast lane where you are, the second slow lane, and the shoulder.

The PNCC vehicle was at the shoulder. He suddenly changed lanes to the middle, moving alongside your own vehicle. Okay. Since he isn't signaling or slowing down, or going even the slightest bit towards your direction, it's safe to assume that he's not going into your lane.

You underestimate human stupidity.

He suddenly, and I mean out of freaking nowhere, changes to your lane. Sharply.

Considering you were going at around 100 km/h, and how suddenly he changed direction, you're surprised and try to hit on the brakes. The right front side oof your vehicle collides heavily with his.

And you thank God you didn't skid, flip over, or, heaven forbid, had another fast-moving vehicle behind you, avoiding a really really messy metal sandwiching.

And the policeman tries to downplay your brush with death, that he was merely changing lanes.

This all actually happened today. My father was one of the passengers, and being at front with the driver, he was at high risk for an injury, or possibly death, when the vehicles collided.

Being on the road is a great risk, but we all still do it anyway. It's up to humans to reduce that risk.

That cop needs to be a better driver. Seriously. I don't think I'll be safe on that highway until they drag him back to driving school. Or teach him more common sense. Which is as rare as gold nowadays.

He better, or next time his victims may not be so lucky.

New hope for pRO?

For those familiar with Ragnarok Online, our version here in the Philippines will open a new server on September 20. Called 'Thor', it boasts the presence of RagDefender, a well-known bot killer program embedded into the RO client.

RagDefender is good at what it does. It is updated weekly every maintenance. No bot program can permanently win against it. It takes a customized bot and a few days worth of fast programming to be able to get through, and since it is updated often, they can only enjoy it for a few days. It's been on for quite a while in Japan and it is still proving its effectiveness.

The developers of Openkore, the most common bot program used by pRO players, won't even try to touch it. (According to them.)


Personally, I think LU will go through with this server. They've lost a lot of players who dislike bots, and this is a perfect solution. Gain profit from the other servers through bots, gain profit from the non-botters as well. It's a win-win thing for them.

I hope to see a return to the old days; when you could actually talk to people leveling alongside you, when you would scramble for an Elunium the monster dropped in Glast Heim, when you felt like a million bucks upon gaining a card, when you were perfectly happy with +4 gear, when you would make a lot of friends, when getting to 99 actually felt like a great achievement, to you and to others, when you actually see people still vending flys/reds/gems.

When a monk/champ would not be so EF-happy because he knows how much SP recovery items he still has. (A similar thing can be said for AB Biochemists.) When you would actually use unorthodox tactics in WoE, not relying on numbers to swarm your target. When you give your life savings to get that VVS Wind Katana, or that Sakkat.

Let us hope.

I'm a Nice Guy

I smile and nod empathically as she poured out her problems to me. Whenever she had a problem, she always came to me.

It was a face-to-face conversation this time. Apparently her current boyfriend was a jerk who deserved to die, because he was walking with another girl.

I mentally sighed. She was jumping into conclusions again. She always did. And an overactive imagination to boot. I had to stop her before it goes wild again.

After talking for an hour, she stood up and smiled at me, and thanked me, and that I'll make a good boyfriend someday.

All guys know that when a girl says they're boyfriend material, chances are she'll never see you that way.

As she goes out the door, I could only smile. A fake smile. We'll do this again and again, me listening to her heartbreaks, her despair. Me, still here, offering words of comfort. Still out of the loop until she has another problem again.

I could have taken advantage of her nature. I could have told her she was right about the guy. I could have told her a lot of things. But I didn't. I didn't want to see her sad. I didn't want her to lose me, someone she can talk to about everything. I'll just keep sitting here with the same accepting smile she had grown used to, offering an ear to her latest dilemma.

I love her.

But I'm a nice guy.

Ero-Sommelier

I can't understand why some people call me very perverted.

I don't peek up skirts. I don't grope anybody on crowded trains. I talk to a woman's face. I don't even want to get anywhere near a prostitute. I generally don't think of women I know that way. I believe my pervert level to be of that of a normal male.

I just like to play H games. What's so wrong with that?

Really. Am I the only one who plays such games for the story and characters? The gameplay? And the beautiful artwork? The pictures don't excite me at all *that way*, you know. Play Crescendo and Kana Imouto (Kana Little Sister). Those games are quite emotional. You'll cry. Some are even RPGs, which I enjoy playing. If you want to know titles I'd recommend, contact me.

For the record, I dislike plotless games of such nature vehemently. I'm looking at you, Poker and Blackjack series.

Even after I explain, they don't believe me. You know what? Screw them.

I've played a lot of these games in my lifetime, and many of them still line my shelf. I still get inspirations for stories from them. I still play the old ones from time-to-time, especially the classic True Love, which involves thinking and strategy for maximum results. I even made a day-to-day planner on it before.

For me, these games are art. Call them questionable, but they're art. Try playing one and actually noticing things for once. Open your eyes just a little wider. How many of you have actually listened to a H game's opening song? Or soundtrack?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I just got a new one this morning...

The Dark Side

First of all, sorry if I haven't been able to put up anything new for a while. Something happened to my phone line, and my internet went down with it. A fiasco with PLDT later (which I'll rant about some other time), I have my phone and my net back.

Lack of internet at home forced me to use cafes to tend to my online business. I only needed a few minutes a day to do so. Y'know, check emails, message boards, and stuff like that.

The past few days have reminded me why I hate going into local internet cafes.

This particular one was inside my subdivision. I had little choice; it was close to my house, I knew the owners. The next nearest one was a good ten-minute walk away, and it was nearly the same anyway. In fact, most of the internet cafes within ten kilometers of here are the same. How? The people that are in them.

Yes. Stupid people. Worst part is, I knew these people personally. At least I hardly talk to them in the first place. These are the main types:

1) The braggart n00b. This should be familar to anyone. This isn't simply limited to kids. Older teenagers also display this. They keep claiming that they're the best, but in reality they suck.

One incident is this. The person using the PC beside mine once kept bragging about his character in RAN Online. To me. Now, I know nothing about the game, but I've seen enough of it in various places to at least be aware. He was using an archer-type class. With a sword.

He was also level high 20-ish.

I know that's still a low level, but, really. By then he should know that he should be using a bow. And yet he's claiming that his damage was strong and he was raking in the exp. Nevermind that he was killstealing blatantly and doing only miniscule damage to the enemy lifebar. His 'extremely powerful' skill was a newbie one. And he kept going on even though he was getting better advice from other people.

Did I mention that he always challenges people to duels but always runs away?

I resisted the urge to throw him out the window. I wanted to stay on good terms with the owner.

2) The camwhore. Okay, you're shaking your head. Yes, seeing them in action makes my stomach turn. No, the place doesn't have webcams. But it's just as bad as if they had them.

One, the owner doesn't care, unless the guys start jerking off on cam or something. Women are dirty talking with men from India and you don't give a damn? I'd slap him, but...good terms. Yeah. Being pegged as an insane maniac isn't a good thing.

Two, one of the women is over forty years old and is married. Enough said.

Three, there are kids in there. What is the world coming to? Kids shouldn't be exposed to your stupid pursuits of foreign men!

Four, they're using text speak! All the others are insignificant compared to this! By God, please use proper words at least! You're not on a damned cellphone, and seeing you type 'im fyn hw bout u hw r u doin 2nyt????' makes me want to commit bloody murder.

I can think of a few ways to kill someone with an optical mouse.

3) The online sexual predator. I've been a victim of these guys since I use a female avatar, and I'm glad to see no such people in this cafe. Probably because people will tell their parents. Except for one.

When he thought no one was looking, he commented on how pretty a female ingame was and shyly asked her out. Except replace 'female' with 'some other male retard in another net cafe somewhere', 'shyly' with 'blatantly' and 'asked her out' with 'asked her if he could sexually assault her'. Now, change all that to Tagalog, season it with textspeak and add additional question marks to the end.

Yes, my brain hurts too.

I vowed never to talk to him again.

4) Last, for now. The devil's advocate. Don't know what I'm talking about?

(Conversation translated to English. Removed all traces of grammar stupid. Only I have to suffer the actual conversation.)

Guy1: Okay, I'm making this trade...
Guy2: Psst, dude. Change the item to this one with a similar sprite!
Guy1: Hmm...
Guy2: Yeah! You'll keep your item and he'll get a crap one. You still get the money.
Guy1: Good idea!

By this time I was reaching for the cord of my mouse. I had to remind myself to stay calm. It would be child abuse. A ten-year old kid was teaching someone seven years older than him how to scam. If this generation is our future, I'd rather die early.

Guy2: Ask for items from that guy, make him think you're actually a girl!
Guy1: Cool, I got a rare item from him.
Guy2: Told you!

I didn't catch the rest. I was done with my online business and had to go home. I was still visualizing choking him like the bald guy in Hitman does. If you haven't seen it, you're basically back-to-back with your target with the fiberwire (or optical mouse cable), one end in each hand, wire around his neck as you bend over, then you give it one strong tug after a while, flipping him over.

I settled for loading up Diablo II and killing everything on sight.

I have seen the dark sides of the people I live in the same subdivision with, the people I've known for a long time. It's not pretty. Not pretty at all.

I'll never go back there again. Unless one of the braggart n00bs challenge me to a Defense of the Ancients game in Warcraft III, when I'll prove again that saving up for a +25 Str item for Bone Fletcher isn't such a hot strategy. I'll still kill you anyway. Use your hotkeys, dammit.

Walking the Edge

I don't know about you, but I'm sick of all that medical advisory chain letter crap. You know, something like:

Scientists have discovered that the chemical Shitlolwtfomine, a major component of many various canned sardine products like Ligo, Mega, 555, I-can't-believe-it's-not-sardines-no-really-it-is can cause cancer. Pass this message to your friends, family, and loved ones, and warn them and save their lives.

Bull. Shit.

People apparently have no idea that life is one huge risk. When you wake up every morning, just be glad that you're still alive. Did you know that directly injecting the nicotine in one pack of cigarettes will instantly kill you? Did you know that whenever you take a breath, you also inhale various natural toxins in the air? Apart from the man-made ones.

Did you know people can stop breathing and die in their sleep? That you get more radiation from walking under the hot summer sun for an hour than the amount you get when you're X-rayed? That you get more bacteria from a paper bill than from a hospital? For that matter, that millions of bacteria invade your body every day?

How about the fact that a lot of processed products contain cancer-causing chemicals, which causes tumors in rats, when they are given a dose that is at least a thousand times more than what was in the food?

Many people overestimate some risks and not give enough attention to others. America spends more money cleaning up toxic waste dumps that may save a few hundred lives than breast cancer, which claims hundreds of thousands more. People are more concerned about flying in a plane than driving a car. Guess which mode of transport causes more deaths.

If you say airplanes, I will have to shove a ten-foot brass pole down your throat.

People are even more afraid of nuclear power plants than car crashes. The chances of a well-maintained nuclear power plant malfunctioning plus causing a meltdown is much much lower than driving down a dark street at night.

Does this mean it's okay to throw caution to the wind? No. You still have to take care of yourself and your health. Just keep in mind that you are at a constant risk your entire life. There are times when you just say, "Heck with it. Nobody lives forever."

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm thirsty. A long swig from the bathroom tap ought to cure that. Distilled water? Bah.

Ice Cream Makes Me Scream

I love ice cream. Which is primarily a girl thing.

"But Mark," you say, "Many males also love ice cream!"

My love is different. It's almost obsessive. If I didn't stop myself, I'd eat ice cream every few minutes. I go down on the stuff much faster than a horny teenager goes down for an Austrailian kiss. Which is like a French kiss, but down under. The time limit for a gallon would be thirty minutes. Maybe even twenty. Brain freeze? I'm nearly immune to it.

I was at the supermarket yesterday buying more ice cream, with my favorite flavor, Vanilla, woefully missing. I went after Chocolate Marble instead, and bought some of that chocolate syrup that becomes a hardened layer on ice cream after a while.

Companies are getting more creative these days in making ice cream flavors. (Thus the neglect of wonderful, wonderful vanilla. Sad.) I have found some of the more creative ones online, in MSN Japanese News, made by the Japanese. I love those guys.

First up, Raw Horseflesh Ice Cream. Oh god. There's actual horsemeat inside this little cup. I can't help but grimace, yet be oddly curious as to how it tastes.

Imagine putting steak into your ice cream.

Maybe it'll taste better with barbecue sauce. Maybe.


Next is Goat Ice Cream. No, not goat milk ice cream. Goat. Like flesh, skin, organs, and the milk. Maybe even goat excretions. Goat. Mmm.

The goat on the lid looks a little sad.






Enough about animals. Let's have a heaping mouthful of Seaweed Ice Cream! Packed with minerals, this treat is both delicious and healthy!

Note that delicious is a relative term here.

Maybe if you take it with some sashimi.



Sea Water Ice Cream! For that unique beach experience. And the best thing is, you don't have to buy this product to taste it. Just mix milk and seawater together and take a gulp.

I actually tried this. It's not so bad.


I love garlic. I love ice cream. What better way to appreciate them by putting them together! Not only is this delicious, but offers protection against certain creatures of the night.

This is something I would absolutely love to taste before I die.




There are more, which I will introduce in our next installment! Just remember; people can get very creative.

(This entry may look a little messed up. I have a hard time getting blogspot to do what I want. Meh.)

How To Make A Good Movie, Part 1

I came across this idea on the quote database and discussed it with a few friends.

A lot of movies would be better if it had ninjas.

Not the Naruto-type ninjas, mind you. The real deal. Black. Masks. Badass. Let's take for example, the movie Titanic. Can you imagine how better the Titanic would be if there were ninjas in it?













I would watch it ten times over.

The hero (I forgot his name) could be a ninja who betrayed his clan, and they eventually found him on the Titanic. Then the ninjas sink the titanic, using an iceberg cover and the hero must fend them off so Rose can get to safety as the ship sinks. The captain could be a former ninja, too, and help the hero out!

Filmmakers are missing a great opportunity here.

Now, I just need to convice someone with deep pockets...

Gender Bender

Once again, I have recieved another message in Yahoo Messenger, asking for my details. And by that, I mean age, sex, location, likes, dislikes, my type, my vital statistics, and more things I do not care (or want, for that matter) to remember. If the sender were female, I'd be overjoyed.

As many people who know me know, I play a female character in practically every online game I play. I also exhibit some female behavior. Professionals have told me that my male and female sides were equally balanced, and the illusion would be perfect if my looks were androgynous. This carries over online.

I do not mention that I am female at all. Some simply assume I am. That leads to things which do not please me at all. Like sexual harassment. Guys asking for my a/s/l. People actually trying to stalk me. I've sent in quite a few ingame reports over the years.

However, I, and forevermore, will play women in online games. I will endure. I've done so for a long time now. I can stand the jerks and sexually-deprived preteens breathing heavily in 20-peso internet cafes.

My reasons? I am more expressive as a girl for some reason. Another reason? It's easy.

If you are male, which of the below would you rather be staring at for hours on end?
(Pictures courtesy of Gamespot and some other website that I forgot.)




I thought so.

Self-lobotomy

So this morning, as I sat in front of my PC and watched Honey and Clover. It was a usual morning. Siblings getting ready for school, parents getting ready for work. (with glances at my monitor, thinking "He's watching that cartoon stuff again")

My thoughts tend to go off on a wild tangent completely unrelated to what I was previously doing.

Suicide.

Killing yourself.

I don't really claim to understand what goes on in the mind of someone who wants to end his life. I tried to do it once, and I feel like a moron for even considering it now.

A few news articles I've seen display people jumping off a building or into a body of water, or overdosing on medicine. Damn, if you're going to kill yourself, I say, do it with a bang. Not by being found in a room foaming at the mouth with a bottle in your right hand. That makes you look lame. People will remember you as lame. Cowardice until the end.

Here are a few tips on how to effectively commit suicide. Some were taken from some anime I watch.

Okay, maybe the suicide thing was remotely related to what I was watching.

1) Scar someone for life. Make sure people remember you. Follow below steps on how to do this.

2) Pain. Make sure people see you in pain. Jumping off a building doesn't work very well for this, since it'll be quick for you. Try something like tearing out your own throat, biting your arm off, stabbing yourself repeatedly with a big knife in the head or neck, slowly going inside a meat grinder... Looking insane or deranged also works. Do a crazy laugh while in pain, staring at someone, for maximum effect. This works in conjunction with #1.

3) Red is good. Lots of red. Jumping off a building and making a big splat on the sidewalk can work for this, if the building is high. Carry a bed of long nails as you go down for added fun. Slitting your wrists is decent, but not enough. With the ideas from #2, make sure you splash that blood around.

4) No farewell notes. Those are for sissies.

Following these tips, you'll make headlines of tabloids in no time! You can brag about it in the afterlife!

Man A: I died of pneumonia.
Man B: I got into a plane crash.
Man C: I rigged my front door so if someone opened it, ten knives will rain down on me causing trauma to whoever came in.
Man A and B: Whoah. Cool.

*Author's Note: I am not responsible if you try any of these things at home, or anywhere for that matter, since you have to be fucked in the head when you kill yourself. I tried stabbing myself in the head with a butter knife once. It didn't really work.

Teenagers, Part 1

I dislike annoying people in general. Especially annoying people who don't listen.

Take, for example, a friend of my brother's.

I've lost count of how many times I've told him that I own my YM account. I've told him that buzzing me in Yahoo Messenger has no effect because the little screen doesn't shake. I've told him that it also makes no noise. I don't like to be interrupted too much when I'm playing.

What does he do? The complete opposite, of course. His typical way of talking to me consists of a message and an immediate buzz. Asking if my brother was here. He used to just say "Magz?" and assume that my bro's sitting where I am now. That's the only thing he learned.

When he's asking something, he buzzes if I don't answer after a few seconds. That's really annoying. Kids these days, so impatient. When I do reply...he goes AFK 80% of the time. Great. Just great.

I set myself to be always invisible to him just today. Funny that I didn't think of this sooner.

Listening to others is important. Ever heard of the professor who delivered a presentation wearing an elegant suit and using a slide projector in a dark room, after the client explicitly said to keep the lights on and dress simply? He got booted halfway through.

You not listening may only embarass you. Him not listening cost him $3000 and his reputation.

Keep your ears open.

So here it is.

I'm evil. Really. I'm just good at hiding it.

I felt lke writing down my thoughts before I become more insane than I already am. A lot of things in daily life stresses me out in general. And I don't have an outlet. As much as I like to drop dead drunk, I'm allgeric to most forms of alcohol.

I don't want to go through a 3-day rash period again.

This will be a place where I will rant in general. May it be trivial or major.

I warned you.

I won't bother stating my age, location or whatnot. Stuff like that will be mentioned when I feel like it. I'll just say that I am male.

Anyway.

*ehem*

I also have a love for H Games. I won't post any pics here, perverts, since I appreciate them as an art, not something you jerk off to. So I may discuss that from time-to-time. And I won't get into any detail about scenes. I would like my blog to be relatively work-safe.

Let it begin.