Blue and Red is the Color of Campaign

After greening out with hate, I shift my color spectrum to blue and red. And those seem to be the most popular color combination for election campaigns.

Sample 1 by rbolsqp.

Sample 2 by rbolsqp.

Green is the Color of Hate

Grafuck (pronounced as gra-fik) design refers to various professional artistic disciplines that focus on visual communication and presentation. The root method of the craft involves combining symbols, images and/or words are used to represent ideas and messages in visual form.

Web pages and other related electronic reading materials, magazines and other hard prints, t-shirts, and many others rely on the latter to emerge into wholesome products.

Relative to the subject, all presentations require proper color combination. The theme color alone may serve as the glue, or (in many cases) create the foundation that would hold the entire idea. For instance, tones of red may serve as one’s theme when one attempts to convey messages of love, or of courage, or warning perhaps. As such, when an idea is conceived, the packaging requires colored concepts that either which pleases the eyes or convey the emotional tone.

Getting to the core, I present the “Lorem Ipsum” that the Two-Saints and I labored on that served as the background for all the excuses conveyed to the flock.

Prior to its birth, code-writers were forced to transform to journalists to report diversions to lessen the effects of the down trend. Meanwhile, after completing their offside tasks, the noobs had to wait for final addendum and corrections from various intelligent heads for final layout. The sad part on this matter is that, when heads give orders, they set scheduled deadlines. Vice-versa it cannot be. They claim busy schedules and other chorvaness to excuse their delayed outputs; and, when they do come over, upon having done their unrushed task, would rush you again to complete the remainder of the undertaking.

To shorten the story, the project was done, only to be dismayed by the overseer’s verbal abuse, “Are you getting personal with me? Why didn’t you print the text on black as I’ve instructed? The green text is hurting to the eye.”

I replied without being heard, “Should you have not been rushing to get home when the clock ticks five, you could have reviewed the document. Moreover, we are programmers not grafuck designers! You are neither of the two, so shut the fuck up!”

The overseer did.

I shall not declare further excuses, only that I ask – is our green theme for our “Lorem Ipsum” truly hurting to the eye? Or has green turned out to be the color of hate?

Interpreting Signs

On Missing Mothers

I had the opportunity to concentrate on something I wanted to code ever since I learned of programming. The fond memory of how my mom amazed me with her stories when I was then a kid regarding espionage, the CIA, military and terrorism urged me to divert some time on this effort. She's passed a year now and for the many times that I've seem to neglect her, I decided to sit down and play with her idea.

Basically, espionage is the practice of using spies with the aim of obtaining information about the plans and activities of governments and/or competing companies. From thereon, any group could provide counter-measures against those proposed or upcoming businesses. To carry out the delivery of information, various techniques were used to encipher and decipher the information to avoid detection of spying functions.

Among my mother's story comes the basic encryption technique she knew. I forgot where and when she learned of it but the concept remains clear in my memory.

To boot up with, communication can either be of written or verbal form. My mom's idea focused on the written part. Considering that written communication uses the alphabets to form into words to convey meaning, the characters are manipulated in such a way that it would appear to the clueless reader that what he / she had in hand is nothing more than garbage.

So this is how it goes.

Manual Process:

Cipher Key creation:

1. Write the alphabet in regular form.
2. Create a key with unique letters on it.

   For example: rbolsqp

3. Write the key as such it aligns with the letters you've written on the first line.
4. Following the key, write the alphabet in such manner that you would displace the characters written on the key.
   

   To illustrate:

   
   original alphabet : abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

   
   alphabet with key : rbolsqpacdefghijkmntuvwxyz

Enciphering Messages:

1. Write a note.

   For example,

   "go placidly amid the noise and haste,
   and remember what peace there may be in silence.
   as far as possible without surrender
   be on good terms with all persons.
   speak your truth quietly and clearly;
   and listen to others,
   even the dull and the ignorant;
   they too have their story."

2. Re-write the note in such a way that each character is replaced by the corresponding character from the key in line with the original alphabet.

   Say, "a" will be replaced by "r",
   "b" by "b",
   "c" by "o",
   "d" by "l",
   and so on...

Resulting ciphered message:

"pi jfroclfy rgcl tas hicns rhl arnts,
rhl msgsgbsm wart jsros tasms gry bs ch ncfshos.
rn qrm rn jinncbfs wctaiut nummshlsm
bs ih piil tsmgn wcta rff jsmnihn.
njsre yium tmuta kucstfy rhl ofsrmfy;
rhl fcntsh ti itasmn,
svsh tas luff rhl tas cphimrht;
tasy tii arvs tascm ntimy."

Deciphering messages:

1. Assuming you have the key on hand, reverse the process stated in statement 2 from Enciphering Messages.
   As such, "r" will be replaced by "a",
   "b" by "b",
   "o" by "c",
   "l" by "d",
   and so forth.

Automating the Process Using Visual Basic 6:

1. Create a form.
2. Add two textboxex and name it txtkey and txtMessageWindow.
3. Add four (4) command buttons and name them as cmdDecryptMessage, cmdEncryptUp, cmdMakeKeys and cmdTestKey.
4. In the code window, paste the code below:
   

   Dim Keyers(1 To 2, 1 To 26) As String * 1
   Dim OriginalKey As String * 26
   Dim CryptedKey As String * 26

   Private Sub cmdDecryptMessage_Click()
   Dim tmpStr As String
   tmpStr = ""
   For x = 1 To Len(txtMessageWindow.Text)
   tmpStr = tmpStr + DeCrypt(Mid(txtMessageWindow.Text, x, 1))
   Next
   txtMessageWindow.Text = tmpStr
   End Sub

   Private Sub cmdEncryptUp_Click()
   Dim tmpStr As String
   tmpStr = ""
   For x = 1 To Len(txtMessageWindow.Text)
   tmpStr = tmpStr + EnCrypt(Mid(txtMessageWindow.Text, x, 1))
   Next
   txtMessageWindow.Text = tmpStr
   End Sub

   Private Function EnCrypt(CharItem As String) As String
   EnCrypt = CharItem
   For x = 1 To 91
   If CharItem = Keyers(1, x) Then
   EnCrypt = Keyers(2, x)
   Exit For
   End If
   Next
   End Function

   Private Function DeCrypt(CharItem As String) As String
   DeCrypt = CharItem
   For x = 1 To 91
   If CharItem = Keyers(2, x) Then
   DeCrypt = Keyers(1, x)
   Exit For
   End If
   Next
   End Function

   Private Sub cmdMakeKeys_Click()
   CryptedKey = OriginalKey
   For x = 1 To Len(txtKey.Text)
   CryptedKey = Replace(CryptedKey, Mid(txtKey.Text, x, 1), "")
   Next
   CryptedKey = txtKey.Text + CryptedKey
   For x = 1 To Len(CryptedKey)
   Keyers(2, x) = Mid(CryptedKey, x, 1)
   Next
   End Sub

   Private Sub cmdTestKey_Click()
   txtMessageWindow.Text = ""
   For x = 1 To 26
   txtMessageWindow.Text = txtMessageWindow.Text + Keyers(1, x)
   Next
   txtMessageWindow.Text = txtMessageWindow.Text + vbCrLf
   For x = 1 To 26
   txtMessageWindow.Text = txtMessageWindow.Text + Keyers(2, x)
   Next
   End Sub

   Private Sub Form_Load()
   OriginalKey = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
   For x = 1 To 26
   Keyers(1, x) = Mid(OriginalKey, x, 1)
   Next
   End Sub

That's just it. How simple it was, and I've let it go a long time before I had it done. Call me indolent then.

Oh my, I miss my mom. And I can't cipher how much I do.

The Composition of a Filipino Merienda

The geometry of the Filipino culture is an intersection of Malay, Chinese and Japanese, Spanish and Mexican, American and other Western culture lines. As such, we have become people who could easily blend in. Proof of that is our tongue that understands a variety of tastes; more so with our experience of merienda heterogeneities.

A Litany of Names.

Parallel with our Malay sub-culture, our meriendas may be derived from rice, root-crops and other farm yields. Rice may be cooked into various kakanin varieties: puto, kutsinta, bibingka, biko; suman (with various regional variations); palitaw, pilipit, ginataan and many other delicacies.

Banana and kamote may be boiled or fried, otherwise cooked in melted sugar and skewered to transform into banana cue and kamote cue. Fried creped forms of the latter would give us turon. Meanwhile, the battered-and-fried recipe would convert into maruya. In Mulanay, I also recall how we make bananas into nilupak or niyubak - boiled bananas crushed in mortar and pestle then mixed with milk, sugar and margarine.

Cassava or kamoteng-kahoy may be made into the simplest boiled version dipped in sugar, otherwise made into suman, if not, cassava cake.

Corn on the other hand may be boiled, on-the-cob or grained (binatog). Some prefer a whole cob grilled over charcoal. While some feast on its grain cooked in coconut milk, the ginataang mais.

In view of ginataan, banana may be cooked that way mixed with parcels of ripe jackfruit meat. We may as well have ginataang munggo or ginataang kalabasa - sweetened enough, otherwise it will be considered as veggie-viand.

From Chinese cooking we salivate over lumpia, lugaw, siopao, siomai, and other dumplings. We became fanatics of all sorts of noodles and pansit (canton, palabok, luglog, molo, bachoy, etc) even the easy-cook versions. The Japanese have us craving over sushi, maki, yudon, and yakisoba.

Of Spanish and Mexican foods, we feast on arrozcaldo, arroz a la valenciana, tacos and empanada.

Our Western and American connection make our tongues want burgers, sandwiches, donuts, pizza, waffles, spaghetti, barbecue and hotdogs on sticks.

Going back to our tendency to easily blend with others, this is true especially in rural areas. Most often, the place of interaction is the street. In that light, there come varieties of street foods to taste. We have isaw and other pork and chicken innards charcoal-grilled the manner barbecues are done. Roaming in carts may be kwek-kwek, tokneneng and fried one-day old chicks. Fishball, squidball and kikiam sometimes take that cart-ride too.

Finally, we also eat junk – all hail to chicherias! Should this be unrecognizable for some, I surmise their childhood as one gloomy past.

Key Merienda Ingredient.

Ylyrp ygh, my xrhehlr, yp hl wyp xlgknnkng eh llyrn ehl xypkcp, wrhel kn hkp Lnglkph hhmlwhrk, “K lye my mhmmy fhr xrlykfype xlfhrl K gh eh pchhhl.” Ehye pykd, whye hl mlyne, wyp ehye h;r mhehlr prlpyrld h;r xrlykfype xlfhrl wl wlne pchhhl. Hklyrkh;p yp ke myy pllm x;e ehl lpplncl kp ehye y mhehlr kp rllyekvl eh fhhd.

My lyrlklpe rlchlllcekhn hf mlrklndy wh;ld xl ehye hf my mhehlr hyndkng hvlr eh Knyy, y flw clneyvhp. Ehye eyneymh;ne eh ;p kkdp wykekng fhr vlndhrp ylllkng vyrkleklp hf ehl lyrlklr mlnekhnld rkcl-dlrkvld pnyckp yfelr h;r pklpeyp. Hehlrwkpl phh;ld wl hyvl hvlrpllpe, wl wh;ld prkdl wylkkng y flw xlhckp eh x;y fhr h;rpllvlp ehl pklwlrld xynynyp ynd kymhel, ynd wylkkng y flw mhrl wh;ld lnd ;p kn ehl xyklry fhr xrlyd vyrkleklp.

Phmlekmlp my mhm wh;ld fhrgle h;r yllhemlnep. Hn ehhpl ekmlp, Knyy wh;ld xhkl xynynyp hr kymhel, hfeln gkvln frll xy nlkghxhrp. Hr llpl ehl xyhyw (llfehvlr rkcl) mkxld wkeh p;gyr ynd mklk plrhypp, kf nhe ehyh ynd chhkkng hkl, wh;ld xl hf ehl lype rlphre.

Frhm prl-pchhhl eh ehkrd grydl, mhm wh;ld wykl ;p lyrly eh prlpyrl h;r pyckp hf mlrklndy fhr rlclpp plrkhdp. Pyn dl pyl llfehvlrp frhm xrlykfype wh;ld lvhlvl eh pyndwkchlp, kf K myy cyll ke ehye wyy. Phl phmlekmlp gkvlp ;p lkehlr hnl hf ehl fhllhwkng: p;myn, pyncyklp, xkpc;kep ynd xrlyd phrep (hryrh, xynyny cykl, gyllleyp, lnpyymydy, ppynkph xrlyd hr p;ehk) ynd myny hehlr ‘mlrklndyxll’ fhhdp.

Chml fh;reh grydl, K wyp gkvln ehl lkxlrey eh chhhpl whye eh eykl fhr my mlrklndy yp K wyp gkvln phml plphp fhr xyhn. Ehlrlhn, K llyrnld hf j;nkklp ynd perlle fhhdp eh ypplypl my h;nglr, llyrnkng hf cymyrydlrkl kn ehl prhclpp yp K hyvl phyrld my mlrklndy mhmlnep wkeh frklndp.

Hvlryll, ymkd ehl mlnekhn hf nymlp, mlrklndyp hyvl hnl chmmhn kngrldklne – lhvl. Lhvl frhm rllyekvlp, frhm frklndp ynd frhm mhehlrp. Hlncl hn my ycch;ne, mlrklndy kp nhe hnly fhhd plr pl. Mlrklndy kp y erynp;xpeynekyekhn hf lhvl. Ynd lvln yfelr y ylyr hf pyppkng, K ch;ld pekll eypel ehye lhvl frhm my mhehlr.

======================================================
Supposed Entry for Doreen Gamboa Fernandez Food Writing Award 2008

To Cook Or Not to Cook: That is the Question

There came a time when I was asked to edit one of my sister's school paper. As I began running through her piece, I found the content satisfactory. Thoughts were laid in conjunction although the manner of writing I criticized as one fitting the general audience. For that reason, it would be a rarity that my other siblings would approach to have their works reviewed. They have labeled me a tiger - one who would wait for victims whom I can deliberately attack with so much criticism when they would jot weak inks.

A few years after, we were caught again in the same scenario. And the critic that I am, told her that she has written something fit for laymen. She defended her manner of writing as correct - that when one writes, the writer must have the greater audience in mind. And that his/her writing should be within grasp of the said audience. I objected.

To prove my point, I led her to perceive herself as a cook. As such, considering doing some cooking chore, I asked her who would be the first to taste the food she prepared. She replied, "Of course I will be the one to do the tasting first before it gets served." Persistent with my arrogance I supplied another question as to why should she taste the food first. And she reasoned out that by tasting the food, she makes sure that it tastes well - as such should the taste lack a few salt, spice or any other ingredient , necessary adjustments could be made before it gets to the table for consumption.

Similarly, I told her, when you write, attempt not to please others first but yourself. If one is not  pleased, most likely others will feel the same although a few may not. But on extreme pessimism that no one would find your food pleasing despite the approval of your taste buds, the greatest honor there is, is that you have served yourself well. Should they desire not to eat, be joyful for you have so much food for yourself.

Some people know how to cook. Some do not. To eat is a natural thing. To be able to cook, one must learn which ingredients compliment for combination, otherwise ruin the cooking. One must know precisely the temperature, the time, the processes and other related factors involved in order to cook well.

Same thing with writing. It's either you could or you could not. Any person capable of writing well, for sure, is seasoned to do the scribbling task. By seasoning, it means that:

1. the writer seriously takes the things he learned from books, teachers and other learning sources;
2. the writer practices what he learned;
3. the writer has been criticized and/or lauded by the readers; and,
4. the writer continuously writes to please himself/herself first.

Overall, food is a universal experience. Equate that with reading. As with cooking, a man must earn his kitchen rights. When it comes to writing, not all men deserve a papyrus to write on. More so, if the writer has failed to undergo the seasoning stages aforementioned, the sole paper fitting for his scribbles would be nothing more than a tissue paper.

Government + Tax = Public Service*

"The fundamental purpose of government is the maintenance of basic security and public order — without which individuals cannot attempt to find happiness."**

From the aforementioned quote, it can be deduced that government should bring smiles on peoples' faces. That only possible if the government and all her agencies could provide the services required of them.

Basically, I do not rant against politics and and government. But I've come to the point getting pissed off with matters concerning services I've requested from three of our government agencies***. So far, the common denominator among those agencies is that they are fast enough. Don't react yet. They rev up when it comes to collecting the required payments for the services you've requested for and sadly so slow when it comes to getting the service you have requested for.

And so to quote JFK, "ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." Phew! The soaring taxes and the ongoing surge of inflation should suffice that. And if JFK should have been President of this country during this time, I think he would be guilty to declare what I've quoted earlier.

Government must be synonimized with good service. Otherwise, who needs a government if whom they govern are not ensured with basic securities (and services, too).

Government must be synonimized with free public information. Otherwise, doubts arise why information is being kept off the public's scrutinizing eyes. Or perhaps they need payments for said information too?

Anyway, I remain in hope that things would get well with our country. And again, a good government is that government who collects minimal tax and yet capable of maximizing public service.

Oh before I forgot, I air my support to House Bill 4110, similar to the support given by Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Esperanza I. Cabral. With that approved, said soon-to-be-law could be deemed as one good service from the government - enabling the citizenry to have choices. That is better than plain lip service.

------------------------------------
* Wish ko lang. (How I wish.)

** Schulze, Hagen (1994). States, Nations and Nationalism. Blackwell Publishers Inc, 350 Main Street, Malden, Massachusetts 02148, USA.

*** SSS Online Inquiry is not functioning. DOLE Downloads down. NSO Fails to do Quality Output on their Issued Forms.

Accursed of Accusations

…again, he was untruthful, heed to use name of other people while it’s less the issue to be straightforward…but leisure pursuit maybe he found to be in saying things untrue. The reason maybe to shield a philanthropist from being centered with squabble…and me, impairment is never his concern. unspeaking and deaf---but how can I hold back my sensitivity when slur’s burst to you completely?

There are two words I'd like to concentrate with today. First is accuse with ripe and timely meaning. The word came from Latin accusare which means called to account. Further analysis would tell us that the word in basically a conjunction of a prefix and root word, whereas accusare being a conjunction of ad + causa; ad being the prefix and causa, a Latin word meaning lawsuit. Sometimes it seem odd that our common words have histories, simple or complex, behind how they became. In any case, accuse basically means being charged with a fault or a blame not necessarily being found guilty or proven innocent.


The second word, of Middle English origin - acursen to consign to destruction with a curse, is accurse. If we would examine closely to the alphabetical composition of the latter, we would notice that accurse is basically accuse with an "r" inserted in between. It might have been that the "r" dropped in from heaven between accu and se henceforth came accurse.


I have no reason to hide philanthropy. Because in itself, philanthropy is an active effort to promote human welfare. Welfare, on the other hand, is doing well in respect to good fortune, happiness, well-being or prosperity. If philanthropy meant good, why would things untrue cause it for souls to get pathetic to other souls. Meanwhile, laboring to cause peace to minds perturbed by their own prejudgments and baseless accusations is merely a vain act. Which is hard to undergo. Why waste effort cutting diamonds when your tool cannot cut it? It would only cause the diamond to further imperfection, thus leave it be, should that be the case.


As with slur and impairment, that which cause degrading effects, is somehow impossible to cease to take effect when the catalyst to such degradation is oneself. I cannot impart the liberty of the spirit, if the spirit decides to stay in its historical dark form. I have held no ropes to sustain the clinging of the vines that have ruined the fences I built. Actually it's not a fence for fences may be flown over by beings with wings, including eagles. What I built is a cage to imprison the last of what was left of Pandora's Box, hope. But the historical dark spirit continually attempts to open the box. So sad.

So here I am, accursed to being accused.