the Way of the Son of the Sea

The Vote Has Been Cast

2010-05-10T21:31:00.001+08:00

The Election's Over

Expect The Worst. Hope For The Best.

Philippine General Election 2010

2010-05-10T00:11:00.003+08:00

Just Vote!

Whoever you are supporting this election, vote for them.

We've all heard what these candidates have to say and probably most of us have made up our minds on who we think are best and most capable to lead this country for the next six years. Let us just respect whoever a person votes for. There is no use bickering on who we think is the best because we all have our reasons for choosing them, mainly personal ones. My only wish is that whoever will be next to lead this country, will move it in the right direction.

Cast your vote and be counted.

Jogged, Walked for Earth Day 2010

2010-04-22T23:43:00.004+08:00

My legs are still aching for jogging and walking in celebration of Earth Day 2010. I've covered a distance of about 4 kms in about an hour. Not amazing, but to me that's an accomplishment for a person who doesn't normally walk even a 16th of that distance. The aches are still there it revitalized by body.

There's still a long way to go to accomplish my goal of completing a whole marathon which is about 26k but 4km is a good start.

Lupin III : The Last Job

2010-04-02T23:43:00.002+08:00

Watching Lupin III - The Last Job. I can't get enough of those Lupin III television specials.
Waiting for the next one.

"Once again, I have cut a worthless object."

Two Truths to Live by

2010-03-31T00:16:00.001+08:00

Hold fast, and let go: Understand this paradox, and you stand at the very gate of wisdom

The art of living is to know when to hold fast and when to let go. For life is a paradox: it enjoins us to cling to its many gifts even while it ordains their eventual relinquishment. The rabbis of old put it this way: ''A man comes to this world with his fist clenched, but when he dies, his hand is open. ''

Surely we ought to hold fast to life, for it is wondrous, and full of a beauty that breaks through every pore of God's own earth. We know that this is so, but all too often we recognize this truth only in our backward glance when we remember what it was and then suddenly realize that it is no more.

We remember a beauty that faded, a love that waned. But we remember with far greater pain that we did not see that beauty when it flowered, that we failed to respond with love when it was tendered.

A recent experience re-taught me this truth. I was hospitalized following a severe heart attack and had been in intensive care for several days. It was trot a pleasant place.

One morning, I had to have some additional tests. The required machines were located in a building at the opposite end of the hospital, so I had to be wheeled across the courtyard on a gurney.

As we emerged from our unit, the sunlight hit me. That's all there was to my experience. Just the light of the sun, and yet how beautiful it was ---how warming, how sparkling, how brilliant!

I looked to see whether anyone else relished the sun's golden glow, but everyone was hurrying to and fro, most with eyes fixed on the ground. Then I remembered how often I, too, had been indifferent to the grandeur of each day, too preoccupied with petty and sometimes even mean concerns to respond to the splendor of it all.

The insight gleaned from that experience is really as commonplace as was the experience itself: life's gifts are precious---but we are too heedless of them.

Here then is the first pole of life's paradoxical demands on us: Never too busy the wonder and the awe of life. Be reverent before each dawning day. Embrace hour. Seize each golden minute.

Hold fast to life... but not so fast that you cannot let go. This is the second side of life's coin, the opposite pole of its paradox: we must accept our losses, and learn how let go.

This is not an easy lesson to learn, especially when we are young and think that the world is ours to command, that whatever we desire with the full force of our passionate being can, nay, will, be ours. But then life moves along to confront us with realities, slowly but surely this second truth dawns upon us.

At every stage of life we sustain losses---and grow in the process. We begin our independent lives only when we emerge from the womb and lose its protective shelter. We enter a progression of schools, then we leave our mothers and fathers and our childhood homes. We get married and have children and then have to let them go. We confront the death of our parents and our spouses. We face the gradual or not so gradual waning of own strength. And ultimately, as the parable of the open and closed hand suggests, we confront the inevitability of our own demise, losing ourselves, as it were, all that we or dreamed to be.

But why should we be reconciled to life's contradictory demands? Why fashion things of beauty when beauty is evanescent? Why give our heart in love when those will ultimately be torn from our grasp?

In order to resolve this paradox, we must seek a wider perspective, viewing our lives as through windows that open on eternity. Once we do that, we realize that though our lives are finite; our deeds on earth weave a timeless pattern.

Life is never just being, It is a becoming, a relentless flowing on. Our parents live on through us, and we will live on through our children. The institutions we build endure, and we will endure through them. The beauty we fashion cannot be dimmed death. Our flesh may perish, our hands will wither, but that which they create in beauty and goodness and truth lives on for all time to come.

Don't spend and waste your lives accumulating objects that will only turn to dust and ashes. Pursue not so much the material as the ideal, for ideals alone invest life with meaning and are of enduring worth.

Add love to a house and you have a home. Add righteousness to a city and you have a community. Add truth to a pile of red brick and you have a school. Add religion to the humblest of edifices and you have a sanctuary. Add justice to the far-flung round of human endeavor and you have civilization. Put them all together, exalt them above their present imperfections, add to them the vision of humankind redeemed, forever free of need and strife and you have a future lighted with the radiant colors of hope.

Alexander M. Schindler

Calvin & Hobbes : I Like To Set Kites Free

2010-03-08T00:04:00.001+08:00

Strangers In Paradise

2010-02-03T20:58:00.000+08:00

I saw your face and I ascended
Out of the commonplace into the rare
Somewhere in space I hang suspended
Until I know there's a
chance that you care

Sound Advice

2010-01-22T22:17:00.002+08:00

Back To Work

2010-01-03T23:24:00.002+08:00

Happy New Year.

Most of us had a long vacation and, tomorrow, it's back to work.

I hope that everybody will have a splendid 2010 ahead.

The World's Worst Questions

2009-12-07T23:41:00.003+08:00

Will you promise not to get mad if I ask you something?

Do you have statistics to back up that statement?

You don't honestly expect me to believe that, do you?

Haven't you any sense of humor?

You don't remember me, do you?

Have I kept you waiting?

Now what's the matter

You asleep?

So what?

When are you going to grow up?

Home

2009-11-24T00:00:00.002+08:00

Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it - memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. that way it will go with you wherever you journey.

Tad Williams

Goemon & Casshern

2009-11-10T23:23:00.003+08:00

I'm watching the movie Goemon and found it quite interesting. Great action sequences. It's like watching a live-action anime. Wonderful CG imagery with vivid and luscious colors. In this type of movie, the director can do whatever he envisions because he's not bound by the laws of physics. Lush and vibrant environments are created to match the superhuman abilities of the protagonist.

Also check out the previous movie of this director, which is Casshern. Visually speaking, Goemon is a great improvement compared to Casshern but both have interesting storyline if you're not lost watching the imagery.

Great movies for anime lovers.

2009-11-04T22:28:00.001+08:00

Sometimes the best way to convince someone he is wrong is to let him have his way.

The Shadow

2009-11-03T00:55:00.002+08:00

"The Shadow Knows"

One of my favorite comic book characters, I first saw it as a movie. I'm still trying to find comic books about it. Don't know if there is a continuing series about the Shadow.

I Hate Being the Middle Man

2009-11-02T23:00:00.005+08:00

I've always applied this in my life that when I want to get my message across somebody else, I'll talk to them myself. I've pretty much avoided using middlemen in all my personal dealings even in relationships. But the exception to this is when I'm at work. Oftentimes, I will talk to the person concerned whether they are high-raking officials or not. I doesn't bother me as long as I get my message across. Pretty much, I know how to play their game, you must be the humble one when trying to deal with them to make them appear that they are gracious for something that you ask for, even if it's not theirs. Ironically, we refer to it as respecting our elders even if there is nothing respectable about them.

And sometimes, I'm scolded by my superior because I don't delegate such things. For me it's not really about delegating something that I can do much better myself. And oftentimes, the message gets distorted when it passes through many channels. I want to hear the reply myself so that I can process and act on it quickly with minimal or no supervision at all.

This past few weeks, I became a middleman for my office and a certain organization. At first my supervisor approves what they are asking for but as the days goes by he has grown to dislike them because of their demands. And now, I'm in the middle of it all, they request something and my supervisor angrily declines it but it is I who has to talk to them. We tried to delegate this job to somebody else but they are still contacting me for all their requests. My job is to politely tell them what my supervisor is angrily ranting about. It's difficult to to this because I also have to try to have them believe that we are an accommodating and helpful office. But in reality, my supervisor is only accommodating to the ones he finds useful in the future.

I hate being the middleman because it is my job that a rift don't come across both organizations to maintain a semblance of camaraderie between the two. It doesn't help when one is so demanding and the other is disgruntled.

Pity me, because I still have to keep us this charade for a few more days.

Signage at a Repair Shop

2009-11-01T22:32:00.000+08:00

We do three types of jobs - Cheap, Quick and Good. You can have any two. A good quick job - won't be cheap; a good job cheap - won't be quick; a cheap job quick - won't be good.

What We Value

2009-10-22T23:03:00.002+08:00

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

W. Somerset Maugham

Reading Some Daredevil

2009-10-19T23:02:00.002+08:00

Lately, I've been spending my free time reading some comics especially the Daredevil series, especially the past issues. Try reading them, you might get hooked.

What Do You See?

2009-10-01T23:59:00.001+08:00

Guido the plumber and Michelangelo obtained their marble from the same quarry, but what each saw in the marble made the difference between a nobleman's sink and a brilliant sculpture.

Bob Kall

Look Up

2009-09-29T23:39:00.002+08:00

It is said that sheep may get lost simply by nibbling away at the grass and never looking up. That can be true for any of us. We can focus so much on what is immediately before us that we fail to see life in larger perspective.

Donald Bitsberger

A Week of Comedy

2009-09-11T00:31:00.005+08:00

This week, I again indulge myself in watching videos of several stand-up comedy routines. They were videos of the following comedians:

Ricky Gervais - Live : Politics
Bill Connolly - Live in New York
Lewis Black - Red, White & Screwed and Back in Broadway
Rex Navarette - Hella Pinoy
Bob Saget - Comedy Central Roast

I liked the performance of Ricky Gervais in his routine. It was funny and i could understand most of his subjects even with his British accent. I had difficultly before understanding British shows before because of their twang. I am used to hearing the American accent. This is the first time I watched his stand-up performance and I liked it a lot. I also liked his performance in the movie Ghost Town, one of my fave movies.

As for Bill Connolly, I had trouble understanding his routine because of his Scottish accent. I can only undertand a few segments when he speaks slowly but when he's on a roll, I get lost.

Lewis Black is one of the comedians I can identify with. His routines are usually delivered as rants and I liked them. I can see myself in his routine because I usually rant my observations at home or in the office. I tend to express views that are not usually said in public. By the way, they are not crude or obscene, they're just observations about people and society in general.

Rex Navarette is a Filipino comedian who's routines usually talk about Filipino customs and Filipinos living abroad. I can get most of his jokes but in "Hella Pinoy", his routine is not so refined. Maybe, he's better seen live.

I first heard of Bob Saget as a comedian in the documentary "Aristocrats". He was described as a comedian's comedian who's routine is usually composed of foul ideas. But of this video that I got, he was being roasted by his peers and he only got to speak for a few minutes. I'm still searching for a copy of his videos.

Beifeld's Law

2009-09-11T00:00:00.002+08:00

The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive young female increases by a pyramidical progression when he is already in the company of (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a better-looking and richer male friend.

Ronald H. Beifeld

Why So Serious?

2009-09-09T00:43:00.000+08:00

Prudence is known in the serious, which is more accredited than the ingenious. He who is always joking is never a real man. We equate them to liars in not believing them. It is never known when they talk with sense, which is the same as their not having it. There is no bigger snub than the continuous wittiness. They win fame as humorists and lose their reputation as wise men. Cheerfulness must have its moment; the rest of the time is for seriousness.

Baltasar Gracián, Manual Oracle, XVII Century

Spirit of Magnanimity

2009-09-07T22:24:00.002+08:00

He drew a circle that shut me out -
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.

Edwin Markham

Hungry for Meaning

2009-09-05T00:45:00.001+08:00

Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it... What frustrates us and robs our lives of joy is this absence of meaning... Does our being alive matter?

Harold S. Kushner