Musings of Don Kishote….

The time i learned how to use computer, i got hooked into computer games.

From the PC Gorilla and Pong of the DOS environment to the present-day MMORPG games.

Under Windows 5.1, I used to like Sokoban, a challenge in problem-solving and logic. Then there was my first shoot-out game in Wolfenstein. I played this game during lunch. It is also on this game that i learned how to use “cheat codes” to enjoy the Difficult level.

Under Windows 98, i played a LAN game called Command & Conquer (C & C) , the original one. I was wondering then why my IT colleagues are quiet after lunch and huddled in their PCs. They were playing LAN game against the Engineers. But then, my boss noticed that the network goes down during lunchtime. Eventually, he discovered the reason and promptly ordered a sweep-delete of the game in all PCs with a stern warning.

On internet cafe gaming, i played Ragnarok, Gunbound, PangYa and MUOnline. I like GB and PY because I can play without buying top-up cards. The cards are only for points and gears. I also played Battle Realms and Age of Empires. I tried playing Starcraft but i founf the game slow and boring.

A friend showed me PC Halo, and i got hooked. I played from 9 PM till 4 AM and finally finished the game. Too bad the Halo 2 & 3 were for Xbox only.

These days, i have only two hardcore games in my laptop: Rise of Nation and Red Alert 2.

Rise of Nation (RON)

RON is like an improved version of AOE. I use cheat codes to speed things up and put the Game Level to Very Difficult. But hey, i only use the codes when the enemy has reached the third level ahead of me. I like to ‘tease’ my enemy by almost annihilating it, maybe leave 2 cities. Then I will pull back my troops and allow the enemy to re group and recapture some of my cities. Sometimes it takes me 3 hours to finish the game. The game starts from hunting village and progress thru various stages. You have to cultivate foods (crops and fish), gather timber, find some resources and build mandatory buildings like Trader, University, Church, and Library. You will also build defenses like Infantry, Cavalry and Towers in strategic corners of your village. Then you check for research on various industries to upgrade to next level. Things get hot when you reach the Information Age. By this time, you have to mine for minerals, pump oil and mechanized your army.

You are allowed to build 8 cities only. But you can add more as you conquer the enemy’s cities by  overwhelming air and ground assault. When the enemy is down to one city, then game is over.

RON also allows for use of nuclear weapons, but with negative consequence — Armageddon or Mutual Assured Destruction.  You or the enemy can unleash nukes up to 7 attacks. After that, game is over as either party managed to annihilate each other by nuke attacks. That is why i only use around 3 shots of nukes and then rely on my airforce and tanks to assault the enemy.

Red Alert 2

I like RA2 because it is a fast-pace game. I never use cheat codes here. I use to have the Yuri’s Revenge expansion pack, but it eats too much of my small HD space, so i settled for plain RA2. I like to play with two enemies, Easy Enemy and Brutal Enemy. Under Yuri’s, I can create teams and colors and i make sure i have a Yuri on my side. I then set the enemies to Random.

On RA2, i always choose America for its paratroopers. The toughest enemy thus far is the Soviet and Cuban forces. I find the Kirov airships and the suicide truck bombers as most annoying to handle. I like it fast-pace and most of the times i get defeated in less than a minute.

If I want an even play, I select only one Brutal Enemy. After setting up the Main Cosntruction Yard. I build one Power Plant. Then Barracks. I then click on machine gun nest, while building an Ore Refinery. While these two are building, i create soldiers and dogs. After the machine gun and Ore Ref, i build an airforce field so i can generate Rocketeers. I also order for anti-aircraft gun.

Now, depending on the  enemy distance (battlefield chosen), i may have enought rocketeers and paratroops to ward off initial attacks. There were times that my Construction Yard and War Factory had been destroyed, with only barracks, Ore Refinery and Airforce base left. If the enemy stops sending air raids, there is an even chance of defeating it by encircling enemy camp with sufficient ground troops to prevent enemy forces from counter-attacking my vulnerable camp. Preventing their ore miners from getting minerals will also weaken the enemy position.

But these are not the only games I play.

 I also played these Gamehouse and Popcap games like TextTwist, Bookworm, Bejeweled, Dynomite, Zuma, and Soduku. I also have this Kasparov Chess game.

I have 53 Popcap games but only installed Zuma and Bookworm.

Zuma is lethargic color-coded shoot-out game. You need to hit colored balls in three’s and prevent balls from falling into the trap by hittin combination-chain shots to hasten the destruction of the balls. It was my Lebanese friend Johnny Elias who introduced me to it. Before long, we were competing on who can get to higher levels. Ah, well, Johnny was stucked at Level 9, while i succeeded making it to Level 12. 

I like Bookworm so much i spent my whole day-off just to break the 1million points. I did finish 6.3 million points with carpal tunnel (CT) syndrome and back ache as reward . As you can see, all ten list of Action player is all mine. I like the Action Game because it is faster. The Classical is meant for first-timer as the tiles burn slowly.

My annoyance in Bookworm is that when i tried to submit my score to their online website, Popcap did not reflect it. Maybe because i was using a ‘hacked’ version of the game.

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My Sri Lankan friend, Ranjith, introduced me to this addicting shootout game of Air Assault. At first, i dismissed it as no-brainer. Later, i found myself competing with my housemates on who can finish first the entire game on Normal level. I was never able to make it past first level in Lagos. It was in Enugu i finally was able to find time (again, my Saturday day-off) to finally beat the game and finish it.

Be careful, these games can cost you your job. Or your health.

With the raging scandal against the Arroyo government, some little known betrayal by the government came to light. Thanks to Mr Carandang and Mr Quezon III.

Filipinos from all sectors, including CBCP,  should take this report with seriousness as we could end up with less than 1000 islands ahead of global warming effect.

Disclaimer: This article is posted here without prior permission. With apologies to the author.

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THE LONG VIEW
The Long View : Today the Spratlys, tomorrow Palawan

By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: February 27, 2008

MANILA, Philippines — His Excellency Diosdado Talamayan can still bask in being able to “Oye-Oye” the President, while His Excellency Fernando Capalla can still dream (of what, of Cristina Ponce Enrile  securing him a red hat from the Pope?). The President can thank them for their intervention in the Catholic  Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines and say, “Well done, good and faithful servants.”

And thanks to the good bishops, the latest assurance that a future Arroyo Presidential Library can be built in the Ateneo de Manila University will be a suitable monument to Jesuit principles in action. Senators Joker Arroyo and Juan Ponce Enrile may have failed to derail the Senate hearings, as they mightily tried last Tuesday, but as they say, God works in mysterious ways.

I am happy Bishops Talamayan and Archbishop Capalla successfully bought the President time, because only time can further expose the reasons why she is undeserving of continuing in office.

In Genesis, chapter 25:30-34, a mess of pottage (lentil soup) is what Esau gets from his brother Jacob:

“And Esau said to Jacob, feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint…

“And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.

“And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?

“And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he swore unto him and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.

“Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils….”

On Tuesday, a witness told the Senate that the Chinese insisted that the President leave her husband’s sickbed, because they were skeptical of the seriousness of the government with regard to the national broadband network (NBN) deal with China’s ZTE Corp. She complied, returning the favor of commissions being released in time to help the administration election campaign last May.

After repeatedly playing the China card, eventually the Chinese have to collect. What’s in it for them?

Recently, in “The Correspondents” program, the television news channel ANC’s Ricky Carandang began to zero in on what is ultimately at stake for China: the Spratlys. And what the President’s ultimate concession has been: to abandon, at least partly, the Philippine claim to part of that island chain. What Carandang reported locally has been investigated internationally, too.

Barry Wain, writing in the Far Eastern Economic Review (Jan-Feb 2008), puts it this way in “Manila’s

Bungle in The South China Sea”: “What most observers don’t realize is that in the last few years, regional cooperative efforts to coax Beijing into a more measured stance have been set back by one of the rival claimants to the islands.”

Our government left its regional partners in the lurch: “[T]he Philippine government has broken ranks with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which was dealing with China as a bloc on the South China Sea issue. The Philippines also has made breathtaking concessions…”

How? “President Arroyo’s agreement with China for a joint seismic study was controversial in several respects. By not consulting other ASEAN members beforehand, the Philippines abandoned the collective stance that was key to the group’s success with China over the South China Sea. Ironically, it was Manila that first sought a united front and rallied ASEAN to confront China over its intrusion into Mischief Reef a decade earlier. Sold the idea by politicians with business links who have other deals going with the Chinese, Ms Arroyo did not seek the views of her foreign ministry, Philippines officials say. By the time the foreign ministry heard about it and objected, it was too late, the officials say.”

And our government did so, by means of withholding information from its own people and its neighbors:

“Beijing and Manila did not make public the text of their ‘Agreement for Seismic Undertaking for Certain Areas in the South China Sea By and Between China National Offshore Oil Corporation and Philippine National Oil Company’… signed on Sept. 1, 2004…”

However, the cat’s out of the bag, and it includes, not just the Philippine claim to the Spratlys, but our own iron-clad territorial limits: “Now that the location is known, the details having leaked into research circles, the reasons for wanting to keep it under wraps are apparent: ‘Some would say it was a sell-out on the part of the Philippines,’ says Mark Valencia, an independent expert on the South China Sea. The designated zone, a vast swathe of ocean off Palawan in the southern Philippines, thrusts into the Spratlys and abuts Malampaya, a Philippine producing gas field. About one-sixth of the entire area, closest to the Philippine coastline, is outside the claims by China and Vietnam. Says Mr. Valencia: ’Presumably for higher political purposes, the Philippines agreed to these joint surveys that include parts of its legal continental shelf that China and Vietnam don’t even claim.”’

And so the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines has issued an open-ended demand for the President to revoke Executive Order 464. Can she? Will she?

The official response says it all: “This deserves very serious consideration.” Which means hell will freeze over first. Give an inch and the President is ever ready to take a mile.

What she needs is an ultimatum. Who will deliver that ultimatum? Not the hierarchy, but the public. How?

The Inquirer editorial put forward a suggestion yesterday. A nationwide stay-at-home strike: Leave the streets to the government’s “hakot” [hauled-in crowd] or the politicians aching for media mileage.

Will the citizenry step up to the plate? After 2010? By which time the Chinese Jacob would have secured the Philippine Esau’s birthright — for a mess of potage for Arroyo’s political party Kampi?

* * *

Ricky Carandang’s report is online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcQaa6IUiR0.

You can read the Far Eastern Economic Review story on the Philippine sell-out of the Spratlys to China at

http://www.viet-studies.info/kinhte/Manila_South_China_Sea.htm.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20080227-121585/Today-the-Spratlys-tomorrow-Palawan

I remember a joke on Family Planning. A haggard mother went to a health center for the monthly vacinnation of children. She brought along 9 children whose ages are like ‘do-re-mi’, less than a year apart. She was asked what her husband’s occupation, she said he is a ‘padyak’ driver. She was asked if they observe family planning, She said ‘yes’. “Nag rhythm po kami, kaya ito po resulta. Kasi mister ko, tuwing lasing, ayaw paawat.”

This report is just about babies born to teenagers. What about babies born to couples living below the poverty line?. This sector of women (teens and poor couples) probably contributed to the nation’s population explosion. And these are the people who do not pay taxes.

So why do Philippines have a runaway population explosion?

“The problem lies in the government’s sincerity in addressing issues about population growth and reproductive health,” Benjamin de Leon, FFPDI president, said in a news briefing in Quezon City on Tuesday.

I think their is a need to qualify this statement about the government’s sincerity on family planning issues.

Not that the government does not make efforts to promote modern family planning methods, but it so happened that we are a Catholic country. And the Church forbade any form of Family Planning, short of abstinence and rhyhtm. The result? — Poor and ignorant couple producing babies like rabbits. And the Church blames the government for it.

During the time of FVR ( a Protestant), the foreign-funded family planning program came under attack from Church right-wingers. It came to a point where priests threatened ex-communications to members who are known to advocate the modern methods. Donated contraceptive pills ended up as fertilizer for the orchids of the then-DOH Secretary’s mom.

In the end, the government and the taxpayers bear the burden of feeding, sheltering and clothing this sector. 

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By Marlon Ramos
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: February 27, 2008

MANILA, Philippines — While most girls their age are worrying about the gowns they will wear to their junior-senior prom, Marie and Leilanie, both 16, have more pressing things to take care of.

Leilanie, not her real name, is eight months pregnant and is searching for a way to get her 19-year-old live-in partner out of prison. He was arrested five months ago for stealing manhole cover in Caloocan City.

Wala po kasi kaming pera pambili ng pagkain kaya napagtripan niya ibenta yun (We had no money to buy food so he thought of selling the cover),” the timid girl told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net.

Leilanie said she wants to be with him when she gives birth to their first-born next month.

“I’m trying to be strong for our baby,” she said.

Marie, on the other hand, complained of getting little sleep at night because she has to attend to her three-month-old son and her baby sister.

Marie said she misses going to the mall with her friends and playing street games.

But I have learned to accept the reality of where I am now,” she said in Filipino.

“Nakakapagod lang po talaga mag-alaga ng bata, maghugas ng pinggan at maglinis ng bahay (But it’s really tiring to take care of a baby, wash the dishes and clean the house),” she adds, smiling.

Teenage pregnancy

According to the Forum for Family Planning and Development Inc. (FFPDI), Marie and Leilani are just two of millions of teenage mothers in the Philippines.

The group said the steady increase in the incidence of teen pregnancies in the country in the past few years has reached an “alarming stage.”

“The problem lies in the government’s sincerity in addressing issues about population growth and reproductive health,” Benjamin de Leon, FFPDI president, said in a news briefing in Quezon City on Tuesday.

1.7 million babies

De Leon said the latest data from the National Statistics Office showed that of 1.7 million babies born in 2004, almost 8 percent were born to mothers aged 15-19.

Almost 30 percent of Filipino women become mothers before reaching their 21st birthday, he said.

In 2000 alone, young mothers gave birth to 818,000 babies, he said.

“This means that almost one of every 10 babies is born to a teenage mothers,” he said.

He said this number could be bigger as births after March 5, 2005, were not recorded.

“We need to help these children for they are the next generation of parents, workers and leaders. In order for them to fulfill these roles… we must improve their access to education and information about sexuality and reproduction,” De Leon said in a separate statement.

Kiko dela Tonga, of Likhaan Foundation, said a recent study done by the Population Institute of the University of the Philippines showed that more than four million Filipinos aged 15-19 had already had sexual intercourse.

He said more than half of these are from poor families who do not have knowledge about contraceptives and reproductive health.

He said two of every five teenage pregnancies are unwanted ones; more than 46 percent of young pregnant women resort to induced abortion.

One of every four teenage mothers, Dela Tonga said, quit school to focus on child rearing or to find a job to help their families.

Risks

Medical studies likewise showed that 10 percent of babies born to young mothers are malnourished.

One of every five babies of teenage mothers dies of various causes, Dela Tonga said.

“These happen simply because young mothers are not ready emotionally, mentally and physically to rear a child of their own,” said Dr. Gloria Itchon of the Family Planning Organization of the Philippines.

Dela Tonga said although premarital sex has become prevalent among the youth, Filipino families have maintained its conservative view about sexuality and do not discuss the topic with their teenage children.

He said it’s very unlikely for typical parents to talk about issues regarding sex with their children.

“Although our society has become more liberated, it’s almost taboo for a family to talk openly about sex. But teenage pregnancy and premarital sex are the realities that the Filipino youth are facing,” he said.

De Leon lamented that the leaders of the Catholic Church are still opposed to the use of condoms and other contraceptives in their programs for reproductive health.

“We tried to present them the cases of (Marie and Leilanie). But they are just close-minded about the issue of artificial birth control methods,” he said.

“We’re not telling the youth to engage in premarital sex. What we’re saying is that should they fail to control themselves, there are available ways to protect themselves.”

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20080227-121434/Alarming-rise-in-teenage-pregnancies-noted