A Barely Recognizable Aubrey Miles Cyborg From An Angry Future (Uno Mag/August 2010)

She was one of my ultimate crush back in the days, until today i was browsing through the interwebz, i came across across something that gave me petrified goosebumps:



Aubrey sporting a PMC look with her TM Sig552_SWAT AEG with my good buddy Fritz Mesedilla during an Airsoft Skirmish not long ago in Manila:



Now, the deal breaker. This is Aubrey Miles, after they’ve replaced her with a killer robot that will seduce you before firing eye-lasers to turn you into a smoking heap of cinders in a second. That, or the art director just told her to “look so f**king angry!!! Like you’re ready to eat a bag full of severed dicks, or something.”



.....WTF?!

I Was Born Intelligent, But Education Ruined Me

Cant sleep, been staring blank at my laptop's monitor after having added some wonderful friends over at Facebook. And speaking of which, i posted a shout out about 2 hours ago..a shout same as the title of this entry. Of course some FB friends liked it and some commented, agreed, some negative reaction and for the sake of not flooding my mail thru never-ending threads over discussions, i deleted all comments and decided to blog about it since most of them were asking who made the famous abovementioned saying. Was it the saying of any famous people like Winston Churchill, Amelia Earheart, Manny Paquiao(?!) etc.. or its just said by someone anonymous, for the sake of amusement?

As always, in my quest to share lame-pathetic but rather entertaining one-liners to y'all, here's a simple answer from my ever reliable "facebook-shoutout-guide-for dummies."

-It's a contrivance from an Albert Einstein quote: "the only thing interfering with my learning is my education"

Both phrases mean this:
You don't get smart from school, quite the contrary. School deteriorates your intelligence with it's disorganization and varying patterns. It diminishes your potential with subjective things such as essays that a teacher can mark you down for if they simply dont like you, not based on your merit. In this way, we are held captive by the pen, and belittled by it.

Nuff' said.. Now sleepy, i stay up so late that i have my morning coffee before i go to bed.. *yawns* gonna hit the sack now peeps, I bid y'all 'gnite (or mornin') with love and peace :D

*lights out*

Just Another Random Thought

Well friends, I’ve been saying for a while now that it’s time for a new computer. My first generation MacBook and Acer Aspire 5580 is all I have, and now that both batteries is so gone I can only run it plugged in, the fans are so loud it makes hearing YouTube videos difficult, and I have to use it propped up on aluminum cupcake trays to keep it from overheating, it’s time I make the switch and save these bad boys for traveling. Oh, how I love going through airport security with freaking cupcake trays in my bag.

I will say, as a sidenote, that I have to give huge props to Blackberry. It’s not such a random thing to say. Before the Blackberry, I would’ve never considered getting a desktop. But ever since I got that little destroyer of bus and mrt boredom, I can honestly say it’s taken up 90% of the reason why I’d need a laptop. As I said, big trips, I’ll need something more, but the Blackberry? — heck, smart phones in general…they rule.

It’s such a shame we have to mine gaping pits in pristine forests for their sweet precious lithium, gold, unobtanium, and whatever else they need to run. YOU CALL THIS PROGRESS?!?!?

Anyway. As I’ve said time and time again, I’ve been a Windows guy nearly all my life. Save for my torrid love affair with sink-sub as a teenager, Microsoft has been my company of choice. Even now, I look at it in 360 as a supplier of electro-joy. I personally, don’t have that many grudges against them. No more than I do, say, Linux or Mac or even Starbucks. I can frown at some of their business practices but in the end they provide me with more mirth than murder.

STOP! I just thought of the best band name. Mirth For Murder. Is it taken? Please tell me it’s not taken.

As I was saying, I actually like Windows. But…

When I first got my MacBook, and really gave Apple a chance with OS X, I finally saw what all the fuss was about. The sheer fact that you don’t get errors every time you try to do something, how you don’t have to run a million ad-blocking and virus-smashing programs in the background, how everything is slick and shiny and smooth and just…works. It was really something else.

After some time, however, it’s got me thinking…I was on Apple’s site just a half hour ago and I said to my cat, Chi-Chi, I said, “Man, I could get an amazing PC for the same price they’re charging for these Mac's.” Pretending she replied, “Yeah, but it’s Windows! Don’t do that!” Granted, she’s a dumb cat and doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about and if she ever backtalks me again I’ll put her in a damn cage, in SPCA. in BUT, I said this, “Come on. Windows isn’t so bad. I actually don’t mind it at all.” And it’s true. I don’t. But, the last iteration of Windows I used was XP. Is Windows 7 the jams or is it the hams?

SECOND BAND NAME! Jams For Hams. And they said all the good band names were taken. Pfff…

Kidding aside, I would be getting a new computer mainly to just have a nice piece of hardware for all my creative endeavors, photography post processing coming in first. More space, an actual keyboard and not this wrist-breaking hot-as-sin metal shard I have to use now, a nicer monitor and most certainly a shit-ton more power. You know, a proper desktop. One that I can have on a desk and say to people as they enter my room, “That over there? That’s my workstation.” I’m thinking, ok, I’ve learned my way about OS X for the past few years…I could stick with it, and pay a lot of money for a computer that can pretty much do anything I’ll ever want in the near future except play games. Or, I could give Windows another chance, pay the same amount for a computer that’s even better than that Mac and, get this, do proper PP's, go on-line or no.

Dammit, I don’t know. It sounds like I laid it out for myself, but I have to stress how carefree using Apple’s OS has been. It’s like, literally a whole new world…but, what I’d get for the same price is staggering if I look to a Windows machine. Not to mention that it’s almost counter-culture to get a PC; it’s almost the cool thing to do now, and it could be making a comeback, much like…the 90s. Think of the cool points I’d get when people come over to my house and can’t find the “apple key” on my new keyboard. I’ll say, “Where we’re going, we don’t need keys…”

But we do. Either way, we need keys, let’s not get crazy.

So I’m reaching out to anyone who reads this. What do you have? What do you recommend? Is it kind of crazy to have two computers with different operating systems? Are all the conveniences of a Mac now found on the latest Windows machines? Can you make Macs and PCs talk to each other now (I’m still going to use my MacBook, after all)? Help! Comment!

Then, let’s start a band. My job in the band is to come up with our name. and please oh dear Lord, grant me the wisdom to get out of this financial slum I'm into now."

Fame, Like All Colors Fade

This is a follow-up to my NBA blogpost last week. I don't know if you guys realize it, but we're pretty close to entering a new era in the NBA. No, not the superteam era kicked off by the Miami Heat, though that's happening too. Rather, I'm talking about a Shaquille O'Neal -free NBA for the first time since 1993. That's pre-Justin Bieber being born, people. It's kind of like a big deal.



And while we knew this day would come eventually, no one figured it would be next season. However, now that the Atlanta Hawks are signing Josh Powell, The Diesel might end up without a team. Now here's a caption of a report i got from the interwebs:

ESPN's Marc Stein reported earlier this week, the Hawks were the only team with a "live" interest in Shaq, but with them signing another center in Powell, it seems unlikely they'd also bring Shaq on board as well.
Bottom line: It's looking like Shaq needs to bite the bullet and drop his asking price -- as well as his request for healthy playing time -- or he may not be getting a contract at all for next season.

It's hard to even imagine NBA without the league's biggest goofball would be like, but after scoring just a shade more than 600 points last year it wouldn't be terribly surprising. Shaq's one remaining skill is being huge, and while he's very good at that, he doesn't have a lot left to offer. Some post scoring, sure, but that often comes at the expense of a free-flowing offense. And let's not even consider defense, since Shaq doesn't.

That being said, odds are that someone will bite the bullet and add O'Neal. He'd have to agree to come off the bench, but he'd also be great at that since most backup centers aren't that good. Furthermore, he's always a good pickup from a marketing standpoint. Everyone knows who he is, and lots of people like him even if he does steal television show ideas on the reg.

Of course, if O'Neal ends up unemployed he'll go down as one of the more successful players in history. He's currently seventh in all-time scoring, has four championships, an MVP and 15 All-Star appearances. Pretty great career, even if it could have been exponentially better considering his size and athleticism.

However, the true tragedy if O'Neal is forced to retire is that he will not have had the chance to wear every purple jersey in the league. I mean, he looked so good in his Lakers and Suns uniforms that he should really have a shot to don the purple and black of the Sacramento Kings. Such a flattering color.


Anyone wants to have Kazaam-2 raise your hands :D

The Good, The Bad And The Silly

As I sit in front of my laptop i told myself I’ll post something you my padawan friends would be delighted to read about. After having a nice lounge session with my buddies at home, I decided to share some light on my entry’s subject. To Keith, Dyason, Alvin, Chris my family and friends, this one’s for you.

“Drinking is bad. It messes up your organs, makes you bad company and destroys your life.”

It’s hard to go against an argument so solidly backed by empirical evidence and statistics. Alcohol consumption when carried out to an extreme, thus lead to bad outcomes. But the question is, should all manner of drinking be lumped with alcoholism and uniformly condemned as a vice?

Coming from a guy like me who’s going semi-retired on drinking, I don’t have the right answer for you. And then again, being a responsible web journalist who checks the facts before he writes, what I can do is to go through the pros and cons. Then you decide for yourself whether drinking is good for you or not.




The Good :

Some studies have found alcohol helpful in fighting against heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular ailments in middle-aged people. They suggest that maximum benefit can be derived from a regular regimen that involves limited amounts of drink.

The idea that moderate drinking protects against cardiovascular diseases has a biological basis. Moderate amounts of alcohol raise the level of high-density lipoprotein (HDL or good cholesterol) , and higher HDL levels have been associated with better protection against cardiovascular ailments. Moderate consumption has also been associated with better insulin sensitivity and the prevention of blood clots that may choke arteries.

The Bad:

There’s no lack of literature on the evils of alcoholism, I’ll make no bones about this: uncontrolled imbibing is going to ruin you! Excessive alcohol fries your liver and your kidney like no one else’s business, damages brain functions, exacerbates clinical depression, wreaks havoc on your already pathetic-life and the list goes on….



Alcoholism is Bad. Period.


The Silly:

Given the heading of this entry, you’ll probably think that I’ll be going on about the ills of alcoholism. No, I’m not going into that- haven’t I already done it? The silliness I want to talk about is that of intellectual laziness.

To some extent, all of us are creatures of fashion. We frequently hear people around us saying things like drinking is bad, smoking is bad, gambling is bad, and the likes. Depending on your socioeconomic status, significant others and other factors, it may indeed be fashionable to admit that certain things are bad. I’m sure you already realize how uncool it would be to champion the cause of Big Tobacco! In our bid to stay on the right side of the divide, we go around mouthing cliché’s that are so tired they could fall asleep any moment!

Do you regularly chow down a juicy beef burger overflowing with oil and fats? A lot of good that does your heart! How about soda and cola’s? Calories galore with zero nutritional value about to skull-fuck your system at any given time.



Unless our definition of “the god life” is nothing short of a Spartan regimen of the most austere kind, we’re probably harming our bodies one way or another most of the time. As a case in point, I just had deep-fried fish fillet for lunch earlier today.

Things get problematic, however, when we classify our beliefs and actions into “god and “bad” according to the dictates of the prevailing fashion; and beyond a certain point, we slide down the slippery slope into unmitigated intellectual laziness.

So, don’t jump into hasty conclusions. Do your homework, widen your perspectives, then think through the issues carefully. By deciding for yourself whether you ought to drink or not, and how much you should consume in the event that you decide to do so, your taking a neat step forward on your journey towards becoming “free citizens of the universe."




i wonder when is the next Lounge Session..hmmm :D

Why Its Less Exciting To Watch NBA These Days

Its been a week now since Lebron James announced his transfer to Miami Heat, well not until today that I got my Wi-Fi back on at home coz my router went hay-wire. Finally I got this entry out from MS Word format and finally posting it.

Last week many people at my bar were curious to know and asking me where Lebron James is going. Being the only guy (I think) in Arab St who follow NBA instead of football. Well as a responsible web journalist who checks the facts before he writes, I came up with this;

“Lebron is going to Hades, which is worse than Cleveland. He will be sent there for putting us through an unseemly charade in which one basketball player who has won “zero” NBA championships has decided to hold a league hostage because nothing else is on TV.. (well aside of course from Pres-elect Noynoy Aquino’s media frenzy in the Philippines after he’s inauguration, the much anticipated and recently finished World Cup)

Because let’s face it my dear padawan friends, other than authenticating the Shroud of Turin or finding a bathtub stopper to plug a spewing hole in the Gulf of Mexico, are any of life’s real mysteries left than what city LeBron James will not take beyond the round of the play-offs next year?

I watched “The Decision” on ESPN because of the basic element of essential viewing exists: a celebrity in an emotional turmoil on prime time followed by an abject meltdown. I’m not talking about LeBron melting down; he’ll be fine wherever he goes. It’s the NBA, which has about a year left before the real market collapse.
The league right now reminds me of the mortgage crisis- big- splash signings and prime time announcements giving a veneer of glitz to a system crumbling under the weight of its own irresponsibility.

Did you see who got US$119million the other day? Joe Johnson, whom from Atlanta signed to six years after he couldn’t get the Hawks out of the first round of play-offs.

Dirk Nowitzki is 32 years old. He is the no.2 player on any championship team, yet he was said to have been given the Dallas Mavericks a bargain by agreeing to an US$80million deal rather than US$92million.

Paul Pierce is a year away from being unable to create his own shot. No matter. The Celtics just forked out US$62million over four years to retain “his fading game”

Desperate to hold onto their meal tickets before a looming lock-out next summer, an owner-driven spending spree- other than looking up top-flight, still relatively young stars like LeBron, Dwayne Wade and Kevin Durant- makes no sense.

Crazy. No? This is a league that never wanted to sell “team play” when it could sell advertising vehicles.

When the Pistons and Spurs were winning titles, entire marketing campaigns were built around LeBron, D-Wade, Carmelo Anthony and Kobe Bryant. Tim Duncan, Gregg Popovich and Rip Hamilton won rings in the month of June, but they were never to move the needle in July.

And now that LeBron gave the last rose to Miami, the franchise have had parades and parties week long, they should have savor each moment of it because it might be the last chance they’ll be doing it. And the NBA better hope the announcements get good ratings, because no one tunes in to a lockout.

The players eventually caved in 1999, the last time a collective bargaining agreement between players and owners could be reached before the season began. 32 games were lost to labour stoppage, along with casual fan interest following Michael Jordan’s 2nd retirement.

Before greedy players take an ounce more of blame, check out some of the top-25 salary leaders in league history, according basketballreference.com :
Jermaine O’Neal comes in at no.9 US$153million. Stephon Marbury is at no.10, having sign deals worth US$151million. Someone inexplicably paid Zydrunas Ilgauskas US$123million over his career making him the 19th most compensated player in league history, figuring “Z” should never be paid less than Hakeem Olajuwon or Michael Jordan, both of whom never make it to the list. Shaquille O’Neal was no.1 having signed US$209,846,146 worth of contracts in his career.

Just 7 of the Top 25 won titles. The gut here is that LeBron had left Cleveland. If LeBron is about anything more than getting paid, it’s getting paid attention to. Being fawned over. Talked about. And if he stayed the league is up for grabs. Chris Paul, LeBron’s good friend, will most likely join him in a year and give him a point guard he always needed to win it all

Most of all, LeBron comes across as the savior, the hometown hero who stayed amid all the temptations, who actually listened when they sang “please stay LeBron.” He never got the moment most high school stars get when they announce their college choice: everyone knew he was going pro. Now he gets o pick his hat for the cameras.

A star is reborn. Sappy, but good reality TV

The Internet Is Dead According To Prince

While im not too keen writing music blogs, i just cant help but write this as i was once a fan of my entry's subject. So this week, while all the blogosphere was abuzz about George Michael's 7th car crash, LeAnn Rimes' controversial canoodling pics with boyfriend Eddie Cibrian, Crystal Bowersox's new teeth, Liz Phair's credibility-killing new musical direction, and the Grammys' revised eligibility rules, the World Wide Web itself was under attack by Prince, a.k.a. The Artist Formerly Known As The Internet's Biggest Supporter. Yes my dear padawan friends, according to His Purple Majesty's new royal decree, the Internet is kaput. Over. Finished. You may as well navigate away from this blogsite and go back to your abacus now.



"The Internet's completely over," Prince declared to England's Daily Mirror, sounding like he's ready to party not quite like it's 1999, but more like '79. "I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else [digitally]. They won't pay me an advance for it, and then they get angry when they can't get it....All these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you."


Prince's rejection of all thing Interweb came as quite a shock, considering that the man was once seemingly completely besotted with the digital revolution. For a man who very publicly battled with his record label, Warner Bros., because he wanted to release more product than Warner was willing to, a guy with hundreds of unreleased songs under his purple belt, it seemed like the perfect means to get all that music to the fans, eliminating the middleman.

So after Prince escaped from the clutches of Warner Bros. in the mid-'90s, he released a series of increasingly little-heard albums on his own label, NPG Records--some of which were only available through (you guessed it) the Internet! And even as recently as March 2009, Prince was introducing a heavily promoted new subscription website, LotusFlow3r.com; for an annual membership of US$77, fans would theoretically not only get the digital version of the three-CD set he was releasing through Target at that time, but loads of new and unreleased material unavailable anywhere else. But as the Wall Street Journal reported this past April, the website turned out to be a flop, at least for the disgruntled followers who never got the stream of rarities and bonuses they were expecting. And just as the mercurial Prince put the kibosh on his New Power Generation Music Club subscription site back in 2006, early this year he gave the order for the LotusFlow3r.com site to be shut down as well.


And now it seems like Prince wants ALL sites to be shut down--including iTunes!

While Forbes writer Quentin Hardy surprisingly sided with Prince (in an article self-explanatorily titled "Prince Is Right. The Internet Is Over."--which, ironically, was widely read on THE FORBES.COM WEBSITE), most musicians weren't so quick to turn their backs on the entire Interweb. Even soft-jazz saxophonist Kenny G--a man no one ever thought would seem cooler than Prince--spoke out against Prince's remarks, jokingly telling the Associated Press: "If the Internet is dead then I must be dead too, 'cause I use it all the time. Maybe I've got a sixth sense, and I only see dead people." The very-much-alive Mr. G then expressed every intention to continue distributing and promoting his new album, Heart & Soul, digitally. Additionally, many other, hipper artists who've embraced online distribution--Radiohead, Trent Reznor, Beck, and Lil' Wayne and countless other mixtape-popularized rappers--hardly jumped to Prince's defense, and not even Metallica's Lars Ulrich, once Napster's most angry opponent, spoke up.

Maybe all this is a sign o' the times, so to speak. After all, it's understandable in this post-Napster age that artists might no longer be in favor of a completely open Internet, since many industry pundits argue that it is illegal file-sharing and even legal free downloads and streams that are responsible for their music biz's current slump. Still, it seems a little silly to expect people to abandon their "digital gadgets" and the online distribution methods (iTunes and my ever-reliable and favorite Limewire) via which the majority of avid music fans play and receive their music nowadays. But, IF Prince is right, then what is going to replace the Internet? Will Prince will release his next album on 8-track, wax cylinder, or in the "smoke signal" format long favored by traditionalists? No, in all seriousness, the distribution model Prince is now favoring is...giving his music away free with newspapers..*ROTFL*

Yes, Prince's latest CD, 20Ten, will be included with July 10 copies of the Daily Mirror in the U.K. and Daily Record in Ireland, as well as other print publications in Belgium and Germany. For someone making the argument that music is undervalued, Prince has a funny way of proving its integrity when he gives CDs away like shampoo samples. (Maybe, somewhere along the way, he confused his Parade album with the Parade magazine included in many Sunday papers.) There's no plan yet to distribute 20Ten in the U.S., but Prince is reportedly in talks with his old label, Warner Bros. (yep, the aforementioned "slave"-drivers who allegedly held him so captive that he was forced to carve S.O.S. messages into his sideburns) for a future U.S. release. Apparently Prince is so convinced that the Internet is over, he's not the least bit concerned about hundreds of thousands of Europeans, who will receive free copies of 20Ten this weekend, leaking the album online for all interested Americans to hear.

And, highly ironically, right now three preview samples from Prince's new CD are available for streaming on...the Daily Mirror's website. So maybe the web isn't obsolete after all. But just in case, check the songs out by highlighting and clicking this link:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2010/07/08/prince-20ten-hear-three-tracks-from-the-new-prince-album-in-new-radio-commercial-115875-22385428/


...quick, before the Internet self-destructs!

Hey, Apple Is Hiring!

ei, whatta'ya know? Apple is hiring antenna engineers to work on its iPhone, the latest generation of which has triggered lawsuits from buyers upset because certain grips choke about its signal strength.

a posting online at jobs.apple.com said the company is looking for experienced engineers "able to design antennas suitable for wireless handheld devices with excellent radiation performance."

Apple's iPhone 4 launched a week ago with blockbuster sales and complaints by some that cupping the smartphones in a way that covers the lower left corner strangles telecom service signal strength..wow, that's neat .. hehehe
according to Mr. Jobs during its launch at WWDC,iPhone 4 has silver edging designed as part of the antenna system to improve signal strength..but what the heck is goin here? duh?! of course Apple responded to signal strength complaints by telling owners of its latest generation iPhone to be mindful of how they hold the handsets. now, isn't that sweet for a smartphone that costs around S$1,000++? guess it goes as a package that after letting go of your hard-earned money, the convenience of using a mobile phone is also bee taken away from you,.jeez!

well there's always solution to every problem, right? Apple stated that, the problem could be fixed by moving one's hand or encasing iPhones in rubber "bumper" frames that Apple sells for US$30..whoa!

"gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas," Apple said in a statement.
- ei, nice one Scottie (or whoever spokesperson from apple said that) i wont be suprised that one day Apple will come up with a bluetooth head-set for the iPhone 4, so user's wont have to grip it while making a call..hmmm

"this is a fact of life for every wireless phone." **oh, really??? Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, Motorola, HTC, Blackberry and let us not forget the ever-affordable, dual-sim, mp3/4player cum tv-enabled china-phone's dont have much of this problem**

Apple advised users who experience the signal problem to "avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases." ... now thats what i call extra-profit making *sighs*

latest reports surfaced of iPhone 4 buyers unsatisfied with Apple's response filing lawsuits in the United States against the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Macintosh computer maker.

i was browsing tru the interwebs and read about a lawsuit filed in the state of Maryland wants Apple and exclusive US iPhone telecom service provider AT&T to pay for "unlawful and unconscionable conduct" including "fraud, negligence and deceptive trade practices."

and hey, California law firm Kershaw, Cutter and Ratinoff used a freshly redesigned website to recruit disenchanted iPhone 4 buyers for a lawsuit against Apple.

"thousands of people are really unhappy with their new iPhones and Apple's response to the antenna issue," the law firm said in a blog post. "We told our audience we wanted to hear from them and boy did we." The law firm said it got 1,400 emails in a single day and that 98 percent of the missives "overwhelmingly expressed discontent."

antenna concerns did not deter the hordes that descended on Apple stores, with the firm reporting that it sold more than 1.7 million of the smartphones in the first three days on the market.

"i think these issues will sort themselves out," Gartner technology analyst Van Baker said; "it is a very impressive phone." ei, screw you Mr.Tech Analyst Man! hes facinated of its features that eventually lured people to the iPhone 4 include high-definition screens and "FaceTime," which uses a forward facing camera to enable video chat (iPhone to iPhone only) *beep* another deal breaker..

the original iPhone launched in 2007 brought smartphones to the masses (well at least in the US) Apple has sold more than 50 million of the handsets in the past three years. But its latest version enters a crowded market full of rivals boasting bigger screens and running on Google's open-source Android operating system, which is more accessible to developers than Apple's tightly guarded system.

so I think Uncle Stevie can take his sorry ass back to Cupertino and feed off his hype in the media or spend 100% of his time sucking he's media loving underated cock because "i think" that's all he is worth. at least we now know that iPhone 4 is truly nothing made special off its predecessors.


DISCLAIMER:
fwends of mine on iPhone.. nothing personal here. just speaking my mind out. peace y'all!