Destination Unknown

Here’s a couple of new sketches (just click on the image to see them in their original sizes):

I might get used to this.

I’m trying to resist delirium, but for a period of time since, I haven’t gone by a single day without hearing the news of someone’s death. Yeah, I know all about the average deaths per hour, but all of the deaths (with the exception of Boris Yeltsin’s and one of my friend’s grandma’s) I’ve been hearing about were a result of intense acts of cruelty:

• Virginia Tech Massacre (Please read about it if you still haven’t heard of it. I beg you, just do it.)
• Countless soldiers in Iraq, tallying to about a few hundreds just the past week.
• Nine hostaged victims of Abu Sayyaf, who died with their heads apart from their body. Ugh! Some of the victims are merely 16. Search for the execution video in the internet for maximum carnal pleasure, I guess.
• Two deaths from betting on Pacquiao and Solis match (well, this at least was a comedy relief, in a morbid kind of way).
• My neighbor’s brother, who was stabbed to death by an accomplice of his maid.
• Julia Campbell.

Murder was so much cooler back when it was indy (horrible joke).

Julia Campbell was a freelance journalist from New York who came to the Philippines as a Peace Corps volunteer. Her lifeless body was found on April 18, 2007, and it’s been speculated that something nasty happened while she was on the hike to the hilly Batad Village. How could she be killed? Who could have done this?

It was well-known among her friends that she was a real sweetheart and that she served not out of expediency, but out of benevolence. She doesn’t deserve it, although somebody, in the form of our country’s "omniscient" Delay of Justice Secrete-tardy seRaulo gaGonzales (a.k.a. Pinoy’s Bill O’Reilly) who has a penchant for unsolicited remarks, disagreed and said she’s part of the blame. Of the blame for what, for being in the same country as that blabbering idiot who couldn’t tell right from wrong even if it danced naked in front of him on an empty room?

Reading late Julia Campbell’s blog gave me a mixed sense of pity, sadness and anger. Anger at all these injustices. Even amidst all the prying eyes from the office, I had a lot of difficulty controlling my seething. Why do the cruelest things happen to the nicest people? Why the seemingly no end to the lack of just deserts to some of the evilest figures? Take Hitler (no assassination attempts could take away his life). Take Bush. Take Kim Jong Il. Take PGMA. Take all those hitmans who killed journalists left or right (well, not right *raises eyebrows*). Take… oh, I don’t know anymore. I just want to grab Julia’s likely-a-rapist murderer (if she has one, which is very likely) by the throat and drag him down the ground, punch him repeatedly in the face until he loses consciousness, and then castrate him. She doesn’t have to die in a country she volunteered to serve out of good will. The fact that she did… well… I just couldn’t stomach it. I just couldn’t stomach all these killings. What on earth is happening to the earth?

Ban all weapons or have a nice doomsday.

I feel like I need to reiterate.

I can’t believe why our newscast seems to want to skew so far into the fluff area of news.

By now, everyone who’s not been under a rock have already heard of the Virginia Tech massacre. This is what makes it really baffling that, instead of devoting huge amount of time reporting this larger-than-life tragedy, 24 Oras spent only approximately two minutes broadcasting it in an apathetic "in-a-nutshell" manner. There isn’t even a conscious effort to ask audiences to send prayers to those who died, or to encourage that we send our condolences to the families of those who has passed away. This is a kind of tragedy that sends horror to Virgina denizens, and what do we supplant it with? Why, a 30-minute-hogging "exclusive interview with Manny Pacquiao" lead by a sports event that occured two days ago! As though this is really important! As though this should be really important! Heck, more attention have actually been paid to a lesbian-kissing scandal or that Richard Gere hugging Sheree "intrigue". Yeah, don’t you just love it when the media shove this kind of news down everyone’s collective throats? Let’s see if people’s reaction to these trivia will feed the hungry from Africa or the terrified from Virginia.

But since I actually bothered to sit through all those crap, I’m going to make a few comments about Pacman’s exclusive interview.

Pacman, you really need to step back before spouting all those nonsense you just did. What makes you think that boxing is harder than being a congressman? How much do you know about lawmaking (I think none) that would make you qualified enough for such an unequivocal (and unequivocally asinine) claim? And you can’t be serious about thinking that you can box and govern a province at the same time. How are you going to train for your upcoming matches while you fend off poverties and economical crises? What are you going to do, uppercut unemployment? Be a crimefighter and treat magnanakaw (Tagalog for thief) as your punching bag?

Also, is it just me, or is the three way conversation between the reporter, Pacquiao and congresswoman Darlene Custodio (whose name Pac could hardly remember) the phoniest and the most insincere conversation to ever grace the TV? Had Pacman not been a world-famous boxer, let’s see if the De La Salle University graduate would hang around with Pacman on a karinderia (canteen) near that kanto (corner) of a General Santos barangay, or see if she would ask him out to a bar in Malate. I would have found the conversation much believable had Pacman tried to challenge her to a boxing match.

Awesome.

I figured that I haven’t posted much on my blog for the past
few days. Plenty of things have happened and I’ve been quite preoccupied with a
host of other priorities. Additionally, I couldn’t update my blog on my home
because, as stated on my previous post, my DSL connection doesn’t allow it.
Geez.

Anyway, besides having observed a lot of what’s happening to the nation and its
media, I’ve seen some movies and read some graphic novels. Right now I’m going
to express my opinions regarding all these. 

Elections 2007

Honestly I don’t know how they call it, but this is the election where we vote
candidates for pretty much every positions, save president and vice-president.
The front seat of course goes to the senatorial candidate; and here in our
country there are two parties: Unity (pro-GMA, the current president) and Go
(the opposition). 

Frankly the Team Unity’s candidates are a load of crap. They
are full of people with dubious reputation, most especially Chavit Singson, the
self-proclaimed “voice of province” and also the most well-known crime lord of
our country. Should I even go on? Yet by some astounding lack of intelligence of our
voting public, he became governor of Ilocos Sur and now he’s running for senator! 

Also, what’s with all the celebrities running for candidacy?
There’s Yeng Giao (formerly coach of a PBA team), Richard Gomez, Cesar Montano,
Vilma Santos, and Loren Legarda! Here in this country, all you have to do to win votes is to ingratiate
the masses in whatever way you see fit; either by appearing on movies
or (like Ka Resty) by organizing a Bingo game in the squatter’s area where
the winner will be rewarded with a home appliance, which will
probably just end up sold at Quiapo. What’s sad is that
that’s perfectly ok in this country for someone without credentials or capabilities or even the right attitude to govern the nation. S/he only has to be popular! Who cares if the country dives headfirst to the deepest end of the corruption pool?

Pacquiao Vs. Solis

I hate being called unpatriotic
and I know that this will be a very unpopular opinion, but I kind of wished
that Manny Pacquiao would lose. I don’t share any hatred for Pac with some group of people, particularly those
from the elite class. In fact he’s one of my favorite sportsmen. So why do I want him defeated? Probably
because I wanted to see how receptive the audience would be - that would’ve tested
his audience’s loyalty  and you can bet that the politicians will be the first to leave and ignore Pac (when was the last time you heard of Onyok?), at least until his next big win. Maybe it’s because he’s become
overexposed, to the point that it’s become detrimental to our country. Every
time he wins a match, glib politicians do not waste time kissing Pac’s boots
and a lot of our resources are squandered because of all those victory parties
dedicated to him (when in fact all those money could’ve been used to promote
education, transportation, environmental preservation, etc). In contrast, Efren Bata Reyes’s
victories have always been more low-profile. Then there’s Pac being tempted to
join the nation’s politicians. How, do you suppose, did it sound to foreigners when
the WBC commentator announced Pac as a congressional candidate? The hardest
part of it all is in the knowing that Pac will inevitably win, and given the
circumstances, his career as a politician would most likely affect the nation
in a horrible way.

But yes, I’m happy that Pac has won; it’s just that part of
me can’t help getting wistful of being denied the alternative occurrence. I admire his athletic flair, but I really don’t think he’s meant for lawmaking. 

Geneva Cruz’s Singing of the National Anthem

I do not normally like
to force people to stick to the traditions, but Geneva Cruz’s way of singing the
Philippine National Anthem before the start of Pacquiao vs. Solis is
ridiculous. Instead of the traditional way of singing “Lupang Hinirang” as a March
song, she sang it like it’s pop with all those slow tempoes and overdramatic wailing and falsettos.
Now I don’t know about you, but nothing screams “attention-hungry” more than
doing something different for the sake of being different. Additionally, how
are other nationalistic Filipinos supposed to sing-along with the way Geneva interpreted the
anthem? What is Lupang Hinirang supposed to be, a Gershwin jazz standard that
you can interpret any way you want? As a defense, Geneva spouted something like paying tribute to the song while taking liberties with it (it’s the soul that’s important daw! Well, duh!). And I say, she
might as well sing Star-Spangled Banner with Lupang Hinirang’s lyrics. Maybe then
we’ll see a snippet of Borat Sagdiyev.

GMA News, 24 Oras

Like what Peter Parker said to Harry Osborne
in Spiderman 2, “There are greater things happening”. This quote aptly condemns
24 Oras’ (and its audiences) lack of understanding to the importance level of
any newscast. Hundreds of dengue-afflicted victims are dying, soldiers are tortured
in Iraq,
terrorism is worst than it ever was, and political killings have increased
tremendously. Instead of actively seeking actions and in some cases,
donations, what does 24 Oras prioritize (as can be seen with its sneak peek)?
Why, Jopay’s boyfriend’s revelations about their ongoing relationship! Or how
about the Sheree’s "shocking" sexy video schlock or Jennilyn Mercado’s FHM (a way
over-promoted magazine as no Pinay celebrities can start and/or sustain a
career without having posed here) pictorials? I guess if everyone would receive a
dime every time they answer a Chika Minute trivia, poverty would’ve been
extirpated from even the deepest bowels of Ilog Pasig. But who cares about poverty, let’s just hear the latest Krisaquinopalooza 2K7 update!

Movies and Graphic Novels

I admit that when I’m not
watching TV (which was surprisingly frequent the last month considering my
hatred for it) the other media and possibly literature I’ve exposed myself to
are mostly Japanese, probably to the dismay of one of my Nihonggophobic friend.
In particular, I watched the movie Swing Girls and read the manga Battle
Royale. I will probably write about Battle Royale on some other time (there are so many things to say about this manga, and frankly I’m getting tired). 

Swing Girls is a feel good movie about a group of girls
being introduced to music through big band jazz. The plot isn’t particularly
innovative, but the acting will constantly keep you delighted. The key
characters all follow a certain archetype of most other Japanese movies, but
their interaction and their charming personalities keep the show very interesting.
There’s the saxophonist who, before taking the instrument, was someone without
any personal drives and was a procrastinator. There’s the pianist who never had
the chance to reveal his musical talent until he, by circumstance as a leader,
assembled a group of girls to play for the school’s band. There’s the slightly
overweight drummer. There’s the trombonist who was shy and couldn’t make a bold
statement. There’s the trumpeter who is easily attracted to members of the
opposite sex. When they band together and try to develop a jazz group, all
sorts of crazy things happen, such as earning money to get their instruments
(and they could only afford secondhand ones), and playing on some disastrous
gigs. Of course, as a musical movie, music has to play a vital role, and in
this aspect Swing Girls also does not disappoint. But what really makes the
performance very charming is the fact that all the actors learn their
respective instruments in playing their respective roles, so as the movie
progresses, so does their music. Overall, guaranteed to give you a good time. 

Before I go, I would like to post the latest artwork that I’ve
uploaded (there are a couple more, but I haven’t scanned them yet).

Have a nice day!

Ok, updates…

I just got a new internet connection at home last week. It’s way faster than before and I can now go on an unlimited downloading frenzy. I’m quite happy about it, but there are a few things that I’m annoyed with.

First, friendster. I don’t know what’s the deal, but I can’t seem to post new blog entries! Despite not doing much on the 5-day vacation that ended yesterday, this place has been a little quiet. I do not want it that way, but I had no choice.

Why? Why can’t I post new blog entries from my home? Why do I have to do this in the office? Blogging isn’t supposed to be like work!