NaNoWriMo 2012 Winner

If you check the handy little sidebar that I have on the right hand side of my blog, you'll notice that there's a little box there that says that I "won" the NaNoWriMo. Well, winning isn't really that much of a correct term to use to describe someone who has successfully gone through the trouble of churning out fifty thousand words in a matter of thirty days, because if it is, then everybody who finishes a five kilometer run would be considered winners. I know some people who might consider successfully forcing themselves to traverse five kilometers in a row on foot to be "winning", but I disagree.

Anyway, my novel, PH:2086 is far from finished, and also very far from having a well-strung together plot. To be honest, after the time and quota pressures of the NaNoWriMo was removed from me like a bomb collar on my neck, I have noticed that I am not really up to adding more stuff into the novel anymore. Or maybe it's because I've recently taken up drumming and I'm very much occupied with practicing at every spare moment that I can get.

I'm not a fan of leaving things unfinished, though, so I will set some personal goals for me to pursue so that I can manage to rack up to eighty thousand to one hundred thousand words, which is the average and most accepted word count for most novels. I have the feeling that I won't be able to compress every bit of the story into one novel however, so I'm thinking of making a sequel once I finish the manuscript.

I also have another novel in the works besides PH:2086, and it's something that I have been working on way before the NaNoWriMo. Hopefully I can get that done as well. Perhaps some excellent time-juggling is in order.

NaNoWriMo 2012

Today marks the first day for the National Novel Writing Month of 2012. Actually, that was yesterday, but I did plan writing this post earlier though I procrastinated by watching a couple of very well-made films made using the Source Film Maker on Youtube, and so I digress. Don't worry about the name though, NaNoWriMo is actually international. There's also conveniently a community of WriMos in the Philippines, which, of course, I immediately joined.

I took on the challenge of joining the NaNoWriMo this year because I find that it's a perfect challenge for me to pursue on my road to self-improvement. 50,000 words in 30 days. Not a pretty hard challenge to do especially with me being a man of dedication and perseverance.

I've been concocting a faint idea of my novel for a while, as I rode my commute from school to my home, a period where I am strangely more creative than usual. It's the story of a young girl who lives in a dystopian Philippine society of the future where the entire country was ruled by an autocratic theocracy. And that's basically an explanation of the story in one line.

I plan to license my novel using a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license once I finish it, so that I can distribute e-book copies of it for free here on my blog, and just earn revenue through the sale of physical books, similar to what Cory Doctorow did to his book, Little Brother. I don't really care about book royalties, I'm more concerned with delivering a message.

I'll keep you guys posted on my progress. Right now it's the second day of the NaNoWriMo and so far I've done 7700, according to my last word count update at the time of writing. My estimated time of completion should be somewhere around the middle of November, if not, a few days after mid-November.

How the Philippine National Police took the title “World’s Slowest” from Slowpoke.

It’s official guys, the Philippine National Police has officially taken the title of “World’s Slowest Retard(s)” from its previous title holder (who managed to hold it from, say, the beginning of time, I might add), Slowpoke.

This guy.

You see, there happened to be a recent hostage taking that took place somewhere in the Philippines, as you can read here, here, and here. If you’re too lazy to click on those authentic links to real news sites, see the full coverage of the “event” and you just lazily wrote “TL;DR” in the comments, let me narrate the sequence of events to you, in my perspective.

The Crime

Apparently, some pissed-off cop who was recently kicked off-duty from the police force a year ago got tired of not being a cop and all, despite all his friends and family telling him that everybody hates cops. So instead of going into therapy session with other ex-cops and transforming himself into a metrosexual (as most of the squeamish would do), he stood up, put on some massive balls of steel, grabbed an M-16 assault rifle, three magazines, maybe a grenade or two, then went outside.

Everybody ignored him and all his gear because everybody assumed he was a cop, stolling around the streets more armed to the teeth than Duke Nukem. He stopped and thought what would he do to “impress” the folks at the camp and get them to get him back. A tour bus carrying Chinese nationals arose from the distance, and he thought, “Oh well, might as well take this bus, there’s a lot of cover inside plus, I fucking hate Chinamen.”

So he tried to pull the bus over, and it did. The bus driver looked at the cop before him and thought, “Oh great! A cop! Just what I needed! Now I can mindlessly drive around while masturbating and those MMDA folks won’t give me a ticket because I have someone with an automatic rifle on board!” They cruised through a little bit. The people on board noticed that someone who took a time machine to the present from the Vietnam War have boarded the bus, and seeing how much Vietnam war-machines hate people with slanted eyes, the tourists on board immediately shit their pants and put their asses on Guantanamo Bay mode.

Some folks outside saw the bus stopping all of the sudden and some guy with a powerful assault rifle inside, so after a little bit of hesitation deciding whether they were seeing some simulated airsoft match or a real hostage taking, they called the police, who happened to arrive in just a nick of time.

No, not really! The hostage taker actually had time to take a nap before the cops arrived.

They had time for a little bedtime story, too.

The “Negotiation”

When the cops did arrive, they barricaded the place and in a 1970’s Munich Olympics scenario revival, they let the press flood in. You know, people with cameras and crap who tell other people that someone just hijacked a fucking bus.

The hostage taker demanded a lot of things from the negotiators before he lets the hostages free. First he asked for some coffee, because he feels groggy after a long nap waiting for the cops to arrive. Secondly, he asks them to clear his criminal records, the same records that kicked him out of the force in the first place. Lastly, he wants some real policemen to come and get him, because those who came to apprehend him appears to be geeky cosplayers trying to look like Counter-Terrorists from Counter-Strike.

The cops just hanged around a bit, because they were waiting for their “superiors” to make the call. While they were having a pretty quiet excursion in the park in front of the Quirino Grandstand (it’s a nice place by the way), the hostage taker’s brother, who’s also a cop, appeared on scene and tried to approach the bus, where he was promptly taken down and got a nice dosage of ass-kicking.

Seeing on the bus television that his brother was having a bad case forced nightstick sodomy, the hostage taker flipped out, and began to empty his entire magazine into any motherfucker he sees inside the bus.

He must have called them cock-a-roaches too while he was at it.

After that, the cops called in the big guys, and began to barge in and kill the asshole who tried to do a Tony Montana on the Chinese tourists. Just joking! They just lied around the park watching the action.

 

The “Action”

The Philippine National Police must have big love for nighttime rescue missions, because they actually waited for night to fall before they send in the big boys, or, in other words, men with tiny balls wielding guns too big for them to even carry.

Armed with bulletproof vest, kevlar helmets, flashbang and teargas grenades that would make a COD or CS player cry in joy, these guys surrounded the bus to do – you guessed it – absolutely nothing, if you think posing for the cameras while in full gear is doing nothing.

Philippine SWAT team: We may as well look cool for the cameras while we make complete fools of ourselves.

They had a problem though: they had to get inside the bus, but the wise-ass hydraulic door would not break down, even when they tried tying an end of a rope on it, the other on a truck, then pulling it with machine force. They found an emergency door at the back which they could break into, but realizing that they left their tiny balls in the freezer again, they didn’t go in, and decided that chucking in flashbang grenades and tear gas was the only way to go.

The hostage taker then got bored of having his senses consistently disoriented by the endless barrage of flashbangs and teargas being thrown at him, so he stood up, and decided to do the Tony Montana again, this time with shit in his eyes and ears. He did manage to hit some random passerby outside, though.

After all the fun whirling around in circles relieving the scratch on his trigger finger, some wiseguy sniper, who probably earned his job by playing endless hours on Special Force, shot the hostage taker square in the head. That’s right kids. All those hours killing each other with AWPs in Counter-Strike will land you a good job as one of the Philippine’s greatest snipers.

Where sniping legends are born.

The Aftermath

So far, about 13 passengers in the bus made it out alive, but the remaining ones were dead, along with the hostage taker who attempted to play Grand Theft Auto: Philippines Real Life.

Also, the Philippine National Police earned two titles. The first is “World’s Slowest Retard(s)”, where, as mentioned previously, was previously owned by the Pokemon, Slowpoke. The other title they achieved was “World’s Shittiest Police Force”, where they beat the Nigerian Police Force out of number 195.

As for the Philippines, International tourism marked the entire country as “The Best Place to go to when you have a death wish”, and “The Best Country to experience a full hostage experience”. The country earned itself a sweet spot in the trending topics of Twitter, and the front pages of the biggest news sources in the world. Great job, guys!

My back is killing me

My back is really annoying today. I just woke up (normally) and after eating my breakfast and taking a shower, I went to my “office” (I call my room my office because that’s where my computers are located), and found out that my electric fan was malfunctioning because, well, it isn’t working. Looks like I’m going to have to rip it open and fix the problem. As most people engaged in electronic fixing would do, I bent down and removed the fan’s socket from the nearby outlet. And then it struck.

A massive wave of pain suddenly engulfs my upper back. Instinctively, I groaned in pain, and decided to punch the fuck out of the wall in front of me, for that is my usual stimuli when massive pain is introduced to my body. I then fell on the floor lying on my stomach. I lay there for five minutes, wondering if someone stabbed me in the back or if my body was just plain messing with me. I discovered that it was the latter.

I dragged myself into bed and grabbed the Electronic Nerve Stimulator. I stuck the two pads on my upper back and let the electricity relax my nerves by prodding them. Three sessions with this torture device later, my injury was still not alleviated.

I think I’m going to go out in town and get my back massaged and relieved. If I can get to town that is. Hopefully this problem would be resolved before I go to my orientation tomorrow morning.

Hacked the entire layout

So, here it is, folks. Sulatang Tapunan has finally gone minimalistic. This is a huge redesign since most of the eye candy that were present in the last layout are now gone. No more of the annoying, common sidebar that most blogs use. That one’s getting old, and it’s a reminder of the web design of the 90’s, no matter what we add on them. Youtube widgets, translucency, Javascript and all other forms of 21st century Internet effects won’t make website sidebars better. That had to go.

Also, this typography style blog template that uses the “Georgia” font family is so elegant, that it feels soothing and relaxing. It helps the reader stay focused on what they are reading on the blog and will not get distracted by any unnecessary element in the website.

The template itself is focused on text. I wonder how it does for images…

 

Ah, it does the picture beautifully, just as I wanted it to. Take note that I am writing this post in the very awesome Windows Live Writer. It automatically adds the subtle shadow effect on every photo that I add while I write my posts. However, I can always choose to use other effects, but WLR does drop shadow by default.

Also, I hate color. Colored blogs hurt my eyes. Black text on colored background makes my eyes watery and tortures them in the process.

The countless incompetent people of the 2010 Philippine National Elections

There are incompetent people everywhere. They could be your friends, your boss, or even yourself. Incompetence is born out of nowhere, and attacks without consent, and leaves quite some damage and angry people pumping their fists up in the air.

Yet in something as important and groundbreaking as the first automated Philippine elections, incompetent people are around, and they are as numerous as ever. People like…

The PCOS machines

The little counting machines that resemble small printers are used in the 2010 RP elections in order to accurately tally up the ballots fed into it. It works with such accuracy that it nullifies the 90% chance of a failed election through manual counting because 90% of Filipinos could not count well (even I couldn’t).

Like most other machines created by man, these PCOS machines have one flaw: they fragile, and will bitch you endlessly to either fix or replace it once it starts to break.

The thing is, the voters are too astonished with the primitive 20 year old technology of the PCOS machines, that they step up and, shall I say, touch it indefinitely. This includes inserting their ballots wrong, placing their index finger instead of their thumb when prompted with the thumb scanning process (mostly because they do not know what the thumb is), or just plain bashing the machine because they believe it’s a devilish contraption of Satan. Which brings us to…

The voters

It’s 11 o’clock in the morning, and you’re in a line chock full of people who’d like to either pleasure themselves by touching the PCOS machines or destroy it. Temperatures soon reach ape-shit insanely-high, and the tension is getting worse. What’s the best thing to do? If you thought, beating the shit of everyone you see, then you are truly a Filipino.

You see, heat has been scientifically proven by a bunch of old people in white suits living in sterile places to be quite a downturn for many a person’s mood. That’s why when cartoons want to portray someone being pissed, they draw the character fuming.

But hell, that’s probably natural, considering the long heat wave that’s terrorizing the country longer than the NPA or the Abu-Sayyaf. Speaking of terrorists, let’s go to…

The Security Personnel

Boom! Did you hear that? It sounds like a, wait a minute, an improvised explosive device! What do you do? If you decided just sitting back and watch people chunks flying all over the place from massive explosions, welcome to the Philippine Armed Forces!

As of the Philippine election day, all active military staff are reques…no, ordered to stand guard and make sure that the elections moves smoothly. Reserve forces are also deployed to make sure (almost) nothing goes wrong. But they’re doing a shitty job. Rivalries between political clans block the voters from doing their duties, while some freaks circumvent the delivery of the ballots and tries to take them away and burn them because, well, you guessed it, they think they’re the papers of the Devil.

Now there are these uniformed people with guns they call soldiers. They’re supposed to keep the situation safe by any means possible, just to make sure that the elections don’t get derailed faster than an coke-obsessed generic celebrity from Hollywood. Some dicks decided to sabotage the elections by blocking the voters. What do you do? Stand by and watch? What the hell is wrong with you soldier? You have a weapon, go and use it, shoot the bastards.

Verdict

The Philippine 2010 National Elections resembles what it seems to be some sort of city where you try to get to work to feed the mouths of your hungry children when some dick decides to steal your money in exchange for not getting stabbed in the gut. In the elections, you do your best to perform your duties as a member of a democratic nation, but there are just these people who, voluntarily or not, make the job more difficult than usual.

What I was doing before first wave of Pepeng

 20:30 HOURS
Friday, 02 October 2009
Some makeshift shithole in Imus, Cavite, in the Philipppines

So I'm here in my bedroom, my notebook computer on my lap, with my 32" LCD TV on before my eyes, with the news announcing that a hilariously-named supertyphoon (or hurricane in Western terms) called Pepeng is coming to wreak havoc upon the country. I tried my best to keep my fingers hitting the keys on my keyboard as much as possible, ignoring the cold sweat that prevents my palms from getting any grip on the aluminum frame of my laptop.

For now, I wonder if my house is well-protected and distanced from the danger zone. The news also said that it's lights out at 9PM tonight, which means I'll be down to batteries in my house - from AAs to 9-cells scattered about. My internet connection will be reduced to the new USB 3G modem I got when I replaced my shitty PCCardSlot2 modem (since PCCardSlots are obsolete).

I've built a barricade made of scattered materials, preferably plywood, on my doorway, to keep water, strong gusts of winds and faggots looking for shelter from coming in. In addition to the "protecting myself from faggots" part, I took the liberty to arm my Beretta M9 pistol, together with my Mosberg shotgun. If they're going to seek refuge on my home, they should talk to my 12-gauge first before entering.

Wait a minute, I just heard a loud thump outside. Could it be some retard trying to get in my fortress? Or floodwater already coming in when I don't even hear any rain yet? Or worse, it could be zombies. Fuck it, I'll stick with zombies. Defending yourself against reanimated creatures is way more fun than keeping yourself alive from inanimated beings.

I'm just gonna grab my 9mm, peer out my vantage point, and cap any dumbass stupid enough to call for help outside and bang on my wooden barricade. Oh, the hilarity.