take that, Disney!

so what does this mean? no more illegal shit??


relax ... its April 1.

crazy eighty five

really? i thought he was just punk'ng us!

take that, AIG whiner.

your brain cells are sedentary

from today's CNN front page:


well, DUH. what else could he be? you mean, he could still be pumped for an Ironman Triathlon thereafter?


some Google ads (yes, they accept these kind of ads. its all about the money, baby!!)


"sexy Iranian photos"? ohhh ... i know where Ahmadinejad and the mullahs spend their free time (after fiery speeches denouncing Western decadence, of course).

from the venerable NYT:


hell, its not so-secret now, is it? those "commando trainees" are probably all dead by now, who knows?

and who would be stupid enough to click on this, much less believe that Hair Boy is really Mensa material?

women, by Michael O.

5 for playing: The Bangles

let's hear it for girl bands ... they don't make 'em like the Go-Go's and the Bangles anymore. outside of Bond, there isn't any all-girl group (playing their own instruments - the Corrs don't count) that had made much of an impact in recent years (or made my iPod playlists).

the Bangles had a relatively short shelf life, and their gender may work against the possible longevity of such bands. think about it: if male rockstars have bloated egos, what more for women, who spend most of their waking hours trying to one-up the rest of their species? an implosion is always inevitable, someone will always try to get a bigger credit or a bigger share of the spotlight, and we can only speculate about the specter of dressing room catfights and snarky discourse behind the curtains.

the girls had a great 5-year run, and even though they have recently reformed sans bassist Michael Steele, they'll really be remembered for their '80s work. i know i do.

If She Knew What She Wants, Different Light (1986)


Walk Like An Egyptian, Different Light (1986)


Manic Monday, Different Light (1986)


Hazy Shade of Winter, Less Than Zero soundtrack (1987)


Eternal Flame, Everything (1988)

pacqed

that's it; my grudging admiration has been reduced to little and none. and little just left the building.

killjoys should be shot.

MTA is ATM in reverse

screwed again!

sounds like a national security system i know.

residents of the blogosphere are terrorists!

inclusive

a pic of mine was selected for inclusion in schmap.com's latest New York City guide (for mobiles/web).



thanks to schmap.com and Pete's Downtown :-)

wanna know who's the boss?

holy crap!

where's the bastard from The Beast? where's our hero from Road House? where's our sensitive singer/dirty dancer?



oh hell ... he's gone like the wind!

yes, please save me from shooting my TV.

goodbye, Seattle PI

[via Gawker.com]

great escape

AIG means take our money and leave, "As In Goodbye!"

pwntana!

what would really be exciting is for Thom Yorke to slam his guitar on top of Miley Cyrus' head. and Billy Ray's too. let's have it on Wrestlemania!

hooligans of the world, unite!

really, why do we bother? the Yanks get excoriated (with good reason) for trying to bring "Western civilization" to them, but when the masses over there act like this anyway - and its sports for godsakes! can you imagine a Pittsburgh fan shooting Larry Fitzgerald as he catches a potential SuperBowl game-winner? - the question must be asked.

really, now.

they survived Uday Hussein's win-or-be-shot reign of terror; looks like things have not changed either.

5 for playing: Lenny Kravitz

his best song makes me break out into a rockstar stance and break out the air guitar, and do a funky dance wherever i am. and that's the highest compliment i can pay Lenny Kravitz, who helped made the '90s a much interesting musical place.

5. (tie) Heaven Help, Are You Gonna Go My Way (1993)


Believe, Are You Gonna Go My Way (1993)



4. Fly Away, 5 (1998)



3. I Belong to You, 5 (1998)



2. Again, Greatest Hits (2000)


1. Are You Gonna Go My Way, Are You Gonna Go My Way (1993)

i'm not sure what the lesson here is.

vote for Stormy!!!

don't destroy a man's career because he slapped you!

you're surveying teens. yes, they're a great barometer for what relationships really mean.

can YOU do this?

5 for playing: ABC

ABC graduated from campy new wavers to smooth soulful pop music purveyors worshipping on the altar of Smokey Robinson. peaking with 1987's Alphabet City, the camp was still evident but channeled it in soul-tinged winners. Martin Fry's (and his ubiquitous mic) lyrics may leave some songs wanting (right on the target, but wide off the mark ... make up your mind!), but the music (Mark White, take a bow, TinTin haircut and all) was at least finger-snapping and toe-tapping.


5. Poison Arrow, The Lexicon of Love (1982)


4.(tie) The Look of Love, The Lexicon of Love (1982)


The Night You Murdered Love, Alphabet City (1987)



3. Vanity Kills, How to Be A...Zillionaire! (1985)



2. Be Near Me, How to Be A...Zillionaire! (1985)



1. When Smokey Sings, Alphabet City (1987)

off to Oz

ok, what next? are the victims going to be reimbursed to the last penny?

you know times are tough when ...

5 for playing: Def Leppard

they're responsible for one of my favorite shout-outs: "no serenade, no fire brigade, just pyromania!!!" pop-metal, hard rock, who cares? i prefer melodies and intelligible vocals rather than just noise and grunts. Def Leppard embodies the big hair and big sound of the '80s, and we're all the better for it. admit it, though you weren't blessed with Joe Elliot's pipes (or even hope to sing within screaming distance), you sang along too, karaoke-slash-air-guitar boy.

5. Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad, Adrenalize (1992)


4. Photograph, Pyromania (1983)


3. Pour Some Sugar On Me, Hysteria (1987)


2. Rock of Ages, Pyromania (1983)


1. Hysteria, Hysteria (1987)

you better pray you don't end up like this

5 for playing: Texas

today am starting a Top 5 list of songs of bands/musicians i like. i'll try to see if they have them up in YouTube (in any case, you can at least listen to it). some videos have been disabled , so clicking on the pics will bring you to the YouTube page itself.

today's featured band is Texas, which has no affiliations at all to the Lone Star state except the name. led by the bodacious Sharleen Spiteri, the Glaswegian Texas is more of a Euro/Asian phenomenon rather than a truly global one, which is a shame, since they wrote strong songs and knew their audience. their American highlights would be the reworked Say What You Want performed memorably with Method Man, and appearances in Hollywood movie soundtracks. they are still recording to date, but they've already peaked, and my favorites are from that era.

5. In Our Lifetime, Hush (1999)


4. I Don't Want A Lover, Southside (1989)


3. (tie) Say What You Want, Put Your Arms Around Me, White On Blonde (1997)




2. In Demand, Greatest Hits (2000)


1. Inner Smile, Greatest Hits (2000/1)

say goodbye

that's it. Best Buy, karma will be a bitch.

the fatherland is fucked

that's it; i'm not sending my future son back to Manila.



in other news, Michael Jackson is scheduling a visit after his London concerts.

skimping is the new black

can you imagine Donald Trump ordering on the McDonald's Dollar Menu? or going to Syms? i think these rich people are just trying to avoid being trashed by the press.


"I’m just not seeking happiness from material things anymore."

why do i not believe them? they'll be back to their old habits once happy days are here again.

now starting ...

... the most important interview of my life.

(which is second to the time when God would be asking me what the fuck was i doing with my life)


maybe my wife's dream yesterday of playing with Sasha and Malia while hiding from their father in the White House kitchen is a good sign.


update: well .... close but ... close enough. i need to update my fingerprints and we're good to go.

after the interview, we saw Ugly Betty (that's Ms. Ferrara, if you're nasty), filming by the Woolworth building! at 9 am! we waved, she waved back!!

another good sign ... her name's America.

Bill dropper

almost surprisingly, no mention of how he drops balls in recent years.

passion schmassion

that only works because you earned gazillions of dollars before you got laid off.

you suck!

if global entities or governments can tear up another country's debt, these bloodsuckers should too.

a laying of hands

ignoring the fact that this actually made the CNN front page ... wow, i'm stunned you haven't been gunned down yet, Chris Brown.

laptop life

for months on end, i've been scouring the Web for a great laptop deal, preferably a Lenovo-branded one, that would allow me to put Linux in. last year, Lenovo themselves had a SUSE Linux series that kinda straddled the thousand dollar price fence, but that seems to have disappeared eventually. i was either stuck buying a brand new one directly from Lenovo at preferred specs, costing much more than a grand, or find a reputable eBay dealer who sells fairly new Thinkpads. i even flirted with System76 for awhile.

the first laptop i bought back in 2003 was a T42 costing the same prices as today brand new for their replacement models. to date its monitor died due to the humid Philippine weather, but i would say its still running. i've gotten used to the IBM quality and i quite rightly use an R60 at work. however, i got tired of lugging it back and forth every working day, and longed for the day that i got a new one.

so, with the economy tanking and frugality is the name of the game, its quite serendipitous that TigerDirect came out with this promo. ideally, i would like a laptop without an O/S, but it seems Vista is a bane we can never avoid 100%. you can always wipe it out, or install Linux alongside it, which is what i did last night. given my experiences with Windows (yes, XP, even you), i'd rather not have it in my house, thank you. let's just keep it in the office machines.

as soon as i got home, Vista tried to complete the system updates it started when i plugged it in the office network, and couldn't because it wasn't finding my wireless. after a few attempts, i gave up and just used IBM's Access Connections, which found it in less time that you need to read this sentence. stupid, stupid Vista.

now, the shrinking. i need free up some space for Ubuntu, my preferred Linux flavor. my desktop is running Ubuntu for a year now, and my wife has had no issues with it (Flash Media Player on Firefox/YouTube is hit or miss sometimes). for the 160Gb drive, 22 Gb was being used by Vista (22?? WTF?), so that left around 140 Gb. i figured i'd leave around 40 to 50 for the primary drive/OS, and claim 100 for Ubuntu. no dice. it only wanted to shrink up to 40 Gb. oh well.

shut it down, put the Ubuntu installer in, and turned it on again. it took around 10 minutes of fiddling because F2, F10 or the Lenovo Care button wasn't really bringing me to the BIOS to switch boot devices (kept going back to Vista). turns out it was the F1 button (hey, it wasn't in TFM). then Ubuntu gets installed. i figured it works fine, i'll have to do another install later and wipe out the whole disk.

following instructions i got from the interWebs, i used the contiguous space i just freed up and see if i get any problems getting to a happy working point with this N500. my fears were unfounded. Ubuntu found my wireless connection fairly easily (much faster than fiddling with Vista). and after a 15-minute system updates (for 287 packages ... Vista only had 39 and it took forever), i was ready to roll. my videos were working and i can't wait to watch MKV files on the 15-inch vibrant widescreen (it's really vibrant, i tells ya).

one caveat with the $500 price point is the 1 Gb RAM which i accepted and planned to buy additional anyway. it makes Vista crawl (from what i am used to), but Ubuntu trots, without any visible delays.

messing about in Ubuntu, i found out that you could mount the Lenovo rescue drives, and the primary Vista drive, which means (yesssssss!) i don't have to waste space in the Vista drive, which i don't plan to be in often. i can treat it as a separate drive and do whatever the hell i want with it.

still a few tests to be run heading to this weekend; primarily, the DVD burning part. my experience in previous Ubuntu DVD burning is sometimes the disc is unreadable in Windows machines (or maybe it was just bad media). anyway, i can hop back to Vista for burning if i have to (hah! it found a way to be useful).

overall, weight and RAM are cons (for the former, i don't plan to lug it up Bear Mountain; the latter is easily remedied). clean, fast, and aesthetically pleasing (not a Mac, but who cares? you really want to flaunt your spending power in this climate?), i'd recommend this to anyone who wants a cheap desktop replacement - if you are willing to part with Vista, moreso the better.

well, i hope he finally comes clean.

i came home for this?

options

if you can't go to Jollibee ...



... go to Krystal!


not shown: daing na bangus.

ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

who wants to make the Ahmadinejad biopic?

like i said before, build your own movie industry, assholes.