Impossible Structure?

This was based on this drawing by M.C. Escher, except that knowing it was made with physical blocks, it still boggles the mind how it was constructed.

Close Games

I know that in the past I've railed against putting a positive spin on losing or not winning. But it has to be taken in context.

Last night Leland and I, of the Dark Green Team, practiced against two badminton varsity players in preparation for the impending sports fest scheduling.

And I'm glad that we our final scores weren't that far, because it means that with a little more practice, we can be competetive against the other faculty/staff teams.

Cry Wolf

What was the lesson of this fable? Cry wolf once and people will support you. Maybe even twice. But cry wolf all the time and people are desensitized to your attempts at attention, realize you're not person that can be relied on, and you'll end up all alone with no one to help you.

So just like picking your battles, you should pick the few and far between times when you want people to come to your aid when you call.

Edible Discovery of the Weekend

Blueberry jelly, at around P25 per cup, at a Chinese grocery. That's all.

Under Cover Above Ground

Yup, it's another Urban Dead post. I just got PKed by a non-undead character. And when I checked the character page, the guy had brain rot, which means he is a dedicated zombie who was revived in a NecroTech building.

I gotta admire what he had to go through to be revived, so maybe - just maybe - I won't hunt him down and retaliate.

Another Fine Line

This can be taken so far as to advise people to present only what they know. But sometimes, you also have to think if that's appropriate, or, to be more in line with the theme, you have to either study up on something completely new to you, or to pass off the work to someone who would be able to give the presentation more justice.

Like, for example, plucking an analogy out of the blue, a person being asked to teach logic but, since trivia is more their specialty, that's what they talk about in class.

Not Like Kenshin's Blade

You can keep saying you finished the fun run before your "sworn enemy" did, but she WALKED the whole course. So in a sense she wasn't even competing with you, because she knows you're not on the same level. Get over it.

What's Wrong With This Logic?

Disclaimer: this is not a reflection on the pope, just a visual reference. Also, apologies for having a second analogy in a month or so with a religious bull's eye.

It doesn't necessarily mean that if one has a cross necklace, wears Christ-reference shirts and plays a lot of religious songs on their phone, that when they put their arms around the girls it is innocent.

That's all.

Someone's Lucky

Laughing on The Outside

It seems that there is a reason to be serious if one watches The Dark Knight. My friends compared it to The Departed in the mood of depression it leaves the viewer afterwards. Not that it isn't good. It's VERY good, but very deep and ponderous.

It just shows that the Batman has a very steep uphill climb in front of him, and that this isn't a celebration of altruistic intentions, but how it's really a very taxing struggle.

On the other hand, Christopher Nolan, not Josh Whedon and definitely not George Lucas, is my master now.

Stupid Physics Not Ruin Good Movie

Angelina Jolie was the best part of this movie, somewhat returning to her Mr. & Mrs. Smith role. The creative ways they were able to avoid being mutilated by the local censors for all their graphic violence was the second.

And I can't say if it's better or not than the other gun glorifier of the recent past, Shoot 'Em Up, because it's somehow on a different playing field, but I still like them both.

All this time, and I haven't heard a whimper out of that other Bang Bang movie in between, Hitman.

I just wonder how many people went out and "took control" of their lives after watching this movie.

All 4 Won

On the last day of the Foundation Week celebration, team spirit will take on a whole new meaning when the battles will begin to find out which house will dominate the basketball and volleyball court - not just among the college students, or faculty/staff or Integrated School, but OVERALL.

No more isolation and indifference of the games for the other sectors of the community, because there is only one champion. There is only one trophy.

Be a part of history. Who will the the very first DLSC comprehensive Institutional Sports Fest title holder? Support your color.

Go to csi.journalspace.com for details.

Don't Go There

"Keep Behind This Line" the warning says, because going on the wrong side of the line could kill you.

It's like the line between conflict of interest. Someone (only theoretically) is employed by the school and at the same time operates a review center for passing the entrance test given by the same school.

Or a teacher requires proper lab outfits during his class and also owns a uniform shop nearby.

Or someone gives a high recommendation to a friend to work in the school when she knows professionally that the friend isn't qualified.

No one is watching us all the time, so we think it's okay to go over the line sometimes, blurring between personal and professional principles.

You might think you won't get caught because it's dark, but the train isn't going to be the one at a loss if it doesn't see you there.

Adult Drown

Venture Bros. is a Cartoon Network show under the [Adult Swim] format that I started watching recently. Even though I'm not all that familiar with Jonny Quest, that's not the only thing this animation's creators are spoofing. There's also Hardy Boys, comics characters, Star Wars, internet phenomena (the kidney donor urban legend), among scores of others.

Now I'm looking for the second and third season.

Addicted to Spuds

You'd think that for a commercially available product there would be bigger and better pictures than this for what they're selling, but no, even on the manufacturer's site itself, this (enlargement mine) is the best picture I could find.

I've bought and consumed three cans full in the last week alone. The Salt and Pepper flavor. The first step, they say, is the admission.

I Miss Being Overwhelmed...

... by the sheer volume (pun intended) of books I can buy and read. Today is the last day of the Academic Book Fair in Megamall. The library tried to organize a trip there last Wednesday, since typically it's the day most have no classes. Not true for lab classes though :(.

The last time I went was two years ago, I think. I guess I'll wait until the one in August or September then.

Exploiting The Natural Tendency Towards Greed

In playing Pokemon Trozei on the Nintendo DS (which I've mentioned in a previous post) besides leaning towards the people who like Bejeweled, it still challenges players to "Catch 'Em All", but this time, in setting up the two dimensional board so that when you get four in a row and follow it up immediately with three in a row, it can cascade down to two-in-a-row.

This is the only way to catch the rare creatures, because only one of them appears on the board at any given time and has to be set beside a Ditto (which acts like a joker) and cascaded.

At this point, even though I've finished two rounds of the story mode, I'm still only at 63% completion of all the creatures, and I admire the replayability that way, because unlike the original games, here there are no special creatures that can only be obtained through a raffle or through interaction with other players.

Preemptive Negativism

It's still best to plan in advance and not have it push through than to not plan at all and using "it's just going to be changed or postponed anyway" as an excuse.

Preparedness gives its own good impression, while acting like the grasshopper compared to the ant in the fable looks bad.

And don't think that coming up with additional excuses not to do the work or to blame someone else doesn't look transparently obvious. It does.

Smart Hiro

I guess this is what he does during the downtime between seasons of Heroes. Get Smart was fun because of the supporting cast a cameos, a lot of them comedians themselves. Too bad a lot of the other jokes they already showed in the trailers, and a lot of logic got thrown out the window.

For example, where did Agent 99 get their formal wear? It would have been a short gag to see her bring it out of her small backpack already neatly ironed.

And it's fun to see Terence Stamp in two movies out at the same time, this and Wanted. Just like Brendan Fraser will be for The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and Journey to the Center of the Earth the first of which also has Jet Li who also has The Warlords as next attraction.

A Walk Out Is Not An Option

In the fourth season of the HBO series Entourage, the main characters, after much anticipation, finally get to watch the film they made about a Colombian druglord, as edited by their director.

It was supposed to be a three- or four-hour long movie, and I bet somewhere in the middle the characters already had that dreadful feeling that it was going to end badly, that there was no twist at the end that would redeem everything at the finish.

I bet that if they didn't have so much invested in that project, they would have walked out themselves, as they knew some people with not much attachment to the work could do, believing that there would be something else somewhere they could do much more suited to their time and attention, where they would enjoy themselves more.

That's why sometimes it's better to be a spectator than to have ambitions that outweigh one's abilities.

Bad Role Models

Just because you are in a titled position doesn't mean that you can bend the rules whenever you want to suit your wishes. You are supposed to uphold the rules more stringently than those around you. So you can't let the title get to your head and feed your ego.

Remember, if others see you, they are going to think "If she can do it, I can too". The question is, will that deed be something you'd be proud they copied from you or ashamed?

Craving For A Quick Light Repast

CA graduate (and sports development office coordinator) Roy sold these at the Recruitment Fair last Tuesday at thirty pesos each, or four for a hundred pesos. Too bad since then he couldn't find anyone to man the booth for him, so he had to forego selling yesterday and today.

I could eat a dozen of these a day, they're so non-bloating and easy to prepare.

Advantage: Zombies

In Urban Dead (which, yes, I'm still playing) there is a new rule now that accuracy of hitting an enemy with a weapon in a darkened room in a building is now half of what it used to be (with or without light).

This is like the fifth or so game change in a row that favors the walking undead, after ruining buildings enough to be repaired first before re-barricading, ransacked buildings being more difficult to repair the longer they are left so, free running characters getting injured if crossing to a ruined building, and zombies even without action points preventing barricades in a building.

What's the only consolation so far, household items being used as weapons now, although still at a lower hit ratio than previous weapons.

I hope this just means night vision goggles will be introduced soon though.

Oppression as Animation

Persepolis which I watched last weekend, is not the first film to represent injustices done to a culture or a race that does not resort to graphically violent images.

It is the first I've seen though that shows that Iranian women do know how to party in the privacy of their own homes, and that not even the depiction in American Dad in the Middle East showed everything.

It also shows aspiring filmmakers and artists that it doesn't take fancy stylized artwork to sell a story, just having a lot of meat in that story.