JOSHUA: Battle Royale



Upon Ying Tzi’s insistence, we watched the Japanese film called Battle Royale. It’s a movie set in ‘What If’ type of universe. I’m not really sure about the background of the story but from what I can gather, there seems to be some sort of economic problem in Japan which led to some problem with the coutry’s kids and education system. In order to teach the young ones some respect, the adults created the BR Act where one class was selected and asked to kill each other so that the survivor will understand that life is a game and that respect of adults should be learned. I know it’s weird but the film is so full of violence that one doesn’t have time to think of the storyline itself.



I have just one thing to say, the Japanese are very zealous about everything – even with their twisted gore flicks.

YING TZI: Binondo



I went to Binondo to check out some few items. I don’t think I’ll be able to memorize the different landmarks of the place. Every time I head towards that area, the transport I take takes a different route.



I knew that the Chinese merchants were good and that they would do and say anything to get sale but this latest one got me by surprise. I was checking out the video shops when the vendor came up to me and asked if I was half-Chinese. I gave him a curious glance and simply said no. He then nodded and left me for a while. He then circled back and this time asked if I was half-Japanese. I laughed and again said no. I then asked him why he thought I was one. He said that I wasn’t probably full Filipino coz I was whiter than normal. I just had to laugh it off. I have never in my life been whiter than normal and never been mistaken as being chinky eyed. Like duh?!

PIPER: Rage



I think it was the need for revenge that drove that person to do such a thing. I asked Zak to investigate into the matter and it seems that the person who did this chain letter of destruction was probably caught off guard that there was already a big investigation on the unlawful stuff he has been doing. Upon presentation of the evidence against him, he was then quickly escorted out of the office premises much like a convicted criminal – bringing nothing of his stuff except that of his cellular phone. I guess was driven by humiliation to get his revenge on the person who he thought brought it down to him. Bad circumstances gave him a target and he proceeded to likewise humiliate that other person. He should not have resorted to something as low as that, especially when it was he who brought this down on himself. He knew the consequences he would have suffered when caught.

MIGUEL: Caught within the crossfire



I got word last night that I - apparently - sent an incriminating email to the marketing department of a customer. The said email is some sort of blind item, which aspires to discredit one of my bosses at work.



Nasty! Just plain nasty!



I guess some sort of background info might be in order so I tried tracing the steps done by the culprit. Here’s what I found: Supposedly, some girl (who it would seem turns out later turns out to be a college student) composed and sent the email to a yahoogroup called ‘pinay_celebrity’. To make it appear as if I received that email from the said group, somebody created a fake yahooID account for me and added the said account to the yahoogroup. Having received the said email, the fake me then proceeds to send the email to the marketing department of the No. 1 customer of the company.



As if!!



How did I know it was the fake me? They used my real name and company name as part of the yahooID. Like I’ll do something like that?! I don’t even use my real name in my real email accounts and yahooID, much less use it for something like this! Furthermore, the fake yahooID was added to the group the same time the email was sent. Can anyone say ‘Obvious!’?



Naman!!



The nature of the email is quite sensitive and if proven true, the boss might just be terminated. However, the management team believes that it is just the ploy of someone to get even with my boss and they know (at least that’s what they tell me) that I’m not part of it and are just as sorry as I am that I was dragged into this mess. It’s a dispute between my boss and some supervisor he had suspended and the whole thing just got out of hand. Last thing I heard, some very, very sensitive stuff has been used and it looks like the gloves are off. I just hope I make it out of this thing unscathed.



I know I needed some excitement at the office but this is a little bit off from what I wanted.

GENE: to boldy go where no one has gone before! bwa ha ha ha!!

i don't really know what the other results would have been but i'm sure i wouldn't have the uniform and tricorder - though i would put it into consideration for halloween. ;P

Which internet subculture do I belong to? [CLICK] You are a Trekkie! It's a geek, Jim! You probably have a starfleet uniform and a tricorder. Bonus points if you speak klingon. One day you will walk down the aisle with your buttertroll trekkie partner, humming to the Voyager theme. More Quizzes at Go-Quiz.com

ZAK: Dark Angel DVDs



Rico and Gene wanted to catch the reruns of the season two of Dark Angel (probably as research material for Particle Black). Locally, the set costs around P 3,500.00. Incidentally, however, a friend is at the States for vacation so I thought I check out Amazon and have the dvds shipped to her ask her to bring it back when she comes back. That would cost me P 2,400.00 and save me around P1,100.00 from shipping alone. For some reason I had this itch and contacted my street contact if the dvds were available. As of yesterday, she said there was none. So, I was planning to put the order at Amazon after lunch today. Before I could do that though, I did got an sms message from my street contact this morning. It seems that the pirated copies arrived on Philippine shore today and she was able to get me a set for only P 480.00. That saves me a total of P 3,020.00. Don’t you just love coincidental magic?

JOSHUA: Kapuso



I very rarely watch shows from the local channel GMA7. I watch either the imported shows (may it be american, european, chinese, japanse or korean) or that from the other channels. Anyways, this week, I've been keeping my eye out (and my vcr on timer) when they started showing the fantasy tv series Mulawin. The story is simple enough - there's supposed to be a savior born to the winged folk tribe which will save them from their enemy tribe. Problem is the savior (a girl winged folk) got dumped into the human village and where she grows up thinking she is human. The visual effects and actors still need a lot of work if one wants to make it at par with imported tv series, say charmed, buffy or smallville. But then again the production is much much better than those they show in the opposing channel. I think GMA7 is learning to fine tune its shows, more so with the on going network wars.



I also heard they will be coming out with another new show called Coming Out, which is supposed to be based on the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy tv series shows on ETC which appears to likewise be a hit here in the country.



Hopefully they'll show some sci-fi or intellectual comedy shows in the future. I wouldn't really hold my breath for that.

ZAK: MUTANT DVDs



Got to get hold of a copy of a box set season one of the tv series Mutant X. I know it's a pretty lame showm but I guess what really trigerred my interest is that it is in a box set - the original dvd release of the series was not issued as a box set. Upon further examination I was able to check that not only is the box the only difference but each disc likewise had three episodes rather than two which was the one on the original.



So that brought up a question, under the copyright laws it is illegal to copy something as is, yet if one adds some value to a product it's not exactly copying it, does it?



I wonder if they have firefly and farscape on "pirated" box sets too...