Thursday, June 21, 2007

Miraculous Musical Chairs (of the Senate)

And then there was one.

After more than a month of counting votes, canvassing CoC's from all over the country, accusations of massive cheating on the polls by both parties in different provinces, 130 poll related deaths and 11 senatorial seats taken,only one remains to be filled. From here you could just here Koko Pimentel and Miguel Zubiri scrambling for it like playing musical chairs but this time it's for aspiring senators. And the song they're playing says, "From Maguindanao, with love."

With time running out for Pimentel and the votes swinging at Zubiri's favor, he's buying all his options to win this seat including his petition to the Supreme Court to stop the canvassing of the Maguindanao votes. Official Comelec tallies shows that without the Maguindanao votes Pimentel's lead over Zubiri amounts to 111,000 which puts him in the Senatorial Magic 12 but with the disputed votes, Zubiri would officially win the coveted 12th senatorial seat. Thus making him richer for the next six more years (how's that for the former spice boy of the congress?).

While Pimentel is asking for the Maguindanao votes to be disregarded (probably because he lost there, duh), Zubiri (naturally) is asking for the votes to be officially tallied in with the rest of the country's. But the authenticity of the provincial tallies do stir in some doubts to the mix with 19 of the "senatoriables", mostly opposition candidates, didn't even receive a single vote. The Genuine Opposition claims that this is statistically improbable (but heck, at the back of their minds I could hear them saying that this is politically very probable) like what happened in a Pangasinan town in the May 2004 where FPJ received no votes.

The balance now hangs in the Task Force being lead by Commisioner Abalos of Comelec (Good luck with that Atty. Pimentel). With the COC's and all the election documents being manipulated er, checked for authenticity in General Santos, they would be the sole judge to whom will the last chair be awarded when the music stops, however loud Pimentel is crying of massive cheating at the polls and Zubiri fervently praying for a miracle.

But then again, we all know that in this country, during these moments, miracles, like a President speaking to God, do happen.

Friday, June 15, 2007

My Personal Apologies to Magdalo and the 2010 elections

Ok. Ok.

You don't need Juday to win and I'm sooooooorrry.

It's not like everything is pre-ordained by pre-election surveys. Who the heck had the guts seriously say that Mr. Hotel-Hostage-Taker would win the recent Senatorial Elections? Who had the faith that this guy -- who occupied the 21st slot of the numerous election surveys a month before May 14th -- would actually jump ten spots up the list to secure the second to the last available seat in the Philippine senate?

Well not me. No sireee. In fact I was so convinced that he was gonna loose (big time) that I actually had given him a free advice just in case he looses the election. Unfortunately, he's not gonna need that advice anytime soon (or maybe after six years? Who knows anyways?). But hey, since we are in the process of reconciliation for national unity and prosperity, If you find out one day that you need an adviser for making some laws you know who to call (*call me*).

Anyways, I just couldn't find a word to sum up the past May 14 senatorial elections, maybe a phrase then would aptly describe it. I was thinking of describing it as something short of a miracle (Fr. Ed Panlilio and the Josons losing the gubernatorial seat comes into mind) but then again when I think of Maguindanao and all the 130 election related murder cases I can't help but think that the Philippine Elections is the devil's easter (maybe that's a bit too strong but it's pretty close, like a level lower). That and the counting of ballots moving like bullet time but who could blame the teachers? Who wouldn't count slowly when you got a gun pointed at your head while the rooms are being burned down by some spineless dick heads? Better yet who would wanna count when you're being burned alive (God bless their souls and may they be welcomed into the pearly gates of heaven)? It seems like the only thing that the COMELEC would unwillingly burn these days is the 1.3B pesos fund for the automation of the 2004 Presidential elections. Oh wait, they did burn that money for the computers that would've counted the votes. Apparently those computers never saw the light of day on that May 2004 elections but the 500 million of the 1.3 billion pesos is safe somewhere in a private bank account (or accounts, who knows how deep this is?).

Moving On...

The recent elections could be just a warm up for the 2010 Presidential Elections (I'm naming this date "The Big One" from now on). So I'm now making three "fearless forecast" list of predictions for the Big One. I'm just gonna need to turn into my Madam Auring mode.

Loren Legarda VS. Mar "Mr. Palengke" Roxas for Presidency.

Forget the Vice presidency. This clearly woman clearly wants to be a president. Just look at her slogan during the past elections (Una sa Senado). She clearly has the focus and the cajones to say that she'll be the top senator to beat. And now that she has proven herself to be the top senator for 2007 expect her to go head to head with 2004's number one senator, Mar Roxas. With Korina Sanchez at Mr. Palengke's side expect this to be a close one with Korina rallying to be the next first Lady of the Philippines.

PMR and FLKS by 2010*

Result: With Mar Roxas being more "marketable" I expect another presidential election recount after 2010.

Money Bilyar Settles for Vice Presidency

With lower than expected outings in the recent elections Sen. Bilyar would definitely be having second thoughts gunning for the big one's top seat. He would settle for vice presidency in 2010 but he wouldn't give up without a fight. I would expect too see him rallying and courting his party mates to be nominated as the Presidential candidate up until the last possible time. He would eventually take up the Vice-Presidency nomination against a NCR mayor who is starting to build a dynasty or a high ranking recent cabinet official who fancies hot pink and baby blue.

Result: Hot pink and baby blue should be outlawed after the 2010 elections. It burns my eyes and it is in no way cute when you're wearing those colors when you're in the 60's. But that doesn't mean that Money Bilyar would be in for a blowout. I expect this to be a battle of wits and celebrity endorsements with Money winning by signing Angel Locsin and the next three year's FHM sexiest woman in tow -- that'll be Luningning, Sugar and probably Boy (now a girl) Abunda when he decides to go under the knife for a sex change in 2009.

Jun "Mr. Field-Tripper-Hostage-Taker" Ducat Runs for Senator

After spending almost four years behind bars Jun Ducat finally gives in to his Kumpare, Sen. Bong Revilla's request to actually run as a Senator in Team Unity's 2010 party. Running as a senator while behind bars like Trillanes, he decides to pick a nickname that would be as catchy as Trillanes' Magdalo. He sets up an auction on which bus line would finance his campaign, whoever bids the highest amount would eventually win and the company's name would also end up as his campaign nickname. Chavit's Partas gives out the winning bid (500 Pesos for every vote). Oh, sweet irony.

Result: Mr. Wannabe Robin Hood wins the 2010 elections but is banned from using any form of public transportation that would easily hold up to 7 passengers or more. He once again tries to pull off another hostage taking drama. This time by taking the whole Senate as hostage and only releasing them until they amend at least two laws. The drama continues for a year until the Senate passed two bills, first renaming Epifanio De Los Santos (EDSA) Avenue into the People Power Monument Avenue (or more commonly called as the Pi-Pi Mo Av) and relocating the Rizal monument in Rizal park into the SM Mall of Asia.

That's just about it. My psychic powers are diminishing right now probably because I'm already sleepy. Cheers!

*photo
courtesy of the Mar Korina Fans/Blogsite

Friday, June 8, 2007

United 300

Bugger.

I can't believe it's already June. Seems like yesterday it was only January and now we're halfway through the year. Before you know it newscasters on television would be having their annual Christmas count off.

But hey you know what else is great about June? It's supposedly our clan's month (re:Junio). I don't know why our ancestors even picked that surname but whatever they had in mind I'm pretty sure they love June. You wouldn't name yourself to something you hate or absolutely despise would you?

Anyways, since I'm totally uninspired to write a blog post right now (to those who are curious please blame my siblings and insanely busy schedule) I'm just gonna post a funny clip from youtube. This clip recently grabbed an award from the recent MTV music video awards (no bull). Enjoy!!!

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Joost do it!

I know, I know, I'm a slacker. Deal with It.

Well I'm an occasional slacker but I do have a very good reason for slacking (I'm actually waiting until my blog vanishes into oblivion). Anyways, I'm not in the mood right now to tell you what has stopped me from blogging (apart from the reason that it has something to do with my four siblings and an eternal house cleaning duties which I have to fulfill) for the past week. I occasionally have the luxury of visiting my blog to see if anyone still cares and luckily I still have readers. So I wanna thank everyone for the love. *crying* Yeah, I cry whenever I get the munchies and there's no 711 store open in sight. That and some fan support. Mwah! *blow kiss*

Moving on...

For those who already had the sheer pleasure of seeing me (I'm fat) you probably realized that by now I am a couch potato (It's a fever you just can't cure), right? Well just this morning while I checked my email and one of my friends (joey the unknown) actually gave me a joost (pronounced as juiced) beta invite! Short and sweeeeeeeeet he gave me another good reason to be a potato in a couch but this time I am a cyberpotato sitting in a couch that is the internet or whatever fangcy/geeky/nerdy term you wanna put into it (I don't care). It's JOOST baby! Yeah!!!*does a poor Austin Powers immitation*

I don't know how many people are still strangers too Joost but just to get enlightened you could check out the wikipedia entry for it right here. If you're too lazy then I feel sorry for you man. No free invites for you.

Whoah! Did I just mention FREE invites to try the beta version of JOOST?

Yep I did! But I'm not so sure about it. See the latest version says that I get an unlimited number of invites but then I'm not sure and I'm too lazy to open up Joost (they should have it voice activated or better yet have a mind control switch) and check it out. Anyways, If I do have an unlimited number of invites then I would probably give out these invites to those who wants one. But wait!!! There's more!

Even though the amount of invites is (theoretically) unlimited I wouldn't wanna waste my effort of inviting everyone who doesn't give a d@mn about the system requirements. My advice is check out your PC's system first. It's video streaming so expect it to be a bit demanding when it comes to the basic specs. For it to be able to run you need the following (I got it from the Joost website).
  • Windows XP Service Pack 2 with DirectX 9.0c
  • Pentium 4 processor, 1GHz
  • 512Mb or more RAM
  • A modern video card with DirectX support and at least 32Mb of VRAM
  • About 500 MB free disk space
  • The Joost software is a 10 MB download, expanding to 30-35 MB on disk. The remainder is used as a cache
  • Broadband/ADSL (1Mbit/s downstream, 512Kbit/s upstream recommended, although lower speeds may well work)
  • 1 hour of viewing is 320 Megabytes downloaded and 105 Megabytes uploaded, which means that a 1 Gb cap will be exhausted in about 10 hours
  • And an invite of course! (I just added this one :)
Don't worry about the connection speed though, I have a lower connection speed but it still works just fine (but you eventually lose the image's high quality). They got loads of channels (still no Filipino programs though) like MTV (US only), National Geographic (US only), Comedy Central (US only), WB (not that good but suits me well oh and its US only), SI Swimsuit Edition (US and the rest of the free world!) and loads more. I really don't give a d@mn about the other channels (they got NHL, but who watches that sport?!). Joost got me at SI Swimsuit Edition (I'm a guy what can I say??!!).

So there you go. If you have the minimum system requirements needed to run Joost and you're itching to try it then leave a comment and I'll try my best to give you an invite. Later days!