Cherry Mobile Q5i: A review

I forgot to tell everybody about my new phone, the Cherry Mobile Q5i. I just bought it a week and a half ago and forgot to write a review for it because I lost track of time and I was having too much fun (aka procrastinating). Read long and find out why I prefer to call this phone the “poor man’s smartphone”.

The Phone

Overview

The Cherry Mobile Q5i is a Philippine phone with Filipinos in mind, but apparently has borrowed ideas from the big mobile phone players in the world. To keep up with today’s trends, it is equipped with a smooth physical QWERTY keyboard, similar to those of a Blackberry’s. It comes in four colors: Solid yellow w/black back, solid red w/black back, black w/blue back and trim (this is what I got) and black w/white back and trim.

Model

The Q5i is part of the Q series, which is, a bunch of phones who share a common trait – QWERTY keyboards. The Q5i is not really one of the newest and state of the art releases in its family, but it is one of the most reliable. Its successors include the Trident (triple SIM capability), and various other Q series phones.

Features

The phone itself is very feature packed. Here are some of them:

• Dual SIM capabilities. Every local phone has to have this, since most Filipinos are part of at least two cellular networks.
• Mobile Web Browsing. The Q5i handles true websites very poorly, because it can only use a GPRS connection and it has a very basic browser built mainly for mobile websites. However, it does its job pretty well.
• Touchpad control. The phone uses a touchpad instead of buttons to navigate through the interface. Touchpads are similar to those used in iPods other than the iPod touch.
• Java support. Not all local phones are capable of basic Java programs, but the Q5i is different. There are three Java applications installed by default – a mobile browser, a Yahoo! Messenger app, a MSN Messenger app, plus a couple of games.
• Improved audio. The Wolfson audio chipset used in the Q5i is similar to those found in the previous generation of iPods. It allows for clearer audio and support for a 3.5mm audio jack, instead of some proprietary jack.
• Dual MicroSD slots. The phone has two slots for MicroSD flash memory cards. Currently I’m using two 2GB MicroSD cards, however, I have no idea if the phone supports MicroSDHC (MSD High Capacity) cards (4GB and higher).
• Other features such as FM radio, a 2MP camera, a video camera, video playback support, image viewing, and no TV (whew).

Interface

The interface is speedier and prettier than my previous Cherry Mobile D15. It has simple transitions that makes you feel that the phone isn’t slowing down on you. Also, the colors are smooth and easy to the eyes.

Portability

The phone is wider than my previous D15, due to the fact that it possesses a QWERTY keybaord, but the Q5i is very lightweight for its size. It fits in most pockets, and can be easily fished out if needed.

Its battery capacity is quite high, a natural trait for local phones. The battery stays alive for at least five days with constant audio playback using headphones. I’m guessing it should last a week if its just on standby and you’re using it just for texting and calling.

Durability

The phone’s exterior is very durable, as, contrary to popular belief, it can resist falls and shock without much permanent damage. The pins and sockets of the phone however, are susceptible to damage under pressure, I’ll explain more of that later.

My phone (no, I meant the Q5i I have, not the other Pinoy phone brand)

My Q5i has been in my possession and care for about one and a half weeks, and so far the only problem I had with it is that the 3.5mm jack socket got busted, and all the time the phone thinks that a headset is connected to my phone.

This problem is not a nuisance. It has very huge implications on the phone’s capablities. Since it thinks that there is a headset attached to the phone even though there wasn’t, it will always rely on its imaginary headset to transmit audio from the handset whenever you make or receive calls, which sucks, since you won’t hear the other person on the line unless you have earphones connected and using the loudspeaker is just too awkward in public.

How I fixed the problem

I would have sent my phone to a Cherry Mobile technician, but the place is too far away and I’m too lazy to go there. So, I sent it to the numerous cellphone repair “technicians” (read: people who think they can fix things because they can handle opening up stuff and soldering shit) who refuses to touch my phone because all they touch are Nokias, Sony-Ericssons, Motorolas, etc. Thankfully there’s a guy who managed to man up and tried to fix my problem, but to no avail. So we simply just cut off the connection between the port and the system board of the phone. Sometimes amputation of a certain part is just the only way to cure another.

So my Q5i has lost its main feature that’s very rare among China and local phones. I guess I’m going back to my shitty iPod.

Conclusion

Pros

• Dual SIM capability
• QWERTYY keyboard
• You can attach any standard pair of head/ear phones to it
• Mobile web browsing
• Facebook capabilities

Cons

• Ports can break if you’re not careful
• Touchpad can be a pain in the ass to use for maneuvering the interface
• QWERTY keyboard has a slightly steep learning curve for those who are not familiar with them.

Overall, the Q5i is a great phone, hands down. For Php3,499.00 (US$79.00), you can get a sweet QWERTY phone that can fit any lifestyle. Just please don’t mess up its audio port, as it’s quite fragile.

A good phone is a useful one: the Cherry Mobile D15

Right now good chances are, your phone is made by one of the big players in the mobile phone industry. It could be a Nokia if you don’t mind a slow UI, a Motorola if you’re a hipster, or even an iPhone if you’re an Apple fanboy or just easily drawn into buying shiny things that lose their usability when you hold them the wrong way. You take much pride in your phone because you nearly sold one of your kidneys by buying it.

Meet my new phone, the Cherry Mobile D15.

A new local player in the Philippine mobile phone industry (an industry, which, I must say, is so freaking huge), Cherry Mobile is the kind of company wherein a bunch of Chinese guys who got tired of imitating countless Nokia phones started incorporating creativity in their works. Cherry Mobile, much like the earlier and slightly similar phone manufacturer MyPhone, is evidently from China.

But don’t let its Chinese etymology make you think that the phone is shit. Yes, it is sort of shitty, but at least it’s a lot more reliable than typing horrendously on a virtual keyboard.

I’m going to go through my phone’s features, and rate them according to how good they are.

Size

My D15 isn’t big – it’s area is about the same as my Nokia 1208, but the D15 is much slimmer and lighter than the 1208. This is probably due to the fact that the D15 carries a much lighter battery by default (it can, however, use the batteries of my Nokia 1208, I’ll talk about that one later on). The phone is easy to chuck around in my pockets, and it doesn’t feel obstructive to my thigh movement, unlike my Nokia N95.

Score: 9/10

Durability

Chinese phones have an accepted stereotype of being one of the least durable on the planet. Still, I’ve seen Chinese phones last for two or more years, despite the ongoing belief of many folks that these phones break the minute you hold them in your hand. I just got this new so I can’t rate its durability just yet.

Score: Unknown

Reliability

The CM D15 carries a trademark feature that most Chinaphones share – multi SIM capacity. My D15 can handle two SIMs at once, which eliminates the need for me to bring a second phone along just to be connected to one network and another. Still, having two phones is intuitively better because if one of your phones gets lost or died, you can use the other.

Score: 8/10

Speed

Chinese phones are never known to be fast, because their operating systems work like they were written by an eight year old kid. But some lucky Chinese phones which make use of popular operating systems like Android and Windows Mobile are much faster than their lower quality counterparts. Too bad my phone belongs to the latter group.

Score: 4/10

Features

My phone is capable of listening to FM radio stations, play .mp3 songs stored on its memory, watch .3gp movies, take pictures with its camera, and even read e-books, but it’s never good at any of these. It’s a jack of all trades, but a master of none. It can’t browse the web and/or connect to wireless networks, but why would I even need those?

Score: 6/10

Accessories

The CM D15, unfortunately, comes with its own set of earphones that connects to the phone’s special audio jack. This means I won’t be able to use my own earphones with my phone. I’ll have to settle for its shitty set of earbuds where the bass sounds like cockroaches having an orgy.

Score: 2/10

Customization

I can customize plenty of stuff on my phone, like its wallpaper (it stretches the image all the way unlike the way Nokia does wallpapers), turning on/off screens, and basically almost its entire sound scheme. Transferring your own files to it is a pain though, because I have to take out the Micro SD card inside and plug it in to an adapter and to my PC.

Score: 7/10

Battery

My phone’s battery is generous – it allows up to 72 hours of standby time, and at least an hour and a half of playing music. Its charging adaptor fills up the battery with juice fairly fast. Also, if my battery dies permanently (that is, being unable to store any more charges), I can use some specified batteries of certain Nokia phones, like the one in my Nokia 1208.

Score: 8/10

Price

You get this feature-filled, dual SIM, shiny phone for Php 1,999.00, or less than US$45. That’s a steal, if you ask me.

Score: 10/10

Overall

The Cherry Mobile D15 is a great phone for those who are not easily drawn to shiny phones that brag about being able to get you on the Internet so you can watch porn on your phone. This is a phone that is able to do what you want it to do, unless what you’re thinking of doing is getting your phone to get you on the Internet so you can watch porn on your phone. For the basic Joe who like a basic phone that has plenty of basic features at a low price, the Cherry Mobile D15 is a good phone to start with. Sadly, it appears to be only available for sale in the Philippines.

Overall Score: 6/10

The joys (and pains) of public transportation

I am now officially enrolled and studying in De La Salle University – Manila, following a successful entrance exam, payment of my tuition for my first term and attendance of the recent LaSalle Personal Effectiveness Program (LPEP), a two-day program focused on getting the “froshies” (their fancy term for freshmen) on the right track. I just finished the LPEP earlier this day, after plenty of tiring activities, lectures and performances.

DLSU Manila is not located in a convenient distance from my home. I have to cross borders of two regions, since I live in CALABARZON and DLSU is in Manila.

To get there, I have to rely on public transportation. I don’t want my parents getting me to school, I’m old enough to go out myself. So it is public transit or nothing.

The Bus

The major form of public transportation that I will have to take is the bus. Sure, to reach the bus routes I will have to get to the highways they travel onto through a tricycle ride, but the bus is one of the most important modes of transportation for me to get to DLSU. Buses offer trips from provinces to Buendia Ave., where most provincial buses now stay and turn around because apparently they aren’t allowed to roam around Metro Manila anymore except from there to the Baclaran area.

A standard bus fare costs an average of Php25.00. If I find a bus at Gahak rather than the Aguinaldo Highway, the costs goes up to Php30.00. Obviously, I’m put at some sort of disadvantage, since it’s more expensive and the bus does not go inside Buendia Avenue. At least I have a larger chance to sit down on this bus line.

The Light Rail Transit (LRT)

The Light Rail Transit, more popularly known as the LRT, is an elevated train network that travels around various parts of Metro Manila. The first and often used line is the one that travels along Taft Ave., but there are also other rail lines that travel along other parts of Metro Manila such as Quezon City. The first line is, obviously, what I take to get to DLSU.

A LRT ticket costs only Php12.00 since I only travel no farther than Vito Cruz to Libertad. Sure, the jeepneys offer a cheaper fare of Php7.50 from Gil Puyat to DLSU, but jeepneys are usually more crowded, slower, and, more importantly, much more dangerous. They do not have security personnel on watch, unlike the LRT.

Verdict

Public transportation in the Philippines is risky, crowded, and at most times slow and congested, but it is a must to learn and experience if you plan to stay in the country for a long time. There will be times when private transportation is unavailable, and you will have to commute. As I have learned through my past experiences, mastering the ways of Philippine public transportation requires trial and error. There are no updated and regulated transit maps in the country, as transit routes are regularly changing and inconsistent. The only information you can rely on is from others, your research of the area, and your experiences where you struggle to find a PUJ that goes through that place you really don’t know where.

A strong piece of advice, if you do not have the courage to ride with strangers in packed conditions as if you’re inside a can of sardines with wheels, don’t use public transportation. Get someone to pick you up, or hail a cab, instead.

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.

Possible worst-case scenarios that could happen this May 2010 Philippine elections

The overhyped 2010 Philippine national elections are drawing nearer. It’s probably the most overhyped election ever in the Philippine democratic history, because, for the first time ever, the country will now rely on optical scanning machines to tally the ballots, because we’ve lost all our faith on our counting skills. A Chinese baby could count these votes better than a hundred Filipino mathematicians and in turn give us more appropriate leaders.

 

Even better.

But we shouldn’t lose our faith in machines. They’re machines, right? Powerful, emotionless beings that do what they are supposed to do, unless something goes wrong or some dick decides to mess up its work. But even with this ancient technology hitting the Philippine’s election shelves in a few days, there are still relatively good chances of bad scenarios occurring this election season, scenarios like…

Discontinuation of automated tallying'

Despite all the hype and assurances that nothing would go wrong with machines taking over the whole “counting up the votes” thing with the elections, many people, particularly those who are looking to get a little upper hand in the elections through giving everyone the finger and kicking them in the balls, are still against it. They disagree with letting robots count our valuable, valuable votes. For them, a manual counting is needed.
They already signed a manifesto (fancy name for an actually serious petition). However, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) already trashed the idea of having a manual count alongside the machines, calling it “highly unnecessary and would require accountants and mathematicians high on crack to perform”.

Why this would happen

Obviously, the Philippines relied on optical scanning machines primarily for one reason: to avoid mistakes in counting and to negate the possibility of people cheating the tallying of votes. When people ask to have the dirty, inaccurate, and easily-hackable method of counting back, you can only think of one reason why they would think of such an idea.
They just wanted to cheat the elections, yet again.

Election Rioting

The machines can be impervious to hacking, provided that the hackers the dirty-minded politicians hire couldn’t even be competent enough to keep viruses off their computers. So what would be the solution to this?
They would have to resort to the old-time age of vote diverting: beating the shit out of everything.
And they don’t have to hire a team of thugs, either. They could just hire one guy with a death wish to falsely announce a bomb threat while he’s in line to vote, or just say that the elections are rigged. People would go instantly nuts and grab their pitchforks and torches, where they’ll engage in a free-for-all 9,000,000+ man MMA-style deathmatch.
The Philippine society would collapse in the course of a few days.

Why this would happen

This is the election equivalent of nuking another country because they just won’t quit or their defenses are just too impervious to any sort of penetration (dick joke there, sort of). If you can’t beat them, might as well nuke them, they say.

Hell yeah!

Another People Power

This one is quite similar to the previous one above, but much, much less violent. “People Power” is the process of brainwashing the people with special false propaganda to precisely get them to riot, without the violence part, that is.

Why this would happen

How people start People Power Revolutions.

A peaceful rendition of the previous two stated above would be more acceptable to the world, and probably let a few tears stream from the eyes of the people outside the country. It would raise the particular person who called “hacks” status into a hero, and probably his whole family as a whole, and set of a chain reaction where members of his family would step up as leaders and mess the whole scenario even worse.
But I doubt if someone has the balls to do it. You have to kill yourself and falsely tell the world somebody did it, then get somebody close to you (preferably one of your parents) to take your position for you. The rest would be history.
The world has seen enough People Power Revolutions. The next one would be oh-so-boring, unacceptable, and more repetitive than the plots of Philippine soap operas.

3 things that are just plain useless (in the Philippines)

After refurbishing our old Lenovo Thinkpad x60s for (my) use in college, I'm happy to say that I have spent just enough to keep this computer running smoothly. To give an estimate, I've spent only $235 for the Windows 7 Home Premium DVDs, a new 250GB HDD and 2GBs of RAM. I didn't really want to go overboard. If I wanted to I would have just bought myself a new laptop, and not refurbish one.

On a side note, I thought up about a new list. This one is a little short, because I'm running out of ideas and I'm afraid that making things up won't be healthy for my current track record. There are just things that are plain useless if you bring it to the Philippines. Things like...

3. An HDTV

A High-Defenition TV (or HDTV) is a television screen that is capable of displaying and receiving high definition signal, which is butt-ton crisp picture and sound, or in layman's terms, either 720p or 1080p.

Much like gun and muscle size, the size of your HDTV is inversely proportional to your dick size.

Like in the USA, HDTVs are very popular in the Philippines. Go to any well-known consumer electronics store and there's a high chance that you'll see a huge-ass LED TV that you can't afford behind the glass displays. After using your child's college savings and a loan from the mafia (which you pay in blood a month later), you buy the HDTV, bring it to your home, and find out that yes, it does display HD signals, but can it receive them?

As of now, there are no HD signal providers in the Philippines. Those who claim that they have HD signal are false. Why is this so? Because for every 250 or so people with TVs, only 10 of them have HDTVs.

So why would cable providers deliver digital HD signals when almost everybody is using the century-old technology of CRT? And remember "bunny-ear" antennas? That shit is popular in the Philippines.

This shit is popular!

2. A sports car

Cars can deliver hints about your personality to other people. Driving an old Beetle around marks you as a hobo, a Prius means you're a tree-hugging mom, and a sports car of any make marks you as a douche. And what is a more better way to let people know that you're a douche by running down the streets at eighty miles and hour and watching the streetchildren playing in the asphalt jump away Die Hard style to narrowly escape death?

Much like this, but with kids.

It's hilarious. If you can get your sports car to run that fast in Philippine roads that is.

Most foreigners and speed demons come to the Philippines for the country has a pretty shitty traffic enforcement system. By spending the money that could have been used for radar and speed cameras to take down speeders for something else, most people are running down the streets at full speed, only slowing down everytime the stereotypical eighty year old lady crosses the street at a snail's pace. Then everything would go like Fast and the Furious again, minus good looking cars.

This could be yours!

Why minus good looking cars? Aren't we driving in sports cars, you know, the Lambos, and Ferraris that make you look like an Italian douchebag? Well, just so you know that the Philippines has one of the shittiest roads to drive your car into, and travelling in countryside roads that are covered in fresh, well-made carabao shit. And they bake their freshly harvested rice under the sun, presumably to kill off any dirty stuff clinging to the grain. Of course you'd enjoy running that over, but when you do, think about the children who could have eaten that pile of rice.

But then again, you don't have to.

Oh, and don't forget about this:

Yep, that pretty much sums it all up.

1. A really fast computer

The Philippines is not really known for blazing fast computers. Sure, thanks to Intel desperately trying to stay in the Philippines like Rambo trying to survive in Vietnam, we have the latest in processor technology here, mainly the new Intel Core i7, i5, and i3 series. But go to a common computer shop down the street and you'll notice that these computers still use processors older than the fourth generation of Pentium processors. That's right, computers in the Philippines are stuck in the late 90's.

Technology!

While not all computers in the country are shit, you can still buy or build yourself a pretty awesome machine. i7s are on sale on the Philippine computer market, and so does new graphics cards and the like for your custom gaming machine. If you don't like to build one yourself, Dell can sell you Alienware computers that equal as beastly gaming machines.

But what if you just bought or built yourself a powerful computer? What are you going to do with it? If you're going for gaming, what game are you going to play? Prepare to be nostalgic, because you'll find out that the most popular game in the Philippines is the infamous Defense of the Ancients, or DoTa as it is more commonly known.

An average DoTA player, in his prime state of concentration.

DoTa, in case you do not know (which is good), runs on the particularly old Warcraft III engine. And the Warcraft III engine runs on the twelve year old DirectX 7 technology. Now imagine yourself that you bought a computer like this:

Technology.

In hopes that you and your friends can play something like this:

Technology!

But be disappointed to find out that they play only this:

Technology?

You get the picture.

5 common Filipino myths (and why they're false)

Religion from early pre-colonial shamanism, together with the Catholicism the Spaniards taught to the Filipinos have all together gave birth to numerous superstitions in everyday Filipino life. These superstitions have shaped how Filipinos live their lives, from pointing to matrimony. However, as usual, superstitions are created through common belief, and are not backed up by scientific evidence. There are plenty of superstitions in Filipino culture, but we are going to tackle only the most popular ones, like...


Pointing is bad luck

What is it?

Filipinos have long believed spirits roam everywhere in their lands. It's common belief that if you point at something, there is a strong chance that there is a spirit standing there, pissed at you and ready to curse you the second you put down your finger.

Why it's bullshit

The idea of spirits roaming around is based on the ancient Filipino religion of Spiritism, where, instead of gods, Filipinos worship "spirits" that inhabit their surroundings. To give respect to these supernatural beings, they offer all sorts of stuff other religions offer to their gods - food, sacrifices, etcetera. When the Spaniards colonized the Philippines, they killed everyone who opposed to the Christian religion, saying, "We got the Bible, bitch, what do have to say about that", and forcing everyone to go to church every Sunday.

Probably, like every other religion conceived, Spiritism's founders found a whole field of weed, got high, then hallucinated about spirits laughing about their failure everywhere. Also, as every other religion goes, they went to towns and scared the hell out of people that damnation will come if they do not give donations for salvation.

The founder of all religions.

Break a rosary and face damnation

What is it?

For a devout Catholic, your rosary is like your balls. Like your balls, if your rosary is broken, you're pretty much fucked. Expect heavy doses of bad luck - car accidents, wild animal attacks, psychopaths coming in your house - all causing serious pain and death.

Why it's bullshit

Because all cases of death after breaking rosaries are purely coincidental and unsolved.

Some people say the person who broke his/her rosary will die in 13 days, but, quite frankly, there is no definite date. Those who died took years before taking the final dirt nap.

Another reason for this myth is because, in the olden days of Spaniards ruling the country, rosaries were gifts from friars, and everybody knows friars were the pimps of the time, they had money, women (no really, they do), horse carriages and big-ass monasteries. Indeed, rosaries were family jewels - passed along generation after generation - until the belief of people dying from passing on rosaries came into the air.

 Pictured above: A friar, although they look older and more Spanish during the old times.

Sleeping with wet hair can cause blindness

What is it?

It is an old wives tale that, if you sleep with wet hair, you will turn blind once you wake up.

Why it's bullshit

Sigh. Slept with my hair wet again.

Like all other Filipino superstitions, this one came up during the days of Spanish colonization, back when washing your clothes isn't just showing up at your local Chinese laundromat and shoving your laundry down a washing machine or dry cleaner, it's showing up at your local Chinese laundrywoman and bitch her to wash your clothes for a hefty price. Bedcloths are also to be cleaned by hand, so it adds up to the bill.

Sure, it may seem like "the cover is only wet, you can just lay it in the sun and let it dry", however, take note that people's idea of shampoo during the good old days include ground insects, urine and salty water, so wet, 18th century hair on bedcloth is a very shitty idea (literally). Old wives probably made it up to scare their children from laying on bad immediately after a game of challenge pissing with friends.

Pictured above: Shampoo

The bride should not fit the wedding dress the day before the wedding day, lest bad luck will befall on her

What is it?

There is a long-living belief that, the bride is not allowed to fit the wedding gown before the day of the wedding. Failure to follow will result in death or just plain bad luck.

Why it's bullshit

You know when ready to wear clothing appeared on the scene? How it outfashioned seamstresses and dressmakers alike?

There are some parents who wants to get their children married as soon as possible, so they turn to ready to wear wedding atires - which were much much more expensive during that time, since mass producing various articles did not involve abused children working in a factory. Also, wearing ready-to-wear's is a big embarassment during the old days, so to avoid shaming their children, parents forbid the bride to fit the gown, lest she sees the price tag on it and her friends grab their Zarazamoras and tweet about their friend being so totally lame.

Pictured above: Zarazamora, the Blackberry of the 19th century

Sukob

What is it?

You may not marry in the same year a family relative has married or died. Doing so will cause bad luck and death among the family. Sukob is the name of this curse.

Why it's bullshit?

You remember the rosary part? Remember it's just coincidence? This is one is too.

The whole concept of "your family members" dying one by one just because one of you married the same year as another member has married or died is just some plot cut by one of Final Destination's screen writers. You think I'm talking shit? Take a look at this.

However, the league of Philippine filmmakers (Pinoyliwood sounds dumb) made a movie about this superstitious belief. And you know how much films can brainwash and affect the minds of Filipino people, especially with the obvious fact that they believe everything they see on the silver screen.

Ok guys, here's what we're going to do: We're going to make a film with extremely false beliefs as a story and fool everyone from their cash. You all ready?

Good job, movies. You official made us stupid and paranoid.

This is for you, Philippine films!

A second person narrative of a Tropical Storm Ondoy survivor

To explain the scenario I'm going to picture, let's play pretend. Suppose you are a regular Filipino citizen, waking up at 4AM in the morning, either ready to go to class in college or you're fresh from a blackout from the nearest cockpit. When you look outside the window, you realize that it's raining. And it's not regular rain, it's raining hard, as if God decided that the Philippines is some sort of a toilet to piss on with rainwater. You shake it off, reminding yourself that this is another of those Philippine phenomena you can't find anywhere else, and conclude that the rain will probably stop in less than twenty minutes or less.

Two hours later, you are on your way to work, and still the rain has not shown any signs of weakening.

Curious about the current weather situations, you tune in to the radio and hear an announcement that a tropical storm is about to cross the mainland. You turn off the radio and breath a sigh of relief that it's only a tropical storm, not a hurricane. To you, and the majority of society, a tropical storm, when compared to a hurricane, is a 12 year old, 200lb, asthmatic boy with red hair, pale skin, freckles all over the body, oversized glasses, enjoys World of Warcraft and wears a t-shirt with the words, "Mommy's biggest boy" in big, bold letters.

You sit down on your computer, begin typing worthlesss papers your professor told you to type on your computer, when suddenly your noisy roomate bursts in your privacy, in his face, both the expression of happy and shock. At first glance you thought he was just going to tell you about his peephole session last night, but today, his subject was a bit different. There's a fucking flood outside. And no, it's not just a "flow that drags garbage and infants", it's a "gigantic flow that drags cars and stupid people with the minds of infants".

You were very relieved, for probably your professor and his frail body would be dragged by the flood and disappear forever without a trace. You tell your roomate you are going to party it out by pubbing on DoTa. You start to log-in to Garena, when suddenly, it failed to start, because the Internet was out.

You sigh, because you couldn't show off to the world how much you suck at playing DoTa. However, you found hope when your buddy told you tha you're just going to fight with each other mano a mano. You fire up Warcraft III when suddenly the your computer monitor, together with the whole dorm, was covered in darkness. The power was out.

Wh3r3 m4h d0t4 g0?

Your roommate proceeded to scream, "Holy shit", in Filipino. You facepalm yourself, overpowered by the regret of not being able to play DoTa today. You open the windows to let light in your room. You see the scene outside and let out a gasp of horror.

You see different kinds of objects being carried away by the raging flood water - clothes, appliances, even cars - moving in the flow of the liquid as if the streets were turned into an angry river. There's the occassional retard being carried away by the flow, and, in really rare occassions, some of those retards even enjoys the ride.

This, minus Michael Bay CGI.

Suddenly, your thoughts were shifted on your friends outside. Are they ok? You take out your one thousand peso Nokia N93 chinaphone ripoff and sent out a group message to all of your friends about the flood. One by one, the messages failed to send, due to two reasons: (1) You don't have any prepaid credits left and (2) There isn't any cellphone signal.

You cuss at your cellphone failing itself, and decides that it could serve the purpose of being a wedge later whenever the situation comes. You and your friend sit down on the torn, dirty couch you stole from the lounge, thinking about what to do next. Your thoughts were interrupted rudely by a threatening sound that came from downstairs. It was the front door, and it just blew open like a SWAT team inserted some breaching bombs and blew the explosives.

You and your friend cower in fear, lest it was drug law agents searching for the stash of shabu you hid under your bed with your dwarf brother. The threat came up the stairs, only that it did not emit sounds of footsteps and officers radioing for backup. It sounded wet. And angry. Your friend screamed and pointed at the foot of your door. Water flowed underneath the door. The rainwater spread throughout the room, destroying everything unlucky enough to not be on top of some sort of support.


Four hours later, after living on a couple of leftover potato chip snacks and refusing to drink any water (lest it's piss), the flood inside your dorm room has reached knee level. You and your roommate proceeds to the roof of your two-story dorm, where getting bombarded by tiny droplets of water for hours is way better than being tormented by one whole body of water threatening to drown you.

You find other people experiencing the same fate as well - families and households holed up on their roofs, watching in horror as their possessions - televisions, refrigerators, their worthless laptop computers, being towed away by the flood, as if God took them away and said, "Hey, nice stuff. Lemme have it" while giving the family the finger in the process.

This is the situation of the Philippines during September 26-27, 2009. Tropical Storm Ondoy, a regular typhoon destined to only go around the Philippines and wreak havoc on Taiwan, decided to be a dick and went through the mainland. Also, instead of just passing by as a regular nuisance, he decided to be a bigger dick by showering the South-Central Luzon with heavy rainfall, much like mobsters enjoy raining their targets with plenty of .45 calibers from their tommy guns before disappearing from the scene. To meteorologists in and out of the country, this is a once-in-a-lifetime disaster. To the victims of the calamity, it's a huge "fuck you" from God, probably because Pinoys spent too much time betting at cockpits or DoTa games at various computer shops instead of being at church worshipping Him.

God makes more awesome "signs" thes days.

Others who were lucky to move out of dangerous places were holed up in makeshift evacuation centers, where at least a hundred families are forced inside school buildings (Hint: School buildings in the Philippines are roughly quarter the size of a hospital). They fight over resources and attention that bored volunteers give them, probably because their schedules of beating the shit out of each other were interrupted by the sudden outburst of weather.

Pictured above: Evacuation center without the usual in-fighting.

Today, the receeding rain has lowered the flood levels to knee deep, but still, the people are devastated for the loss of their clothes, belongings and shelter. Moreover, they're depressed about losing a day of not wasting their lives playing DoTa and/or texting on the phone. I guess that's the positive effect of this massive fuck-up, despite the whole country labeling this as one of the worst disasters of the year.

A plethora of suckage: 5 reasons why Philippine TV shows suck

You might have seen a few TV shows in the Philippines. If you're a Filipino, you've probably seen them all, as for every two Pinoys, there's a television among them, whether if its a shitty 80's 10" CRT or a 60" LCD HDTV. However, it's not the television set that has a problem here, it's the shows they're broadcasting everyday.

The story is awesome. The characters are rich and vibrant, and everything seems to go smoothly. But why do these shows still suck? There are plenty of reasons for this mishap, but we'll only cover five, like...

5. Too many commercial breaks

Nobody likes commercials. Even the talents promoting the commercials don't enjoy looking like an idiot in front of a camera to help a retarded douchebag become less retarded.

Pacquiao: Honestly, I don't know why the fuck am I endorsing shampoos or speaking English.

If you happen to be watching a show in the Philippines, be prepared to take a break for every ten minutes. There are rare occassions of commercial breaks every five minutes, featuring products shittier than Head-On.

On the bright side, getting a break every ten minutes seems to be good for the fitness of Filipinos. After a commericial starts rolling, you can go to the bathroom, eat something, then come back before the show returns. That increases the frequency of walking, and everybody knows walking is the best exercise, right?

Above pictured: TV, without commercials.

4. Lame dubbing

If it's one thing Filipino TV is known besides fake reality shows, it's anime/Korean/Taiwanese/Chinese shows dubbed in Tagalog, because the majority of the population doesn't understand the show's original language nor English.

Here's an example of a dubbed show:



Holy shit! Could it get even worse?

Well, yes it can.



Strangely, Gost Payter seems a lot better. Genius dubbing I must say, even for a $10 mic bought at the market and 10-year olds on the microphone.

3. Repetitive themes

As a popular quip goes, Filipinos can't get enough. True, but for storyline plots, it gets boring and boring for every minute you spend watching.

You want a plot concerning children? Make one, and pedophilic women will embrace and hump the TV screen as it broadcasts. You want a plot concerning cheesy romance? Make one, and probably TV geeks will rival at the pathetic green-screening and think everything they see are real.

This is even more real than the hallucinations we get while snorting chemicals.

Hell, Meet Dave has a way better storyline than these.

2. Lame death scenes

A majority of Philippine TV shows, especially those of the soap-opera type, showcases death as an equalizer of the plot. However, sometimes the cause of death fails to equalize the storyline and instead baffles the critics and once again turns middle aged women into necrophobic hags, forcing them to pray the rosary 10 times a day to "not fall to the ground and dying after clutching the chest for no apparent reason".

WTF? Clutching your chest then dying? Heart attack, probably, but the one dying here is 28 years old in the plot, and has no record of heart disease of whatsoever. Skip to 1:10 in this video and you'll see what I mean.



Can't we have better and more realistic death scenes here? Can we have none of those insanely-retarded "small-car-at-20kph-instantly-killing-200lb-sturdy-man" twists and "getting-shot-in-the-arm-and-dying-without-even-bleeding" deaths? Can we have something a little bit more gorey, like exploding heads?




Much, much better.

1. Unexpected story line cutoffs

Let's me explain this in a more common scenario. Let's say you came to a concert of your favorite band. Now, the lead guitarist is already in his solo's climax when suddenly, the music stops, and the vocalist sadly announces that the stage will now be taken by some "lame singers who can't sing but pays money", much like Chris Brown. Then you stand up, leave the theatre, and swear to yourself that you will implode the heads of anyone who bites arms and makes wack music. I mean, really.

Yeah, that's it, keep punching yourself in the face.

In reality of Philippine TV shows, every timeslot needs something to occupy it. It doesn't matter if the show is the next big hit or the next big failure, something, anything that doesn't resemble a commercial should fill in that time slot. However, producers of TV shows seems to rush the production of their shows, which leads to shitty shows, which leads to shitty shows already being broadcasted on TV to have their plots cut and the vital parts skipped, to give way for the next shitty show to replace it. And the process goes on and on.

Lolcats are just plain awesome.

So if you happen to watch some Pinoy TV, be sure to take a piss in every commericial break (use that as an excuse to not watch the horrible commercials), try to understand the expressionless and bad dubbing, the same storylines, the lame deaths, and the capitalism involved in marketing television shows. All this writing makes me want to go back to good old Pinoy TV, where plots are plots and there's always 20 minutes of beatdowns every day.

How the sinking of Superferry 9 could've been avoided

Like, holy shit

Right now, all newspapers, news websites, radio broadcasts and basically all forms of journalism manipulated by the Philippines (with the exception of Twitter) is buzzing with news about the latest Superferry 9 f-up. Normally, I wouldn't give a damn about stuff like this, however, I'm going to use it as an excuse in order for me to get back to writing after a whole lot of messing around in Gmod.

Anyway, according to the web article by Inquirer.net, 926 passengers were rescued, however, at least 30 are found to be missing. As usual, Superferry is doing its best to cover the shit up, which turns out to be a success, especially towards the poor, the meek and the gullible who thinks everything on TV is true.

What caused the sinking of the ship? To be honest, nobody has the answer yet, although people are already jumping to conclusions. Some blaming it on pretty obvious reasons - overloading, especially since the boat is filled with 847 fat-assed passengers who are illegal squatters in Manila trying to go home to the provinces. Others blamed it on the Abu-Sayaf terrorists, who are probably pissed and high after going through a day of Ramadan with nothing to eat but opium and crack. Some even went batshit about the situation - blaming ghosts of previous disasters of the ship (since the ship has gone through at least three accidents already).

 

All possible causes of the sinking.

That leads us to the things everyone should have done so they could have avoided the tragedy. And they failed, as usual.

First, if the accident is caused by terrorism, they should have properly inspected the ship before it weighed anchor and also, post some guards around the ship to watch for any suspicious people in ski masks planting C4s in the ship's boiler room. But hell, C4s are so 2004, like Counter Strike. IED (Improvised Explosive Devices) are the norm these days. IEDs usually take in the the form of cellphones, and since 1 1/2 in every two Filipinos own some sort of "cellular-signal operated telephone", it's very hard to spot a bomb in a crowd of fake Nokia chinaphones. Let's just hope the coast guard can train bomb sniffing dogs.

Secondly, if the accident is caused by overloading, then they should actually limit the number of passengers in the ship. I don't care if he is your nephew, your brother-in-law, or that faggot at the gaybar who threatens you for your balls. Essentially, Pinoys are bound with the retarded "everyone for everyone" theory. We're not Communists, damnit.

 I'd enjoy booze for everyone, but I wouldn't share a hot chick with everybody else.

To calculate how the Superferry 9 sank because of overload, let's take the following formula: Weight of average Pinoy * number of passengers. Essentially, an average 30-45 year old Filipino male eats plenty of pork, beef and rice each day, which can be roughly estimated to be between 160-260lbs. Let's multiply 260 pounds to the amount of passengers, which is 926. That gives us  240,760 pounds of pure Filipino being carried by a badly-built ferryboat. Also, Pinoys act like magnets, only that they're magnets high in steroids. They are attracted to places with a lot of their same kind. If you go to a Garena room, all of the players will crowd in a particular area until it is so full the Garena administrators have to restart everything. Let's put that in the situation of a boat. One Pinoy goes to one side, one follows him, two follows them, four follows them, then eight, then sixteen, then the whole process goes on until all passengers are on the right side of the boat, which led to the sinking. And now those passengers are putting the blame on Superferry. Like, lol.

 Imagine a crowd three times bigger than this in size and quantity on one side of a ferryboat.

Lastly, and concluding the two aforementioned above, the situation would have greatly been prevented if somebody actually gave a shit about the situation itself. Don't get it? Here's an eye-witness narration during the evacuation of the stranded people in the sinking Superferry 9:

Passenger: (to coast guard officer in a liferaft below) Help! We're out of lifeboats! Get to the coast and grab us some for the others!
Officer: (yawning) You can cram yourselves in a room just because there's plenty of you in there. Get used to it.
Passenger: (spotting a child being thrown by the waves below) Help! There's a child being overpowered by the waves below!
Officer: (yawning again) You can overpower a child in the streets and make him do shit. Get used to it.

And no, I'm not just pointing a finger at the coast guard. I'm also referring to the passengers themselves, for being so stupid about cramming themselves in a boat. They see a huge sea vessel - marvelling at its steel engineering, and conclude, "Wow, my tax dollars seems to have been put into good use. Let me just get my illegal children and family and cram them inside this boat. It'll be awesome!" While his plan is certainly not genius, you can clearly see the humor there.

 

Also, as a bonus, let's all listen to a very special song that the passengers were singing before the boat was being pulled into Davy Jones'.