The Fat Man Today

Everybody loves fried chicken. And in Manila, there are plenty of fried chicken options for the scintillating connoisseur. Thanks to 24-hour fast food staples like Jollibee and KFC, or dependable corner stores like Mini Stop and Family Mart, the average hungry Pinoy isn’t going to run out of that fried chicken fix at any hour of the day. And, you guessed it, the fat man is no exception. But my love for fried chicken is only matched by my hatred for the utensils that these establishments provide. Aside from KFC, none of the places serving easily accessible fried chicken seem to care about the quality of the tools for eating said chicken. Sure, you could be eating the chicken by hand, but sometimes, that isn’t an option.

I’ve never, ever participated in Movember, or No Shave November, whichever you want to call it, but not because I’m not sympathetic to the causes either of the two is trying to push. It’s more due to the fact that I have my own thing when it comes to growing facial hair. I can’t, for the life of me, stand my facial hair for very, very long; there will always come a point wherein my beard meets a pair of scissors somewhere down the line, and suddenly the true depth of my double chin is made visible. I do have a couple of habits—or seasons, if you like—when it comes to trimming my ‘stache and beard, though. Right off the bat, I can name three: The Fruits of Patience, The Threat of Balance, and The Good Man.

...is the worst. Everybody's suddenly an expert in politics, and suddenly the lines just have  to be drawn. You're either a Dutertard, or you're not. If you're pro-Duterte, you're a horrible person who doesn't care one bit about human rights. If you're anti, you're an unpatriotic yellowtard. How the flying fuck did we come to this? Just how divided, how deeply wounded are we as a country, that we can't be civilized in the way we approach the criticism of the other side? And why can there be no middle ground? I understand just how bad the government's recent actions are - and it isn't even past Digong's first 100 days yet! There's absolutely no excuse for how he's behaving - katokayo Martin, if you're reading this, take note - and seriously, there's only so much spin you can put on a story until it comes back full circle. Get somebody up there to slap your boss before he says something stupid again, he's making the god...

I’m not eligible to vote this coming election day, since I didn’t register. It’s just as well, because it allows me the capacity to see the events leading up to the May 2016 elections with a more objective eye; I don’t have anything at stake, and I don’t really care about who wins, so long as they don’t terribly screw up our country. But seeing as to how we’re three days from the elections, I’d like to throw an impassioned view of things into the overfilled hat of anger, hate, and disillusion that’s pretty palpable throughout social media. There are five presidential candidates, five vice presidential candidates, and two nuisance candidates (Trillanes, I’m looking at you), so I’m going to be filling up the next five days with my opinion of who’s running, and why.

I’m not eligible to vote this coming election day, since I didn’t register. It’s just as well, because it allows me the capacity to see the events leading up to the May 2016 elections with a more objective eye; I don’t have anything at stake, and I don’t really care about who wins, so long as they don’t terribly screw up our country. But seeing as to how we’re four days from the elections, I’d like to throw an impassioned view of things into the overfilled hat of anger, hate, and disillusion that’s pretty palpable throughout social media. There are five presidential candidates, five vice presidential candidates, and two nuisance candidates (Trillanes, I’m looking at you), so I’m going to be filling up the next five days with my opinion of who’s running, and why.

I’m not eligible to vote this coming election day, since I didn’t register. It’s just as well, because it allows me the capacity to see the events leading up to the May 2016 elections with a more objective eye; I don’t have anything at stake, and I don’t really care about who wins, so long as they don’t terribly screw up our country. But seeing as to how we’re five days from the elections, I’d like to throw an impassioned view of things into the overfilled hat of anger, hate, and disillusion that’s pretty palpable throughout social media. There are five presidential candidates, five vice presidential candidates, and two nuisance candidates (Trillanes, I’m looking at you), so I’m going to be filling up the next five days with my opinion of who’s running, and why.

I was supposed to post about Digong Duterte today, but I’ve been plagued by terrible customer service from Sky Broadband for several weeks now that I think it’s worth demonizing them a bit in my little soapbox here at the corner of the internet. So. I am currently subscribed to Sky Broadband, which is by all accounts a fairly decent internet provider. For several months, since I first subscribed (I think that was last December 2015), I’ve had a few hiccups here and there, but it was never something that a quick text to their 23662 hotline couldn’t fix. And I appreciated that very much.

I’m not eligible to vote this coming election day, since I didn’t register. It’s just as well, because it allows me the capacity to see the events leading up to the May 2016 elections with a more objective eye; I don’t have anything at stake, and I don’t really care about who wins, so long as they don’t terribly screw up our country. But seeing as to how we’re seven days from the elections, I’d like to throw an impassioned view of things into the overfilled hat of anger, hate, and disillusion that’s pretty palpable throughout social media. There are five presidential candidates, five vice presidential candidates, and two nuisance candidates (Trillanes, I’m looking at you), so I’m going to be filling up the next five days with my opinion of who’s running, and why.

Sometimes, I wonder about possessions. I tested an experiment on my site the other week (in case some of you may not have noticed), and I'd like to say that it was fairly successful. But the fact remains that the whole point of that experiment was about making even more money.

One of the things that I’ve been doing for work is generally writing posts about this indie game that’s been in development since the year 2011 called No Man’s Sky . And let me tell you guys: this game is going a long way towards making me consider upgrading to a new laptop. The game’s developers, Hello Games, is calling No Man’s Sky an exploration game. And it makes sense; the game has an absurd amount of planets to explore. And it’s safe to say that no two planets are alike; the game uses an engine that randomly generates the details about each planet when you head there. So think of it as an open-world sandbox that’s around a thousand times bigger than, say, GTA 5 .

People who watched the phenomenally spastic Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice never would have guessed that actor Henry Cavill would promote a phone that didn’t have an apple on its back. But it looks like Cavil is taking the road less traveled and placing his lot with Chinese manufacturer Huawei. In the launch of the Huawei P9 in London last April 6, 2016, Cavill was present as one of the phone’s big-name endorsers. The phone, which is Huawei’s entry into the premium mobile phone category, does look as stylishly good as Cavil does. The shiny metallic finish looks just as sultry as the dual Leica lenses adorning the front and back cameras of the phone, making it one of the more ultra-posh products produced by the company.

Looks like Apple’s slowly losing its grip in one of its biggest markets in the world, and the iPhone SE might become it’s unwitting lifesaver. According to a study by Kantar Worldpanel , the iPhone maker’s market penetration in China’s “urban” sections went down to 22.2% of the market in the first quarter of the year—which isn’t a good thing for anybody trying to make it in a country where competitors are as numerous as the people.

Facebook just made things worse for the FBI—and for governments throughout the world. Yesterday, they made sure that WhatsApp’s encryption was so good, that they can’t even tell what it is you’re talking about in chat. That’s right folks. Remember the whole debacle between Apple and the FBI? Well, CNET reports that Apple’s encryption is going to be the least of the bureau’s worries. That’s because WhatsApp can be installed on any mobile phone, regardless of OS.

So just a couple of new things. I am currently not posting since work is slowly starting to get the best of me. But that doesn't mean I'm not writing. In fact, you could say I've been writing way more than I've ever been in the last six years. Meanwhile, yes. I'm also changing some of the things in this blog again. One of the things that has been contributing to the stress I get from work is the fact that I am, as Maddox puts it, staring at a light bulb for the better part of a day. This is why my mobile phone and my computer are both currently sporting reversed colors. I'm hoping that this makes staring at a screen for hours on end easier on my eyes.

March is here, and we’re almost done with the first quarter of the year! Also, for those of you who didn’t care, yesterday was February 29—a leap year! One of my uncles was born on the 29th, so he celebrated his birthday yesterday. He’s probably still in his teens, though, if you divide his actual age by four!

Today, the Chinese celebrate their New Year, and some folks will celebrate it with them. I wrote about what you can do in Manila during CNY last week, so I won't write about it today. Instead, I will greet every one of you celebrating this with a happy Kung Hei Fat Choy! Meanwhile, the ones who aren't celebrating the new year are celebrating / commiserating about the Superbowl. A year ago, a friend from the US asked me if this was a big thing in the Philippines. While I couldn't reply properly—I didn't really follow the Superbowl, or most sports, for that matter—I know that some of my friends keep track of the NFL, so I guess it does have some sort of a presence here.

I don’t normally celebrate the second new year in the Philippines, otherwise known as the celebration of the Chinese New Year. But this year, the celebration happens to fall on the birthday of one of my nieces. I was a kid once, and realizing that your birthday is also a holiday means you get to stay home from school, and celebrate without having to offset to the closest available weekend.

I was supposed to continue my Manila retrospective this week, but the fact is that my week didn’t really give me much time to write. I was simultaneously busy with work, busy meeting with friends, and then I had to deal with a flu, so by the end of the week – which was yesterday – I was bone-dry tired. I’d come from an afternoon out with family, and basically fell into my bed by the time I got back home. Slept for around nine hours, and it was glorious. But since I’m already here and writing, I’d like to talk about one of the places I’ve been frequenting for the past few weeks. This would be the Oarhouse in Malate , a friendly neighborhood pub that would be the closest equivalent of Cheers in Manila.

The other day, I read the post of a friend who was ranting about how Manila can only be beautiful when seen from a specific light. I could understand what he means, because Manila is the center of traffic in the NCR. The poor are here in full force, the most corrupt policemen are here, and honestly, there is no discipline whatsoever. But here’s something that I’ve discovered. You walk Manila. You don't drive it. It isn't the most walkable city in the world, but what can be seen when you do walk it is fantastic. And when you walk around the city, you don’t encounter the corrupt cops (because they’re going after the drivers), you don’t deal with traffic. You can’t do anything about the poor, though. Unless they’re doing something productive, and not just begging, I avoid them. If they’re cleaning up trash, or something similar, then I give them cash.

So it's 2016. Feels really strange writing that. Just when you've gotten used to writing the year the old way, the new year comes along and changes things up. I know, it's just by a number. But the fact is that it's one other thing that you need to get used to. Taken from Forbes . But hey! What am I saying. Happy New Year everybody. I love the turn of the years; it gives you the sensation that you're turning the page in your story for real, like you're shedding away all of the dust you've accumulated the previous year, and emerging as a new, improved version of yourself. Of course, all this is just in your head, none of it is really true, but the energy is there, and sometimes the presence of a new energy is all you need to make a difference. This is probably why everybody makes all these resolutions. Change is a positive energy that forces everybody to move forward. The changing of the year is the stimulus, and this is what inspires the individua...