Thursday, August 31, 2006

Loser


I lost my 1G flash drive and I felt like my memory also. Had six books in there and countless photos. It seemed like I downloaded part of my brain into that white Made in China memory stick but now that I'm missing I can recall what is inside. All thsoe movies about memories (Memento, Eternal Sunshine, all those early Sharon Cuneta flicks) are about memory loss. Why can't we make a movie about memories that don't go away. That stick with you like barnacles? Forgetting is so long but once you forget, it's comforting. I wrote an essay ten eyars ago when i was still brilliant about William Gibson, Internet and Borges's Funes the Memorious tackling about the same thing. The curse of having a memory that won't forget will make you progeric. I have not opened my dozens of floppy discs. God knows what happened to those bigger and thinner discs. My notebooks I burn. Some of my better notebooks were stolen. And yet I still know what I wrote in some of them. That is why when I love a certain poem. I write them over and over. Yes, like those Baguio writers Butch Dalisay mentioned as having lovely handwriting, I, too, can have good penmanship if I wanted to. I wrote all those Neruda, Rilke, Frost and Williams in longhand and I can remember them well because I had such a great time putting them into paper. Keyboards are joyless.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Tow-rist




You can be a cultural tourist by calling the Save The Ifugao Rice Terraces Movement for the calendar. The start would be in December. Kiyyangan is a town of spirits, figuratively and literally. Last weekend, Julongan was like a Joycean drunken extravaganza. One of the mambunongs chanting the very, very long rice myth actually stopped in midsong.

Kiyyangan


What I wrote three years ago. The photos are the recent ones:

PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo posed for photographers during her birthday in April last year, planting rice in Lubao, Pampanga, and used that for her 2003 calendar.

Ifugao Gov. Teodoro Baguilat Jr. also planted rice in a terrace in Barangay Julongan, Kiangan, Ifugao, last week but he had a nobler task on hand. He was doing this to save the rice terraces and essentially the whole province as well.

"I realized that I am not good at planting this," said Baguilat, who was doing it for the first time. "It looks staged but what can I do? I have to do this to revive the terraces."

Baguilat is reviving the 12 Ifugao rice rituals that have not been performed for decades. Last week's bolnat ritual, which is the third in the tunod or the Ifugao planting season, involved the mumbaki or the Ifugao holy men chanting for the seedlings not to wilt and grow vigorously.

The mumbaki also sacrificed four native chickens that the few guests ate with the traditional Ifugao fare like yam and bitter roots. Baya or rice wine was served liberally.

Only those in proper attire, g-string for men and tapis for women, were allowed to plant in the tumun-ak owned by the Dulinayans at the Julongan demonstration farm.

To perform the bolnat, Eleno Dulnuan, 83, of Nayon village, and Pedro Diplayu, 70, of Amduntog, both from Asipulo town, were brought to Kiangan to invoke the prayers.

Manuel Dulawan, cultural consultant of the Ifugao Rice Terraces and Cultural Heritage Office, said Dulnuan and Diplayu were among the few who can still recite the bolnat prayers.

Dulawan said the prayers of the mumbaki ensured that no pest would come to the seeds.

Three years ago, Diplayu was among the mumbaki who officiated in the patipat, a farming ritual last performed in 1944, in Amduntog where the men of the village wearing red g-strings and the crimson leaves of the dongla plant, danced at the edges of the terraces to drive away the evil spirits and rats.

There are 12 rites in the tungod, culminating with the ani or the festive harvest celebration where the mumbakol (the highest among the mumbaki) recites the rice myth. The ani is followed by the more somber upin and kahiw.

The provincial government is sponsoring all the rice rites in the hope of gaining interest in the rice terraces.

"We call on all Ifugaos to come home for a week in January up to June to plant and harvest. It may be a loss to them economically in their work but, culturally, it is a gain to them," Baguilat said.

Planting for fee

Tourists can also join in the planting instead of just viewing the terraces. "They can wear their g-strings and help in the revival of the terraces by planting for a fee. They will be more involved that way," Baguilat said.

The Ifugao rice terraces were declared World Heritage sites in 1995, but about a fourth of them in Ifugao had been abandoned. Baguilat said many terraces, particularly in Banaue where most of the tourists go, are also eroding.


"The erosion happened only in our generation. There are many causes, but I think new technology is not always the answer. These terraces have been here for centuries, but it is only now that they are eroding," Baguilat said.

Tourism is bringing in money, but tourism has harmed more than helped the terraces.

In Banaue, for example, woodcarving has destroyed the trees that served as watershed for the terraces. Many of the young men have also opted to be tourist guides rather than farmers.

The day before the bolnat, Baguilat had a meeting with United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) representatives regarding ways on how to save the terraces.

"We have no mines, industrial zones and resorts. What have made Ifugao renowned are the rice terraces. Rice is our culture and our identity rests on them," he said.

The National Commission on Culture and the Arts granted Ifugao 200 million pesos for four years starting last month to restore and preserve the rice terraces and the culture surrounding them.

The Unesco wanted foreign experts and consultants to look into the erosion of the terraces.

"The state of physical erosion is the tangible effect. But more significant is the erosion of the social, political, cultural and environmental values that built the terraces," Baguilat said.

He said the Department of Agriculture had introduced new varieties of rice which disrupted the rice rites and weakened the solidarity of communities. He said Western religion had declared the rites to be idolatrous and slowly marginalized the mumbaki.

Dulawan established the Ifugao School of Living Traditions last year for the residents to learn lost art like baya making, gangsa playing, hudhud chanting for women, and baltung chanting for men.

The hudhud, which was estimated to have originated in the 7th century, is recited and chanted during the sowing and harvesting of rice, funeral wakes and other rituals. It takes three to four days to recite the whole 40 or so chapters of the hudhud.

The Unesco cited the hudhud in 2001 among the 19 oral and intangible heritages of the world.

But Baguilat said the school was attracting only the elders in the villages. "We want the young ones to continue the heritage," he said.

Rice rites

The Ifugao calendar of the 12 Ifugao rice rites started last December and is expected to end in June or July. Last month, the lukya, hipngat and panal rites were performed.

The lukya, which means opening, marked the start of the tung-od or the planting season of the Ifugaos. It was the first time that bundles of rice were taken out of the granaries and the mumbaki called on ancestral spirits to bless the rice so that even a small amount of the rice would be enough to fill the bellies.

The hipngat, which followed the cleaning of the terraces, was then performed to ensure that the rice in the granaries would not be destroyed.

In the panal, the seeds were prayed upon to all grow to maturity. After a day of idleness, the bundles of rice seeds known as binong-o were taken to the paddies and made to germinate.


The next ritual, the kulpi, is scheduled for Feb. 4 or 5 when the rice planting is over. It is performed from house to house in the village or even adjacent villages, and ends in the granary of the richest family or the kadangyan.

Each family contributes a chicken for the feat where the baltung or magical stories are performed.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

San Francisco Where The Flowers are Their Hair

Winners


Friday, August 25, 2006

Monster Mash




I just spelled my name using the Monster Alphabet. Explain later.

Freenigma


Praning friends, another chance for a safer email address: Freenigma. Get your privacy back! Encrypt your private and business e-mails to protect your freedom, privacy and your business secrets.

New Solar System

So now Pigeon, this is your solar system

Pluto R.I.P.

Ifugao


I am going to Ifugao over the weekend so I'm showing you these photos just to get by

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Numbers


How well do you know your digits. We have Math majors among our viewers. Just a way of saying, "Kabilang kayo."

0 is the additive identity.
1 is the multiplicative identity.
2 is the only even prime.
3 is the number of spatial dimensions we live in.
4 is the smallest number of colors sufficient to color all planar maps.
5 is the number of Platonic solids.
6 is the smallest perfect number.
7 is the smallest number of faces of a regular polygon that is not constructible by straightedge and compass.
8 is the largest cube in the Fibonacci sequence.
9 is the maximum number of cubes that are needed to sum to any positive integer.
10 is the base of our number system.
11 is the largest known multiplicative persistence.
12 is the smallest abundant number.
13 is the number of Archimedian solids.
14 is the smallest number n with the property that there are no numbers relatively prime to n smaller numbers.
15 is the smallest composite number n with the property that there is only one group of order n.
16 is the only number of the form xy = yx with x and y different integers.
17 is the number of wallpaper groups.
18 is the only number that is twice the sum of its digits.
19 is the maximum number of 4th powers needed to sum to any number.
20 is the number of rooted trees with 6 vertices.
21 is the smallest number of distinct squares needed to tile a square.
22 is the number of partitions of 8.
23 is the smallest number of integer-sided boxes that tile a box so that no two boxes share a common length.
24 is the largest number divisible by all numbers less than its square root.
25 is the smallest square that can be written as a sum of 2 squares.
26 is the only positive number to be directly between a square and a cube.
27 is the largest number that is the sum of the digits of its cube.
28 is the 2nd perfect number.
29 is the 7th Lucas number.
30 is the largest number with the property that all smaller numbers relatively prime to it are prime.
31 is a Mersenne prime.
32 is the smallest 5th power (besides 1).
33 is the largest number that is not a sum of distinct triangular numbers.
34 is the smallest number with the property that it and its neighbors have the same number of divisors.
35 is the number of hexominoes.
36 is the smallest number (besides 1) which is both square and triangular.
37 is the maximum number of 5th powers needed to sum to any number.
38 is the last Roman numeral when written lexicographically.
39 is the smallest number which has 3 different partitions into 3 parts with the same product.
40 is the only number whose letters are in alphabetical order.
41 is the smallest odd number that is not of the form | 2x - 3y |.
42 is the 5th Catalan number.
43 is the number of sided 7-iamonds.
44 is the number of derangements of 5 items.
45 is a Kaprekar number.
46 is the number of different arrangements (up to rotation and reflection) of 9 non-attacking queens on a 9×9 chessboard.
47 is the largest number of cubes that cannot tile a cube.
48 is the smallest number with 10 divisors.
49 is the smallest number with the property that it and its neighbors are squareful.
50 is the smallest number that can be written as the sum of of 2 squares in 2 ways.

Cat



Cat Jimenez, a first generation Filipino-American, fell in love with the camera and darkroom process in high school. After fine-tuning her skills at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, she started shooting both commercial and personal projects. She is dedicated to preserving the history and legacy of Filipino-American "movers and shakers" through the "Flip Book Project: Portraits of Filipino-Americans". Her work is inspired by world travels which has allowed to her see a diversity of cultures, traditions and peoples. Celebration and preservation of both photography and her culture are high priorities in her life. She is also the producer of the 2005 and 2006 Lucie Awards, the annual gala ceremony celebrating the greatest achievements in photography.

Blade Runner Docu


Got time and memory, click

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Samuel L. Jackson Quiz

"I Got a Nasty Clap from Jimi Hendrix Via My Wife"

The Bogart Tribute



Gay


Never judge a magazine by its cover

Toons

These are the cartoons that start with "F" Find out more in Toonopedia

The Fab Four • The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers • The Falcon • The Family Circus • The Family Upstairs • Famous Funnies • Fanny Zilch • Fantasia • The Fantastic Four • Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle • Farmer Alfalfa • The Far Side • Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids • The Fat Fury • Fatman, the Human Flying Saucer • Fat and Slat • Fearless Fly • Felix the Cat • Femforce • Femlins • Ferd'nand • Fievel Mousekewitz • Fighting American • Fighting Yank • Firebrand • Firestorm, the Nuclear Man • Fish Police • The Flame • Flaming Carrot • The Flash (1939) • The Flash (1956) • The Flash (1986) • Flash Gordon • Flatfoot Burns • The Flintstones • Flippity and Flop • Flippy • Flip the Frog • The Fly • Flyin' Jenny • Foghorn Leghorn • Foo • Foofur • For Better or for Worse • Forbush-Man • The Forever People • The Fox • The Fox and the Crow • FoxTrot • Foxy • Foxy Grandpa • Fractured Fairy Tales • Frank and Ernest • Frankenberry • Frankenstein (1940) • Frankenstein (1966) • Frankenstein (1973) • Frankenstein Jr. • Freak Brothers • Freckles and His Friends • Fred Basset • The Freedom Fighters • Friday Foster • Frightenstein • The Frito Bandito • Fritzi Ritz • Fritz the Cat • Frosty the Snowman • The Funky Phantom • Funky Winkerbean • Funnyman

Scream

What do Star Wars (original three and Phantom Menace), Indiana Jones (all of them including The Young Indiana Jones), The Charge at Feather River, Them, Willow, Goofy and Howard the Duck, Lethal Weapon 4, Reservoir Dogs, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Alladin and Hercules, Batman, Small Soldiers, and many others have in common? If you answer The Scream, you are right. If you answered "the Wilhelm Scream," you most probably watched this compilation.

Fruits


The Japanese can't sit still over a cube watermelon so they developed a pyramid one. And here's invisible grapes from Vermont now bidding for your invisible dollar over at eBay

Baseball Notes


Aaron Durley is a 13-year-old Little Leaguer. The problem(?) is that he is 6'8" and growing. Randy Johnson is 6'10" and very imposing in the majors. I suggest the Seattle M's which is now in big-time slide should get him for next year with the retirement of Moyer. As for the Boston Red Sox, they were swept by the Yankees in a five-game sweep. The last time it happened was a century ago? Kababain.

Monday, August 21, 2006

The Church of Googlism

Google is God. Five reasons: all knowing, omnipresent, immortal, answers prayers, remembers everything

Guenter


I read "The Tin Drum" in college and followed Gunther Grass's works and career (read part of The Flounder in Playboy) throughout the years. Now he confessed to be an SS when he was 17. Some people were shocked. I ahve a feeling they have not read his books. His career is one whole whole restitution. How about the writers who sided with Marcos? No one cares among us now.
Ha ha ha. SS as in sapsap.

Fischer King


I made a promise during my birthday to read at least one 200+ nonfiction book (with less than 20 illustrations) every week for one year.
"Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time" by David Edmonds and John Eidinow is the first chess book without a single annotated game. Nada P-K4 or P-Q4. But still a must-read for chess addicts because, I don't know, when I saw the picture of the young Fischer like King Henry VIII in a sea of red, I just had to buy it.
Edmonds and Eidinow, who collaborated on "Wittgenstein's Poker" showed the Cold War in the context of the Fischer-Spassky chess duel. It was the Soviet machine against a chess genius showing signs of already going loco. But 1972 was his annus mirabile, beating two Russian grandmasters on the way to the finals with a combined tally of 12-0. No one did that before. But then Fischer is the American who would make you root for the Russians because of his extremist views and weird habits while Spassky is the Russian gentleman you would hate to hate.
The match itself was almost a denouement because the authors took pains condescending to non-chess readers (idiots) that it was hard for me to cheer the match. Like watching the Yankees game behind a fence and a tour guide telling you the whole thing.
But the psychological battle was riveting as well as the political machinations. Too bad Fischer was not interviewed by the authors but Spassky, the German arbiter, the hapless Icelanders and the Icelandic bodyguard and buddy of Fischer had cameos.
"When you play Bobby, it is not a question of whether you win or lose. It is a question of whether you survive," Spassky said. All the other characters, even his mother, would be saying the same refrain.
Marcos and Baguio were also mentioned but no Torre. The authors would have known that Torre is still Fischer's second but our grandmaster refused to be acknowledged at the fear of the insane American's wrath.
The game was filled with blunders (it had became a psychological game when Fischer did not show up for the first two games) but when the two champions played flawless chess, they were gods. Here is the masterpiece: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044366

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Yeah, Blame THE TRAFFIC

Friday, August 18, 2006

BBC


BBC came out with a series of clever self-promotion ads using the world map

Coke

Subway Series


For my heart, I am giving up on the Seattle Mariners THIS SEASON. This early, I am predicting another Subway Series Finals. Yankees vs Mets.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Secret Shame

My favorite song, for a long long time, is "Arthur's Theme." Christopher Cross' album was the first cassette i ever bought. There were swans in his albums but it's fun listening to an overweight guy talking about floating, I mean, sailing. He ahd a concert in CCP lightyears ago and we were there outside. I saw him come out. I still have it in my memory but that nanosecond is slowly becoming black-and-white. The next time, my friends wanted to do the same for Air Supply. Although it was very popular then and being with friends was the ultimate at that time, I declined. I knew I will never be normal. The first CD I bought was Dave Brubeck.

ipod monologue

So I don't have Modern English or Modern Talking. I spent my high school and college in squalor and deep-set irony so why should I start listening to them now. As for America, I would only listen to it before that other guy found religion. I don't know what's wrong with me but I can never get to love Bon Jovi. Why? I don't know. Maybe I do. you use too many cliches. John Cougar Mellencamp, you are forgiven. ABBA. I like ABBA. In fact, I formed a nerd gang in college called the FACE after the initials of our names. But buying their Greatest Hits is tacky. My ABBA came from the Muriel's Wedding Soundtrack. I added an anti-spyware in my ipod. Its name is LadyDay/SarahVaughn/Ella and it immediately repels Celine Dion, Bee Gees among many many others. Michael Learns to Rock is another matter. It is the favorite of many military generals. I wanted to put one MLTR song just for search-and-seizure purposes but then I thought I do not have any blatant protest songs either (they are for microphones not for private listening) so WTF. Stormy weather, it's nice to listen to bossa nova. At midnight, Frank Sinatra will put you in the mood. Yes, Johnny Cash's "Hurt" brings tears to my eyes. Also U2's The Sweetest Thing. But knowing men, after five minutes we're back to being unfaithful. Such is the devil's music. I am desperately looking for Joe Jackson. Will trade for (Yes, I have them) Eddie Peregrina doing the Main Ingredients, Diome Maturan, Sampaguita (!), Ric Manrique, Eva Vivar and Darius Razon.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

First

In 1901, Anne Taylor, then 64 years old, was the 1st woman to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. The first airplane casualty is Thomas E. Selfridge. In Sept. 17, 1908, Lt. Selfridge was in a group evaluating the Wright plane at Fort Myer, Va. and was up 75 ft. with Orville Wright when the propeller hit a bracing wire and broke, throwing the plane out of control and killing Selfridge and seriously injuring Wright. In 1911, 17-year-old Alice Hyde became the 1st winner of the "Miss World" beauty pageant. A year later, Arthur R. Eldred became the 1st boy to reach the rank of Eagle Scout, which is the highest rank in the Boy Scouts. In 1921, Margaret Gorman became the 1st Miss America. She was only 16 and her vital statistics was 30-25-32. Norma Talmadge owned the first hand imprint in the Chinese Mann Theater. Glenn Miller got the first gold record in 1941. Desi Arnaz, Jr. and Lucille Ball appeared in the first cover of TV Guide in 1953. Joan Crawford was the first guest in Johnny Carson's Tonight Show in 1961. In November 9, 1967, John Lennon graced the first cover of Rolling Stone Magazine. In 1974, Mia Farrow appeared on the cover of the 1st People Magazine. George Carlin was the first guest host on "Saturday Night Live" which premiered on October 11, 1975. Janis Ian was the first musical guest. She sang "At Seventeen" then. She is now supposed to be singing "I learned the truth at 48 that life was meant for beauty queens/ Like Margaret Gorman and Alice Hyde who peaked so early and died unknown."

Paris Hilton Does Tokyo


Hello Kitty's Paris Hilton doll. Complete with crabs. Ha ha ha

Just Another (Sunny) Day in Imelda's Shoe Collection


This is Shaoguan town in China which was hit by Typhoon Saomai, killing a hundred there. Not that these are the slippers of the dead but what a caption it would have made:

SUN SHINES ON SAOMAI'S SHOES IN SHAOGUAN

Null

I Can't Get No Respect

The late Rodney Dangerfield's famous lines.

I was so poor growing up ... if I wasn't a boy ... I'd have had nothing to play with.

A girl phoned me the other day and said, "Come on over; nobody's home." I went over. Nobody was home.

During sex, my girlfriend always wants to talk to me. Just the other night she called me from a hotel.

One day I came home early from work ... I saw a guy jogging naked. I said to the guy, "Hey buddy, why are you doing that?" He said "Because you came home early."

Its been a rough day. I got up this morning ... put a shirt on and a button fell off. I picked up my briefcase, and the handle came off. I'm afraid to go to the bathroom.

I was such an ugly kid...When I played in the sandbox, the cat kept covering me up.

I could tell my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and radio.

I was such an ugly baby...My mother never breastfed me. She told me that she only liked me as a friend.

I'm so ugly...My father carries around a picture of the kid who came with his wallet.

When I was born, the doctor came into the waiting room and said to my father, "I'm sorry. We did everything we could, but he pulled through."

I'm so ugly...My mother had morning sickness...AFTER I was born.

I remember the time that I was kidnapped and they sent a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof.

Once when I was lost, I saw a policeman, and asked him to help me find my parents. I said to him, "Do you think we'll ever find them?" He said, "I don't know kid. There's so many places they can hide."

My wife made me join a bridge club. I jump off next Tuesday.

I'm so ugly...I worked in a pet shop, and people kept asking how big I'd get.

I went to see my doctor. "Doctor, every morning when I get up and I look in the mirror...I feel like throwing up; What's wrong with me?" He said..."I don't know but your eyesight is perfect."

I went to the doctor because I'd swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. My doctor told me to have a few drinks and get some rest.

With my old man I got no respect. I asked him, "How can I get my kite in the air?" He told me to run off a cliff.

Some dog I got. We call him Egypt because in every room he leaves a pyramid. His favorite bone is in my arm. Last night he went
on the paper four times -three of those times I was reading it.

One year they wanted to make me poster boy - for birth control.

My uncle's dying wish was to have me sitting in his lap; he was in the electric chair.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

For You

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