Lotto Arigato

To be truthful, I don't know if I really want to be a lawyer. I've had my doubts since the very beginning. I just stuck to it because I felt not to do so would also be catastrophic. Will I even make it?

Anyway, one thing that puts my mind at ease is to buy a lottery ticket. It may be unreasonable and even irrational to consider winning the lottery as a back-up plan and it may be especially absurd to even think there's even a chance to get just half the numbers right but ...yeah, I got nothing.

 

The jackpot, as of this writing, is one hundred fifty million pesos. The lottery is run by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, a government agency whose mission is to "raise funds" for medical welfare programs. They can call it whatever they like. The lottery is the means by which the government taxes poor people. But still, a small chance of winning is better than none. Lottery is actually a form of gambling so it annoys me sometimes how government officials and the church are so high and mighty on how immoral gambling is while at the same time lauding the "charity" sweepstakes but I digress.

I know it's stupid but I'm gonna buy a ticket every now and then anyway, goddammit.

Hell and High Water

It's the rainy season and you know what that means? It means the streets are gonna flood again and we're gonna bitch again and the politicians are gonna play the blame game again and we're gonna learn nothing again. It's a loop and it's tiring.

In Manila, the greatest place on Earth, the floods have the people upset. Frankly, they're lucky it's not a typhoon but I digress. The one thing I'd like to mention is that when the usual gang of idiots in office were scrambling to pass the buck, the DPWH chief said something interesting. He said that the May elections were to blame for holding up the public works needed to deal with the flooding. Think about that for a minute.

You know, it reminds me of the time a Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics (I think) visited my old college. He mentioned that one of the problems in Philippine policy is the lack of stability. When new people are elected into office, there's no guarantee that the policies and programs of the previous administration will be continued. Hence, it leads to situations where an administration starts something only to have it stop and lie completely forgotten when his or her enemy takes over.

Don't other democracies suffer this problem? Maybe, but the situation in the Philippines is worse. People are elected less due to policy but personality. Thus, there's a layer of unpredictability over everything. In a perfect world, we would be voting for people based on performance and if we liked the specific programs, we would elect the same people again or people belonging to the same ideological party as the ones we approved of. Instead, we vote for whoever and there's no clear continuity. Our political party system offers no consolation since they're virtually identical now and political "butterflies" jump ship on a regular basis.

Perhaps there is some advantage to political dynasties after all. People crave order no matter how "cool" they think being rebellious on Facebook is. In cases of uncertainty when we doubt if the future would be better than to today, we cling to the familiar in fear. Maybe in our desire to keep things safe and "as they are", we elect political dynasties hoping that "Junior" will keep his "Senior's" pet projects and beneficiaries "funded".

I dunno. I'm just thinking aloud here and I hope I'm wrong. I'm getting a little off-topic but my point is that this situation ought not to happen. Why should government works and projects suddenly stop unfinished to wait for the next batch of psychopaths to be voted into office? This is inefficient. Everything ought to have been set aside beforehand and set to continue without the specific go-ahead signal from the new guys. Stupid.

Why does anything even work in this place?

June 12

For all the complaining I do about the Philippines, I am glad that I live here and not some hellhole like North Korea. Despite everything, there is still hope for this country. All the conditions needed to be great are already here. What's missing? I'm not sure.

Freedom feels good, man.

Tony Macalpine - Tears of Sahara

A Rat Race

Do you ever get the feeling you're going nowhere in life?

Today, our professor told each and every one of us to stand up, say our names and share a little bit about ourselves. Personally, I thought stuff like that belongs in grade school. She said that she wanted to get know a little bit about us which I doubt. I never really believe teachers want to get to know their students except when the student is a brilliant genius and it would be a benefit to know them then. Anyway, I digress.

Listening to the others, some of them have very interesting lives. Some were married. Some had jobs. Some come from backgrounds you wouldn't expect. When it was my turn to "share" I just told the professor my name and that I was a full-time student. That's all she was after anyway. I didn't say anything about my life or interests; I doubt anyone really cared. I was in no mood to join in on the silliness. The people were having lighthearted fun sharing and breaking the ice. I, on the other hand, just sat back and sank into one of those moods again and I haven't improved since.

Should I be...doing something with my life right now? I'm not talking about something like going to school but something bigger than that. On the other hand, why am I so concerned about such things? Who am I trying to impress? Why the hurry? Life isn't some kind of rat race is it? Why should it matter at all?

Well, there's still so much time, so much ahead. I guess I'll just suffocate while I sit and wait. Maybe it's just impatience. Wait and see, huh?

Maybe something interesting will happen tomorrow like an earthquake or World War Three.

Red Engine

I got an E-mail recently about the Red Engine, the gameplay engine used for The Witcher 2. I'm curious and I think I'll download it.

It should be interesting.

Gorn

So I got this movie here, called Ichi the Killer. It's pretty violent and...

Ah, you know what? I'll put this aside for now.

Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker

Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker or Dragon Age: Blood Mage no Seisen if you prefer, is the animated tie-in to the popular video game series, Dragon Age. I've written about similar tie-ins to video games before and this is sort of a thing for me now. This feature film was a collaboration between BioWare and Funimation. I'd call this an anime since it was done in Japan but the style itself isn't "anime" but CG, which is refreshing.

The story stars Cassandra Pentaghast, Nevarran royalty, chantry Seeker and dragon hunter. We all know Cassandra don't we? She's the woman who was giving Varric a hard time in Dragon Age 2. If she seemed like kind of a bitch then, you don't know half of it. In this film, she's angry, hot-headed and bloodthirsty. Seriously, she just recklessly charges into battle, jumping three whole stories in the air and cleaves stone golems like they were nothing. It all seems too much but she's supposed to be a badass dragon hunter or something and "amazing" moves did happen with Duncan in the original Dragon Age, though his was more plausible. Here's Cassandra after a hard day's work.

The story begins in a dark forest where a group of obviously evil mages in dark cloaks are standing in a circle doing spooky stuff. They're led by a guy called Frenic who looks like some kind of pedophile with a mask covering half his face. He's not really a pedophile but hey, there's a mysterious girl they're doing all sort off things to so yeah. Cassandra and a group of seekers crash the party. They take the little girl while Frenic manages to get away. Whoever this girl is, she's important.

Cassandra belongs to the Order of Seekers. Think of them as the internal police force of the Chantry that is tasked with finding and rooting out corruption. For those unfamiliar, the Chantry is the big religion in Dragon Age that pretty much influences everything. The Chantry has two orders here; the Seekers, as previously mentioned, and the Templars, who are knights tasked with fighting mages.

There's tension between the orders. The film doesn't do a good job of explaining it in detail but we can infer it's a glory thing or because the Seekers have to keep an eye on the Templars. Also, Knight Commander Martel, the leader of the Templars is a huge asshole in the beginning. That doesn't help.

The girl is taken into the Seeker's custody. Cassandra's mentor, Byron, kidnaps the girl out of the Seeker's base. He reveals to her that there's some kind of conspiracy afoot and he needed to get the girl to safety. He gets killed and Cassandra is framed for it along with Byron's contact, a mage named Regalyan. They manage to escape and it seems they have to solve the mystery themselves! Oh, and Cassandra really really hates mages with the intensity of a thousand suns! How will they ever get along?

That sums up the main plot of DADotS basically. There's a conspiracy and it's up to Cassandra and Regalyan to get to the bottom of it. A lot of the focus of the story in the middle part is the relationship between Cassandra and the unfortunate mage. They gradually learn to trust each other but we're supposed to care apparently. If you can get past Cassandra's shrill personality, good for you. I won't spoil since the ending confrontations are kinda cool so here's a list of things I liked and didn't like.

The Good

- The animation is much better than expected. It's not perfect but it's a nice change of pace compared to that off model drivel called Mass Effect: Paragon Lost. 

- The traitor-villain is very loathsome. There are different villains here; the obvious villain (Frenic) and the traitors. The traitor bad guy is really terrible and stupid and I found myself rooting for Cassandra to just kill the traitor already. A good villain is a plus.

- The final battle is pretty epic despite the ludicrous stunts Cassandra pulls.

- I don't know who Gackt is or why he's so awesome that he's all anyone mentions when they're talking about this show. He does a voice for a main character and sings a song but only in the Japanese version. Is this good or bad? I guess good. If you like Gackt, great. If you don't, well it's the English version anyway so he won't bother you.

The Bad

- Though the animation gets better and better near the finale, (it's usually the reverse in my experience) it does look "clunky" at times. That's CG for you. The faces sometimes don't show emotion very well but I think that's just me. It's a minor thing.

- The story seems very generic. I wish they would have fleshed out the location a bit more. It takes place in Orlais after all and DA fans haven't seen much of that. It would be nice if we got something in addition to the standard story.

- Frenic is a crappy villain. He's just a generic evil mage who wants power. It doesn't help that Frenic makes a hilariously stupid face near the climax.

- Cassandra is irritating. I know she mellows out and eventually trusts Regalyan but Jesus Christ, is she a hot-headed, angry little zealot. Her voice will grate on your nerves.

And that's about it. If you like Dragon Age, you will find this show amusing though the lack of any extra lore or character development other than Cassandra may leave you disappointed. If you don't care about Dragon Age the simple story, mystery plot and the action should leave you satisfied.

I thought it was OK and better than Mass Effect: Paragon Lost.

Noisy Gym

I work out in this gym regularly and it's starting to hurt my ears. People seem to enjoy slamming the heavy weights together. CLANG! CLANG! It's terrible.

Unless I'm mistaken, lifting weights is all about control. It's important to keep the weights from slamming together so you ought to bring it up and down slowly. You get a better burn from that, I've been told. All that slamming means a lack of control? Or maybe the final lift is too much so you just drop the damn thing? Either way, I doubt it's the best way to go about things. Maybe they're just doing that to show off. Whatever. It's not impressing anyone.

They should just grunt and yell the old-fashioned way.

Bookstore Blues

I went to the bookstore today to buy some supplies for school such as pens and notebooks. I forgot that everyone else is too.

The bookstore was crowded. It smelled of stale sweat...and fear. It was probably from the kids anxious for the first day of school.

I remember that feeling.