.:Trying To Be A Pair Of Simons:.

Chico and Delamar's Hot 10 today was rather amusing... they were asking callers to sing for them, and then they would evaluate the performance ala American Idol. Of course, their "witty" comments were mostly ripped from the show, such as telling the guy who sang a True Faith song that Mendel, the lead singer, could very well "lose his faith" after hearing that song...

I was tempted to do an encore of my infamous solo duet of "Endless Love", but chose to do something else that's also a bit funny... I decided to not try to use my real name or even my common code name, Ertai, so instead, I called myself by my KC standby, Mister Vader....

Those dreams of yours
Are shining on distant shores
And if they're calling you away
I have no right to make you stay...

But... just once, can we find a way to finally make it right!

Delamar: I think that's enough.

Marcelle: Did you like the segue?

Chico: Wow. Okay... that was... really bad.

Delamar: You started off with Barry Manilow, then ended up with James Ingram.

Chico: You just shot down two fine singers in one felling swoop.

Delamar: Okay, congratulations!

.:Haven’t Seen You In Ages:.

Joy Guererro graduated a full semester early to start off as a teaching assistant. What makes this interesting is that it meant I couldn’t see her as easily as I wouldn’t have wanted to so that I can speak to her about it. Nonetheless, I had a run-in with her, as well as PJ, who was with her. Joy gave me her graduation pic to give to my dear Grace, and then I spoke to her about my plans to teach Philosophy. Apparently, I’d have to take an entrance test for M.A., which would be a fairly easy task, according to her. PJ was actually amiable to me. I’d like to think that she knows by now that I’m not guilty by association regarding a certain small problem she once had, which to me, is still a small but costly problem.

Ah, well. It was pretty enjoyable, really. Sach and Eric were telling me that they skipped the teaching demo bit of their induction as teachers, but they may very well be the few exceptions to the norm. Unlike them, I haven’t really proven my mettle to anyone in the Philosophy Department save for Mr. Bulaong. I haven’t even aced Dr. Barbazza, so I feel particularly uncertain about saying I’ve excelled in his subject, all the same. Nonetheless, I know I have a lot more to prove, pretty much the way it goes with my RX, anyway, as Mark, one of the other Rushers, was nice enough to remind me, all the same. So maybe I’m not Chico and Delle quality yet, but the point is, neither were they when they were just starting off, unless I’m sadly mistaken. If I am, let’s just say that not all jocks are born to be jocks anyway. Some of them really work on it, the way I intend to work on it.

My mid-term goal is to hold two jobs securely: teaching Philosophy in the Ateneo, and working the graveyard shift on RX. I know. Horrible sleeping habits, but I’m sure I’d feel rather fulfilled that way. However, if I really need to take my M.A. stat, that plan may change around a bit, but one thing’s for sure: be it M.A. or Ph. D., I would definitely want to take a particular expertise that would enable me to continue teaching Philosophy when I feel I have done my part in the corporate world already. Sach was joking about getting together with someone rich to bypass that part of my plan when transposed to hers. While I did retort that she could lose our bet that way, she reminded me that being with Mr. Rich Boy doesn’t mean she’d have to be married. So okay… she will effectively have a Research Daddy…

.:More Short Notice:.

If there’s one thing I really tend to notice about Sacha when she asks certain of her friends, such as myself and Peppy, whether or not we’d want to go with her on this or that little activity, be it going to an arcade, or having a round of videoke, or anything of the sort, it will more likely than not happen on such short notice. Really. That videoke night we had last Saturday night? I got the invite around two or three hours before I got there, and I was less than an hour late. Essentially, I was invited around two hours before the small gathering started. Since I was the one Sach asked to invite Peppy, consider him informed even later than I was.

This, of course, does not take away from the fact that hanging around with geeks can really be fun. While I don’t fit in their category of geekiness, it’s not like they consciously try to alienate me from the conversation or the like, anyway, so no big deal there. It’s pretty funny, considering how I’ve been hanging around people like them a whole lot more than I’ve been hanging around people from my block. And no, it’s not just because of Sacha. It’s more likely because for some reason or another, I feel less of a need to conform with them than I have to with the more outgoing, less blatantly cerebral-centered people of Comm. It’s not really a knock on my coursemates/blockmates. It’s more like an affirmation that I just really don’t belong in that type of crowd, though I’d be the first to admit that I don’t fit to a “T” this other faction, either. Despite that, it’s still nice to be on the same wavelength with people who, in spite of their differences with you, still manage to connect with you on so many different levels.

In any case, I already got my graduation pictures, which explains why I was all hyped up to show it to Sacha. Well, actually, I was also intending to show it to some other teachers in the Philosophy and Theology Departments (I was never really the ultimate Teacher’s Pet, but I sure found them nicer to talk to than my classmates even back in high school.), but then, she gave me the short-notice invite to go to an arcade and hopefully play Dance Maniax. Eric Vidal was pretty much all set to go as well. And they wonder why they’re usually mistaken as a couple (Assuming they’re not…). Of course, I suggested Peppy again, and the light bulbs in Sacha’s head go off, remembering that Peppy has a car. So we tried to invite him, but he just gave us a lift all the way to the MRT station instead, though we helped him (In my case, I tried to help him.) get things ready for the ADMU (Or is it only DISCS?) open house by tomorrow, I believe. Sach was still insinuating that I called Peppy a “soulmate”, which is the last term you can use to describe two people without any. We were testing some Java games, and there were a few interesting ones as well as quite a number of clunkers all the same. In any case, I’ll share more about that later…

So after I finished trying to help out with them for the preparations, that’s when we headed to Megamall, and apparently, Mr. Vidal was quite homophobic. I was talking about the Blue Rose, and I said that I wouldn’t give it to Sacha, nor would I give it to him, which led him to hesitate. I likewise mentioned that little bit about the mood ring I wore, and it just so happened to be purple when he asked me about it…

Sacha: Oh. I had a mood ring like that in high school.

Marcelle: I like it. It never looks like I’m wearing the same ring at any time, because it keeps changing colors. Oh, look. It’s purple now.

Eric: So what does purple mean?

Marcelle: ::looks Eric straight in the eye:: Well, actually, it means romance.

Eric promptly backs off.

Marcelle: Okay, fine. I’ll stop. Wouldn’t want you to go home tonight with skewed notions about my masculinity.

Sacha: Well, I’m not too concerned about your masculinity, anyway, Marcelle.

Eric: Marcelle, will you stop holding your chest like that? It looks pretty disturbing…

Oh, gee. Pwn3d by the former, viewed at quite lustfully by the latter. Why do I always attract this kind? He wasn’t too keen on letting me enter the MRT behind him, either. Sach was pretty lucky because in spite of the MRT’s being jampacked, we still found a safe place for her to stand, away from the annoying people who take advantage of these… err… tight spaces.

Where did all the gay innuendo start off? Well, I told them that I guess it was fine to miss wrestling just to go there to the arcade. Then…

Sacha: Well, I know wrestling is one of your… things. Are you sure you can miss that?

Marcelle: Sure. I don’t see any reason why I’d have to prioritize hot, sweaty, half-naked men getting it on in the ring over you guys.

Eric: So you’re into hot, sweaty, half-naked men?

Marcelle: I meant that in a manly way. I was just saying that they’re hot in a popular kind of sense.

Eric: Oh. So you like them manly?

Marcelle: No. I meant I am manly…

More snippets of dialogue… I know this is a dialogue-heavy post, but I swear, we had a bunch of quotable quotes tonight…

Marcelle: Maybe my Hawaiian shirt motif when I teach would work.

Sacha: Sure.

Marcelle: It might seem a bit weird though…

Sacha: Of course not. I teach in a sarong.

Marcelle: Which makes you very liable to win the Most Fashionable Teacher award some time soon.

Sacha: Pshaw. Of course not.

Marcelle: Really! Think about it. How many other teachers do you know also teach in a sarong, aside from Eric?

Oh, thank goodness neither of them were ever my real teachers. This day alone would’ve been academic suicide for me. We even had more quips there, such as my not taking Ms. Amarra because “she wasn’t my type”, among other things, and how “oral exams” would never be the same again when I start teaching. ICA sounds nice. Fat chance of me ever ending up there, though.

In any case, they were enjoying themselves playing Percussion Freaks and Guitar Freaks. I, on the other hand, was trying my luck at KOF 2K3, and actually doing quite well. I was having some losses here and there, but I quickly rebounded for the most part, especially when I started using the ever-annoying Malin. That character has got to be one of the most annoying characters in the game, I kid you not. I was hungry, so I unfortunately did not get to play Dance Maniax, lest I do myself in via exhaustion… so after eating dinner at Chowking, they had to leave already, which essentially meant I was unable to play a single game of Dance Maniax.

With that being said, that was too bad. Still, I’m pretty sure I would have an opportunity some other time to work on my Dance Maniax again. I haven’t gone for it for the longest time, I swear. Ah, well. And yeah, Sach and Eric figured the “This is up and this is down” puzzle… pretty clever of them.

.:The Java Game Of Hilarious Proportions:.

The following is the final report of some of Sacha's CS21 students last semester. They were trying to make a shooting Java game, and you ought to see the premise of the whole thing... any bolded texts are of my emphasis... heh.

Game Project – Final Report
Title: End of CS21a
Group: Putok Inc.
Members: Paolo Cabrera, Raymond Daquil

Game and Rules:

A. Story of the game:

After all the lessons, the quizzes, the midterm, the projects, and the final exam, the cs21a students of Ms. Sacha Chua were all stressed out. This physical and mental situation of the students made them vulnerable to different programming viruses. This opportunity was used by a CS student from the future in the name of 'the Stark'!!! He programmed the minds of cs21a students to be to be rebellious and aim to destroy F228 classroom in Faura Hall. Your aim now is to terminate all these students and save their ever gorgeous teacher, Ms. Sacha Chua:-)

B. Rules of the Game
- Save ms Sacha Chua
- Eliminate 16 cs21a students and “the stark”(last) before 20 seconds
- Reload weapon by clicking the reload button
- If you happen to hit, Ms. Sscha Chua, your ammo will decrease to zero

Program Design:

Vectors was used in this project to make the random appearance of targets.

The main layout of our game is Border Layout. We used all the screens except for the West Border. The North Border shows the ammo left and the result of the game(time completed). The Center Border is the main screen for the game for this is the part where the player interacts with the graphics. The South Border is the “Click to reload button”. The East Border diasplays the game’s story and instruction and also the start button.

For this game, we have 5 classes and 18 methods. The 5 classes are RandomFire, Randomize, Ammo, Background, and Oras. RandomFire is the class name of our main program. It has 8 methods namely: init (for initializing), actionPerformed (for the interaction with the JButtons), mousePressed, mouseClicked, mouseReleased, maouseDragged, maouseEntered, mouseExit (all of these for the interaction with the mouse). All methods also are in a “public void”. Randomize is the class we made to make the pictures appeare in different positions within the center screen. It has 2 methods namely: public int getX(for the x coordinate) and public int getY(for the y coordinate). Ammo is for the amount of ammo left for the user. It has 4 methods namely: public void dagdag(to make the ammo increase back to 8), public void setZero(to make the ammo value decrease to zero), public void bawas(1 ammo is subtracted from the current ammo), and public void getBala( returns the current number of ammo). Background is for setting the background of the main geme screen. It has only one method which is public void paintCompinent which sets and draws the image being defined. Lastly, Oras is the method we used for the timer/time countdown that we need. It has 3 methods which are setStart (to make the timer start counting), setEnd (to make the timer stop counting), and setElapsed (to make the counter get the ellpased time by subtracting the strating time from the end time).

Wait a minute... "The ever-gorgeuous Ms. Sacha Chua"... I'm sorry, but that line was just priceless. Moreover, when I was playing the game, while you're trying to shoot the students, if it happens that you hit Sacha's picture in the game, you'll see the following words appear on the screen:

Loko ka, tinamaan mo si ma'am. (You idiot, you hit ma'am.)

These students are crazy... I swear, I've never run into the kind of student-teacher relation Sacha happens to have with her students, and I've been observing so many teachers already. The closest was our fourth year adviser, since most of my classmates were flirting with Ma'am Ting Flores, but I swear, not at this level... heh. Besides, Ma'am Ting was even pregnant at the time, and she's long married already...