The Fat Man Today

I don’t know why, but we Filipinos are too nice. There’s nothing wrong with asserting your right when you are absolutely sure that you’ve got the right to be an ass to other people.

A post from the New York Times says that Electronic Arts is up for grabs. CTRL-ALT-DEL made a parody of the whole thing, stating that the company could be bought for a measly $100. Which isn’t that far off, seeing as to how, if the news report can be trusted, EA stocks sell for $13.09 apiece.

Okay, enough with the current events talk. Unless something else equally interesting happens this week, we’re sticking to scheduled programming. There was a time when I tried growing long hair. I even tried to naturally braid said hair into dreadlocks (by naturally, I mean without using chemicals and / or salon treatments), although that failed, much to the relief of some of the people I know.

I had something else lined up for today, but man, the news has been buzzing nonstop since the other week, and I just can’t help it. For those of you with short patience: this is a long read, so pop some popcorn in the microwave, we’re going to be in for a long ride. Senator Vicente Sotto’s legal team has a big problem. During the morning of August 23, 2012, Hector Villacorta said, during a breakfast meeting with the press, the following: “Copying is a common practice. Why do you need to think of a brand-new measure when a good one that was not enacted already exists?” as evidenced in this article on the Philippine Daily Inquirer . To his defense, Miriam Defensor-Santiago states that plagiarism really isn’t that big of a deal in the Senate, which can be read on this ABS-CBN news article . But that’s where it gets tricky. And this is the root of all of Villacorta’s problems.

The past week, we Filipinos were treated to another show of dualities. In just the span of seven (give or take a few) days, the two types of public servants we are forced to live with were brought to the limelight in two equally tragic events. I speak of the deconstruction of Senator Vicente Sotto III’s turno en contra speech against the RH Bill, and the plane crash of DILG Secretary Jesse Manalastas Robredo.

Edit August 20, 2012 @ 5:21pm: The plane carrying Robredo and his companions was a Seneca, not a Cesna. Last week, DILG secretary Jesse Robredo was in a plane crash en route from Cebu to Naga. You can read more about the event on this story by GMA News .

If you’re working in the BPO sector like I and a vast majority of my friends do, then you will often have to deal with clients who don’t pay.

Last week, Metro Manila suffered from one of the worst monsoon seasons the Philippines had ever had to endure. Things got so bad that I think a report said that almost 90% of the metro was submerged underwater.

A couple of weeks ago, I was given the privilege of writing about Casa Roces , which became one of my favorite restos in the metro just after one visit!

Today’s update will be short, because I’m still geeking out. For those who are not aware, today we landed another rover on Mars. Curiosity’s front hazecam checking out the horizon of Mars! Well will you look at that. I can’t really say how exciting this is. All I can tell you is that this is beautiful, and if you watched the command team throughout the entire ordeal, when Curiosity entered the Martian atmosphere, when parachute deployment was successful, and when the six wheels of the rover touched Martian soil – man. That was emotional. I don’t think I could even begin to imagine the stress the whole command crew had to go through just for those short seven minutes. If anybody’s interested in learning more about the whole Martian mission, be sure to follow Mars Curiosity’s Twitter profile .

Every so often, I decide to update my blog’s layout, even if I don’t really end up using the darn thing as much as I should. But ever since the last layout change, I’ve come to the conclusion that I want my blog to look like something you’d expect to see on old newsprint.