Sheer Numbers: A Philippine Way to have a World Record

Ahh, the Guinness Book of World Records, where prestigious and holy crap that's mind-blowing quality world records compiled. It's like a handy collection of interesting facts and unique findings like the identities of world's tallest man and world's oldest living person. 

Filipinos on the other hand, are kind of attention whores like finding ways just to start a rally where the world can see. Since the closest interesting Philippine world record is Imelda Marcos' insane shoe collection, a lot of our dear countrymen, for the sake of having a world record, decided just to make one, I'm sorry, what I mean is a lot of them. 

Here are some "what the hell dude" and maybe unnecessary Philippine world records. Some recognized by the Guinness staff while shaking their head with a thought bubble on top of their heads written "how did they come up with this stuff?". 

Most number of couple simultaneously liplocking

This became an annual event few years ago when they try to outkiss other countries for the sake of having the most number of couple kissing at the same time. Philippines broke the record from Chile, and they try to keep the title by recruiting more couples to share their saliva just to have a Guinness sprinkle dusted certificate. 

Pictured: Kicking the ass of the previous record holder

The reason I included this and I loath this record is they are causing traffic since I always pass that area when I go home. Damn them and their wish to have a world record.

Most number of people tooth brushing at the same time.

Oral hygiene, a very definite need for everyday people. Another way to get world record is to just enlarged the number of people brushing their teeth. Like the most number of kissing, they just organized a big ass event, complete with sponsors. get tons of children from a lot of schools and simultaneously brush their teeth, bam! a world record. 

One Nation, Under Toothbrush

Good thing they managed to have a good rationality to have that event, they promote good dental hygiene. Unlike the other one, I am not sure if a mass couple kissing has a good rationale. Or simply, maybe they just want a world record.

Most number of breast-feeding at the same time

Another proudly Philippine world record. Again, another event with a good rationale, to promote breast-feeding, which is best for the babies, also for the daddies (boo! get off the stage). They have a big number of mothers participating in the event and...

Wait a minute

This analysis needs science

Lets see other Philippine world records

World's Longest Barbeque

World's Largest Salad

World's Largest Durian Candy Bar

World's Longest Mat

I see, there are two methods to make our own world records.

First, stuff people do

• Just pick something a number of people can do, like kite flying or drinking from a glass
• Get some people, hopefully thousands of them. Telling them they will be on TV will entice them further to join your world record attempt
• Go get some media and lots of sponsors
• Do what Filipinos are famous for, sensationalize like there is no tomorrow
• Organize the event and don't forget to call Guinness, the company, not the guy, to let them know you are about to make a world record, like most number of people drinking water from a glass at the same time
• Do the event, count the heads who participated, high-five each other and we have our world record etched in next years edition of Guinness, the book, not the guy. "
  

 

Where is Guinness? SHOW ME!

Second, with food

• Think of something that is edible, like rice cakes and sandwiches
• Get some people who knows how to do your selected dish
• Do some sweet talking with your local government or private sector for funds to buy truckload of ingredients. Don't forget to give them a cut, around 60%
• Go get some media and lots of sponsors
• Do what Filipinos are famous for, sensationalize like there is no tomorrow
• Organize the event and block a very long ass street and place your world record-breaking dish.
• Don't forget to call Guinness, the company, not the guy, to let them know you are about to make a world record, like longest line of rice cakes
• Do the event, measure the total length of said food, buy more measuring tape if necessary, high-five each other and we have our world record etched in next years edition of Guinness, the book, not the guy. 

The Philippines, probably other countries do this method to create a world record, something to brag on their neighboring cities and provinces. There is gotta be something interesting world record that don't rely on sheer numbers. Well, there is one, and he is a king.

Sili King

Sili or chili, one of the hottest edible things ever invented by God. We all know eating too much spicy food can be an unpleasant experience because sometimes it effed up your stomach, your breathe and your drinking water supply. The Sili King, sans an actual crown, wears his imaginary cape and royal scepter, probably with a chili like motif, proudly shares to the world his ability to downed at least 350 pieces of Chili in a way of a common folk eating his favorite snack while watching television.

Artist rendition of Sili King during his prince days.

Everyone gotta start somewhere

I am not quite sure if this is the same guy who did a similar stunt way back in late 90s on national television wherein after eating a crapload of chilies, he celebrated his victory by suffering a high-blood attack and being treated by a medical team.

On the other hand, there are probably others try to attempt to secure a world record, maybe some of them fall on obscurity and never reached the media while others, well, they got universally known because they failed to get that covenant world record, even after the sheer number formula is followed.

The failed most number of simultaneous circumcision world record attempt

Well, circumcision is a very important part of a man's life. The organizers have a good intention but failed because the Guinness does not recognize the number of medical procedures within a set time or in a mass group due to hygiene considerations and risks. They also said medical procedures like cutting the foreskin of a guy should be undertaken only on the advice of a doctor and the patients' welfare should always be the primary concern.

Pictured: Circumcision

Maybe the organizers should consult first with the Gods of World Records before doing the world record. The good thing though, they circumcised the kids for free, a noble act despite the original intent was to have a world record. 

The essence of world record recognition starts to diminished when the record attempts became competitive in nature between countries. A world record, in my opinion, must be unique, unintentional in origin, interesting and importantly not fabricated.

From Super Puberty to Superman - A look back at Smallville

Clark Kent is now Superman.

Smallville, one of the few shows I regularly followed is now officially over after 10 seasons filled with awesomeness, cheesiness, what-the-hell-are-they-smoking episodes and DCness. I vividly remember seeing the first advertisement of Smallville back in 2001 but I never followed it even I am a Superman supermark. Back in the 80s I watched old Superman films, the one with Christopher Reeves, including the horrible part 3 and 4 in betamax.

Only around 2006 I managed to appreciate Smallville after watching Superman Returns and a officemate recommended me to watch his Smallville season 1 to 5 DVD. I think this was the first time I experience watching DVD marathons. I remember watching two seasons straight in the weekends. Meanwhile, season 6 just concluded and I managed to acquire a complete Smallville season 6 DVD and watched it in one afternoon. Later, I just watched all the episodes of Seasons 7 - 10 in weekly basis.

Smallville, is Clark Kent's journey before becoming the most iconic super hero ever, its like a better version of the old late 80s terrible Superboy series.The main character Clark Kent, played by a younger version of Christopher Reeve, Tom Welling, the resemblance was creepily uncanny.

The difference though the writers followed a very strict single rule, the no flights/no tights rule. Meaning, his popular primary colored tights and his ability to fly is not shown throughout the 10 seasons except in few instances. In the very last episode we finally see Clark wearing the tights and finally knows how to make himself fly, presented in a very nerd raging way, you can't barely see Tom Welling in the world's most famous suit, in it's all far away shot and all CGI glory. I don't know why not have Tom wear the suit and make the fans happy.

Seasons 1 to 4 primarily focuses more with Clark's high school life and being tormented internally with his first love, Lana Lang, played by the modern-day Chun Li, Kristin Kreuk. Seasons 5 till 10 has more plethora of DC characters, the setting is more on Metropolis, and the blooming relationship of Clark's Ying to his Yang, Lois Lane, played by the lovely Erica Durance.

The series has a very impressive cast, ranging from the awesome Michael Rosembaum, which is our Lex Luthor, to very holy shit there are so awesome, John Schneider and Annette O Tool, playing Clark's adoptive parents. We have the ever loyal best friend of Clark, Chloe Sullivan played by the equally sweet Alison Mack and we got the magnificent bastard Lionel Luthor played by the magnificent bastard John Glover.

Along the way,  they introduced some of DCs greatest creations like Justin Hartley and his Batman in green garb known as the Green Arrow and original ones, especially during the freak of the week stage back in Season 1 and 2.

Many fans, greatly disappointed in the finale due to not seeing Superman in it's all sparkling glory. Even we did not see him in closer view in the finale, we all know that he is now officially Superman since the main concept of the series is Clark becoming Superman. The whole series, even packed with a lot of filler and terrible episodes, was definitely super.

Television: Man's 2nd Best Friend / PINOY EDITION

Television, man's second best friend, enable us to watch any kind of entertainment right in our home. For decades, televisions provided us with awesome TV series, unforgettable news coverages and enticing documentaries, even way before we were given with Discovery, AXN, Jack TV and National Geographic channels.

Now, almost everyone has access to television and everyone has its own favorites and hated shows. Looking at the local channels though, I think they are degrading in quality and they focus more on star power itself and not giving high-caliber entertainment and information. Take a look on some current shows, I think most of them only survive in less than 6 months, you are lucky if you have a show managed to continue in six months even if the content and the stature sucks. I think the writers and producers has capabilities to concoct quality shows but hey, Philippine masses are the priorities, thus, we need to have shows that will fit to the major market.

On the other hand, I want to ramble things about our local television networks always show on our decades old SDTV, yes my old standard definition television is kicking ass and still the best TV ever. 

Filipino time on Philippine television
In a nutshell, Filipino time means being delayed for at least 30 minutes up to 2 hours, yet the scheduled or planned event still push through. For example, lets say the meeting, scheduled to start in 2:00PM, the attendees will arrive around 2:30PM and the meeting will start around 2:45PM after the last guy arrived. Same applies in some Philippine TV shows especially on prime time. Each shows starts and ends in different times, every single day.

Pictured: Scientific (with complex geometry) visualization of Filipino Time

They can push some shows a little late if there is more important matter that eats air time like a big ass breaking news or something. Whenever they show the schedule line up on-screen, they did not bother to include the time, just the order of shows.

Isn't hard to come up and follow a real linear schedule? If the problem was a lengthy run time of a single show then why not optimized it? like removing all the unnecessary scenes and managing the length of each episode. 

SIMILAR SHOWS BETWEEN NETWORKS
This plaque ravages our airwaves for many years now. Instead of creating original concepts, they try to make a cheat sheet based from other shows, high-fiving each other in delight, wash their hands thoroughly with holy water and voilà, a show similar to the other network.

 

The hell is this (censored)?

They try to outdo each other, toss them with pies that has "we are better than you" notes to each other and rampaging loyal fans will emerge from deep pits of hell somewhere in Manila and try to flame each other with badly written arguments in local message boards.

Competition is a healthy thing, yessirree, but at least the similar aspects of each competing show is subtle and the slice of originality should prevail.

OVER RELIANCE ON REMAKES OR RE-IMAGINED SHOWS
Count all the local shows that are remake of a very old series or a Korean soap operas (why is it always from Korea) or a hint of being re-imagined of an existing show. There are tons of them, not counting all the existing foreign soap operas shown locally.

Yess!!! A melodramatic remake with lots of snow and oriental looking actors on TV!

Why not focus to write original ones? maybe create a little homage to such shows but not completely recreate it and stapled it with a modern-day setting and masses obsessed Philippine culture. Why not we just ditch those writers and hire those foreign writers instead. Though if we manage to get them they will probably get mad and left us because when it is already scheduled, the meeting that is, their Filipino counterparts will always be late due to inherent following of the Filipino time.

One of the reasons why a lot of Filipino love remakes is they already imparted their lives to the original version. If you welcomed and hugged the original version really tight back then, why not welcome and hug a new original show?

TOO MUCH REALITY TALENT SHOWS
I like watching deserving people does their stuff. Dancing, singing even doing artsy stuff with sands I love watching and getting mesmerized with their skills.

Not including this one

Talent shows greatly showcases these people, but having many talent shows on each network is kinda redundant. If there is no immediate and major difference on all talent shows, just showing your talent by yourself or in group, why do you have tons of talent shows in different time and different days. Why not have one talent show on that channel and bam, throw all your freshly found talents on that show.

This way, that single talent show, crowned with prestige and everyone wants to join that show to boast their talent, no matter what it is, even if it is stupid like replicating the great Yoyoy Villame' antics which resulted in horrible way, to the world.

LEANING ON FRANCHISED FOREIGN REALITY SHOWS 
The reason some foreign reality shows are popular because they created it from scratch, maybe getting some tidbits from other shows. If they can conceptualized mind-blowing reality shows why can't we?

 You are doing it wrong sir

You will say they already throw every possible reality show idea but we can still think of something that can fit to our country. Maybe get a very little 1/3 of concept from an existing show, blend it in your blender inside your cranium and spit out a great reality show idea.  

We can still franchise some shows though but not rely on it completely, we can still throw our own reality show concept there and maybe, the viewers will bite and follow it religiously.

LOW-GRADE QUALITY OF SOME SHOWS
Well, like what I mentioned before, the Philippine masses is the priority, that is why we have brain farting ads everywhere even if the target market has low buying power. The proverbial different strokes for different folks strikes again.

Send in the NAVY SEALS! eradicate those shows

Sadly, we always rely on foreign shows and cable channels just to quench our thirst for entertaining shows. Like in some Filipino movies, 75% of time, it will be crap. There are still some gems here and there but a lot of Filipino produced series are... rubbish.

Aside from TV series, a number of news show relies more on sensationalize a piece of news than delivering facts and conveying it to the audience, of course, presented with professionalism. Some of them speak in heavy tone as if a microphone is in places sun does not shine. Even one of them will have a heart attack in any moment once they start speaking and throwing saliva in their mics.

Don't get me started with local showbiz shows with their insane obsession of absorbing celebrities private lives and orgasming in delight when a celebrity is going to a hard time like a break up or a relative who recently deceased.

We can't do anything to improve the quality content of our local shows unless the networks knows how to combine all the things loved by all classes and slap it to our faces silly and we enjoy every single second of it.

A Humble Movie Review: Thor

After almost a year later, I welcome you to another installment of a Humble Movie Review from yours truly who easily get amused with awesome movies that being mutilated around by hardcore snobbish film critics.

Marvel delivered another movie in a form of Thor, part of their ongoing Marvel Cinematic Universe stuff that will climaxed in next years potential blockbuster, the Avengers. Thor is one of those comic book characters I never followed even once. I read X-Men, Superman and Batman comics back then but I never read a single Thor comic. I think I never had a Thor trading card either (in a form of teks, the gambling for 80s/early 90s kids).

The Characters
I love how Thor managed to put himself together being send down to Earth realm, powerless and arrogant after meeting Jane Foster and company. The villain was also portrayed well, but the character being the real antagonist is already predictable as soon as you see him.

I love the way they give everyone decent screen time especially Thor's buddies and the Shield guys, including the mind-blowing cameo of Hawkeye. Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman (Thor and Jane Foster respectively) has great chemistry and the female crowd in theater always giggling in delight when they see Hemsworth without any shirt. Hemsworth is perfect for Thor, he engaged to the role very well, complete with convincing greek mythologyesque accent. His brother Loki fits the part with his mischievous and mysterious aura, and of course, sir Anthony Hopkins is the perfect father figure, he is like a walking, breathing living God.

The Presentation
Its your typical "You must learn stuff for your self" film. The story is well written and considering the titanic mythology of Thor, they managed to fit all the necessary stuff in a 2-hour plus movie and they presented them very well and not very tedious to watch. The movie, overall, was good, one of the best comic book based movies ever. The way they introduce the characters were well presented since like what I mentioned before, I never followed the Thor series.

The special effects greatly reminds me of Avatar especially the Asgardian realm scenes. Whenever Thor flies he greatly reminds me of Superman due to the red cape sans his big hammer that he swings around that turns him into a human helicopter. There are some slice of unexpected comedy injected in some scenes that may not tickle the funny bones of extreme movie critics, but for me, seeing someone got hit by a car in a hilarious fashion is already a laughter generator for me.

The Final Stuff
I give this movie 4 out 5 stars. Even if I don't have intense and geek level knowledge of Thor universe, I managed to enjoy watching the whole movie and gaining a new appreciation to a Marvel Superhero known as Thor, God of Thunder.