What What (In My Butt)

.:The Greatest Music Video Evarrr...:.

Ganked from someone named C.C. on MySpace...

This video is beyond description. It is a thing of awesomeness people should never do without.

Feel my pain!

.:I Need To Take A Chill Pill Myself...:.

Emotions are running high in one of the more controversial posts I've seen online as of late, about how one JM Chua allegedly punched one Mike Abundo.

Now, while I am admittedly only involved in this affair superficially as I was also at the Mangaholix event, I think I’m entitled to my opinion in saying that this matter has been just so incendiary and polarizing and there were times I wished everyone took a chill pill about it.

But then, I understand it’s gotten deeper than that. Notwithstanding the sexist comments that JM Chua supposedly “hits like a girl”, I feel that the entire issue over the course of the 200++ comments on the topic has been effectively derailed into another one of those discussions about Philippine Cosplay.

Quite frankly, it’s tiring already. I’m in no position to do a bloody thing about it, but I see friends of mine who get affected by this whole matter, and it can sometimes affect even people who aren’t supposed to be involved in this stuff at all.

Well, I guess some people do know all too well that controversy creates cash. Sure, you make a name for yourself, but at what cost? There are easier ways to get people talking about you without having to step on other people’s toes.

Well, having said that, I can leave my thoughts on it to rest and slowly back away from this whole mess. Back away r-eal slowly…

Finally, I Managed To Be Coherent For Long Enough...

Expect another post or two soon as well... one about politics, the other about my Beloved, and maybe even a third.

.:Wave-oke Wednesdays!:.

Just because we felt it, Gia and I decided that we should just go ahead and sing along to the songs we're playing.

Yes. On the air.

It's a riot, to say the least. Gia and I are having a blast with this new little development that will definitely get people talking, for better or for worse. Gia sang "You're In Love" by Wilson Phillips, while I tried my hand at "When I Met You" by APO Hiking Society.

That being said, we only sang a few lines of the song, really.

W-ell, this is assuming it does catch on, really. And before I leave WAVE, obviously. But I don't think that's gonna happen, truth be told. We know that much...

.:The Nail In The Coffin:.

Joe The Mango has already relinquished his position as station manager of WAVE, and has turned it over to the former program director.

I think they couldn't have done a dumber thing, to be honest.

The man is a lot of things, but leadership material is not one of them. Not only does he not look the least bit presentable as a station manager, he is also, pardon my saying so, a blithering idiot.

You see, I'm not saying *I* should be the station manager, or Hades, even program director. I'm about as good as gone from WAVE, to begin with. What I'm trying to hint at is that quite frankly, the current guy leading the charge for WAVE is not competent enough to do the job. He is not something you'd be proud to show as the man in charge of WAVE. Neither is he the one you'd turn to if you wanted to wow people over through a presentation for the station.

I've been working for WAVE for going on three years already, and as I see myself being repeatedly bypassed for a better timeslot while I've been languishing in the graveyard shift, I felt less and less enthusiastic about the station.

Clearly, they weren't giving enough respect to the people in the graveyard shift, simply by virtue of their timeslot. Their opinions apparently don't matter, nor does it have any relevance to them no matter how well the graveyard people perform simply because they are little more than second-class citizens. Their welfare is merely an afterthought to this station, even if one of their jocks is actually anemic and therefore should not even be medically cleared to do graveyard.

I've given up so much for WAVE that it irks me how little I've been accorded for it. From choosing them over QTV-11 when I was there, to giving them ideas for their student DJ program relaunch, I've been there. Yet what happens? For starters, I'm still stuck at the same salary as I started with three years ago. To top it all off, I'm not even going to be involved with the damned student DJ program despite all the time and ideas I've invested into the relaunch.

The straw that broke this camel's back is when they decided to "reshuffle" the jocks' timeslots, only for me to discover that the timeslot I lobbied to get is being handed to somebody else... and I wasn't even asking for primetime.

I'm tired of all this politicking in WAVE. I joined this station and stayed loyal to this station for long enough in spite of the fact that I grew up on RX 93.1 all these years. I didn't step on any toes, and in return, I was walked all over.

Well, now, my days of giving my all to this station are done. Whether or not I remain with this company, I have no desire to render the best service I can for them, and am merely in it for the pitiful but reliable money. That is, unless I find something far more worth my time.

I have valid and undeniably plausible gripes with WAVE. I've had enough, and it's high time they realized that they are losing one of the few people in the station capable of doing anything creative at all.

Oh. And if this stupid computer I'm typing from now isn't hanging every five or so minutes, itsstupidspacebargetsstucktomakeupforit.

Gah.

.:Finally, Under My Belt...:.

Well, last Friday was my teaching demonstration, where I was going to take over Dr. Orendain's class and go over some poems for the students. Poetry, especially analyzing poetry, is far from my strongest suit, but nonetheless, I went ahead with it anyways.

I had three poems to take up, all with a feminist slant... "Revolt from Hymn" and "Querida" by Angela Manalang-Gloria, and "I,Your Wife", albeit I forgot who the author was on that one.

It wasn't easy, because I needed to put my neck on the line and really offer an interpretation for each poem, and the moment I make a single mistaken interpretation, then I would pretty much be screwed.

That being said, I won't go into length over how I went over the poems anymore, but I know I really captivated the class' attention, and even managed to work in a bit of magic as I went over the lesson, methodically at that.

I ended with having them compose a quick freeverse based on the theme of "empowerment". All in all, the class seemed to enjoy the whole bit, and I think for the most part, it worked.

.:The Interview...:.

During the post-panel interview, I felt I did particularly well in addressing the worries of the faculty. I noticed though the funny discovery that one of the "students" I called on during my teaching demo turned out to be one of the teachers who grilled me during the panel interview.

After the panel, I had a one-on-one interview with Dr. O where she brought up her worry about me and the prospect of dealing with impressionable female students. I assured her that at this point in my life, that is definitely a non-issue. She wasn't the only one I had to assure about that fact, though...

Whetting Your Appetite...

.:Belated Happy Mother's Day!:.

Well, mother's day has come and gone, so I'm glad I spent time with my family on that day.

It was great, although lying down on an inflatable bed felt mighty weird...

.:I Know, I Know... Backlogged:.

Well, I owe you guys a ton of updates, to be sure. That being said, I have to apologize because I've been buried in work so much lately, thereby explaining the lack of updates.

Nonetheless, I'll give you an account of my teaching demo AFTER the decision regarding whether or not they're hiring me is handed down.

.:Security? Hah!:.

I am horrified that the concept of WAVE 89.1's "security" is stationing a security "guard" inside the station who is asleep the entire time I'm doing my show.

Tell me again how I'm supposed to feel "secure" when I have to deal with crud like this day in and day out.

.:Playing Angels...:.

Well, Kathy and I hung out with Hrbs today since his wife, Krisette, who's on a Writer's Workshop in Dumaguete.

It's been cool hanging out with them, especially when you see how much Kathy has changed since she got with her boyfriend. She's just all the better for it.

.:Some People Take Things Way Too Seriously...:.

Avengers: The Initiative #2 featured a measly four panels depicting George W. Bush on the comic, but starting page 12, this thread at Comic Book Resources shows how some people can just really take things seriously, expecting nothing but a negative portrayal of Bush, when even the portrayal in question is itself open to interpretation.

The guy in the thread hijacks the discussion into one over politics, going as far as assailing Dan Slott, the writer, as being partisan and indulging in political propaganda in favor of Bush. What utter hogwash.

.:I Hate That I Didn't Get To Vote...:.

... Gah. I guess I'm happy I managed to talk ample politics and hopefully influence enough voters to make some more educate votes, then.

It's the least I could do...

.:Success!:.

After three weeks, it can be said that The Challenge Of The Super-Duper Friends experiment was a huge success.

That being said, expect the next project to be in the same vein, albeit most likely on a different topic now...

Finally, A Sensible Post!

.:Today’s Krisette’s Birthday:.

Happy birthday! Drunk videoke = sober videoke. Apparently so, since I hardly drank anything alcoholic that night, and neither did Peppy. Hehehe.

Kathy pretending to be crying to surprise Krisette at their place was a brilliant touch, though.

.:Two:.

I guess I can only continue feeling disappointed this is how it all ends up being. One would think that after all this time, things would be a lot less messy than they still are.

There’s still a lot of matters to be put to rest. That much, I recognize. At least, things aren’t that bad…

Let sleeping dogs lie.

.:My Mind Is Boggled…:.

Thanks to Peppy, I am now educated on the finer points of the Alanis version of “My Humps”. Gasp.

It’s quite a hoot, truth be told.

.:To My Beloved…:.

Thank you for being patient with me despite all the crap you and I have been going through lately. I love you so much, and I hope that someday, you and I can overcome all these obstacles and prevail in love.

.:The Tirade Against Scapegoatism:.

“If there is a lesson to be taken away from this horror, it is that we, as a society, are becoming too tolerant of the aberrant . . . At Blacksburg on Monday, we learned that there is such a thing as too much tolerance.”

- Pat Buchanan, Too Much Tolerance

You see that bus? Common sense is on that bus, and it’s speeding far, far away.

I got this story courtesy of a blog I found a week ago while trying to plug awareness for the Challenge Of The Super-Duper Friends, and I couldn’t help but be struck at the idiocy of one Pat Buchanan, to put the blame on Virginia Tech on “Tolerance”.

From the same blog, I managed to discover that people have blamed everything from video games to liberalism to the fact people were too distracted by the “hoax” of global warming.

But this point on “tolerance” really just makes me scratch my head. I know I might be echoing Rick (The owner of the blog I cited up there.) when I say this, but if “too much tolerance” was a problem, what exactly were people too tolerant of?

Were they too tolerant of an Asian minority? Of warning signs of instability? Of autism? What? How vague can they get here?

What would the proper response to this excess of tolerance be? Intolerance? Should people have ridiculed Cho more? Should they have oppressed him more and hurt him? Maybe bullied him more and tied him up to let him know that he’s not welcome because he’s an autistic weirdo? Is that it?

We know that most killings and suicides within a school setting have occurred because the people in question were bullied or ostracized or loners. Clearly, people didn’t tolerate a good deal of these people, precisely because they felt alone. These people had their own reasons to do what they did, but what Mr. Buchanan seems to be allowing to fly over his head is the fact that the very lack of tolerance for their behavior is more likely to have caused them to withdraw more and more into themselves, where they found it in themselves to commit these horrible crimes.

Seriously, I can’t figure it out. How the heck can too much tolerance be the cause for V-Tech? If these people didn’t tolerate Cho by forcibly putting him away or oppressing him, don’t you think he would have snapped sooner? Heck, does that mean that any weirdo we run into who has behavior similar to Cho should outright be maligned and put away as well? What if they’re not killers like him? What if they’re simply autistic? Autism >< Psycho Killer. Yeesh.

It’s easy to put the blame on something like video games, or tolerance, or liberalism. Heck, it’s even easier to pick and choose arguments, no matter how contrarian. For example, because of liberalism, people supposedly become violent killers because of their mode of thinking. At the same time, liberalism also “aggravated” the tragedy because thanks to them, gun control laws prevented any of the students from V-Tech to carry weapons so they could kill Cho the moment he tried opening fire.

Wow. I’m a moderate, as I have both conservative and liberal views, but I don’t think that one side can turn you violent and turn you into a putz at the same time. For crying out loud, be consistent! Does your latest scapegoat make people too violent or too cowardly to do anything in the face of the violence?

One writer, a Mr. Boortz, was even tacky enough to blame the kids for not trying to stop Cho when he opened fire! How utterly tasteless was that? It’s just as poor form as our DOJ chief blaming that poor Peace Corps volunteer for getting killed because “she was too careless”.

Virginia Tech was a tragedy. It was a needless loss of many lives. The least people could do, be they liberal or conservative or whatever the heck they may be, is to simply respect the people who died and not use their corpses as stepping stones for whatever agenda they may wish to serve.

On a personal note to Mr. Buchanan, who really sparked this whole tirade to begin with, I hope that someday, you realize that tolerance is really the only thing that keeps people you offended with your tacky speech from strangling you with their bare hands.

Thank tolerance you’re still alive, Mr. Buchanan.

And please, please, please. Enough with this ridiculous blame game! Kayo kasi, eh!