Novel Idea

January 7, 2009

Joining trade exhibits could be very difficult. With all the preparations needed to put up a – from lighting materials, banner stands, furniture and refurbishing the booth itself – just where do you begin?

Fortunately, there’s Camelback, a one-stop shop where start-up companies and even A-listers

can scour for everything they could possibly need when they intend to join trade shows, exhibits, expositions, or hold concerts and special events for product exposure.

Consider their display trusses for example, which features aluminum and steel structures that could be customized according to the client’s needs: be it modular, orbital, or box-type. The lightweight materials can also packed into special cases for easy delivery. The store also offers regular or retractable banner stands (which could be set up in seconds!) for outdoor and indoor needs; or life-sized cutouts that will surely catch the attention of potential clients and buyers. How cool is that?

Bullet points

October 18, 2007

 

Two nights ago, I heard shouts from outside and when I peeked, I saw our boarders fighting. The woman was shouting her lungs off while the man was sitting in the corner all subdued and very silent. The argument was about man’s total lack of financial support for their child. From what I understood, the woman was raising their kid alone somewhere in the province.

So I got bored listening to her and went back to my room to watch TV. I only heard a day after, since tattletales abound here, that the man slapped the woman allegedly leaving a mark on her face. I told one of our boarders to advise the woman to undergo a medical examination to file a case against his partner.

As it turned out, the woman already left for the province at daybreak. Of course, the man and his mother who we rented out our room to had to go. We don’t tolerate women-beaters here.

I’m not saying that she deserved it with her incessant nagging. I don’t know the whole story so this post is separate, though somewhat related, from what I just described above.

I read somewhere that a man speaks only an average of 2,000 words per day, while the average for a woman is about 22,000 words. That’s an amazing disparity. When you think about it, men could never joust tongues with women and expect to win an argument. Just when women are about to heat up, we are already stretched to our limit.

So don’t be angry if we clam up all of a sudden in the middle of the argument. We had to save a few of those 2,000 words for more important things like food, water, or beer. And by the time we get to the remote, all we have left is a growl.

Call us tomorrow instead so we can resume the argument.

Women, too, could never get drive their point across if they are going to bleed men’s ears with a deluge of words. Do you think we are still listening? Men are not hardwired to do that. From being kids, they are expected to be active and explore the world while the girls stay at home, play with dolls, and listen to mother as she breaks down the household chores for them. You know, in preparation for when they get married?

In cases of argument, don’t lash out and show your claws outright because you’d be seen as a direct threat. You goad, poke, and provoke and you don’t expect anything bad to happen?

Let’s review: If men are not hardwired to listen, how were they coached?  Men are driven by instinct. Sure, he can be trained through education, nurturing, and social interaction. However, that doesn’t take away his primal instinct to preserve himself, be the leader of the pack, compete, coordinate and resolve conflicts through direct actions.

Watch your man while he’s with his friends and you will hardly recognize him. He’s loud, raucous, callous, and coarse. Peer pressure? Not at all. That’s him in his essence, devoid of trappings of social customs and proper behavior since the pack has now become more real to him than all the non-representational societal politesse. Consider, too, that most thrill crimes – rape, mauling, stealing, or riots — are committed by packs.

I remember when I was involved in a riot. From a mere dirty look supposedly directed at one of my friends (which on hindsight wasn’t all that dirty to me) from the other table, the situation quickly escalated into taunting, bottle-throwing, and exchanging of blows. That wouldn’t have happened if one of the two tables was grossly outnumbered.

On the flip side, if one of those tables is outnumbered, he’d have been viewed as prey. My kuya had the habit of getting into fights. He never went out without his posse and sometimes I went with them and well, let’s just say, I have the knack of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One time, my kuya and about three of my male cousins ganged up on one man because he had the temerity to lay a hand on my girl cousin. Of course, while they were beating the man, I dug in and offered him a Pablo knuckle sandwich.

The higher the man climbs the ladder of abstraction, the better he is at controlling that instinct. In fact, the most successful marriages have men allowing themselves to be subjugated by their wives.

Along with that primal instinct is the longing (believe it or not) to protect and provide for women; that’s ingrained deep into their mammalian brains; a whiff of the days when Neanderthals hunt for food while women take care of the brood. 

Now it’s a matter of turning that knowledge into an advantage but I ain’t about to tell you how.

Though to drive your point across, I’ll give you a hint in two words — used most effectively in Powerpoint presentations and to explain cumbersome data.

Bullet points.

Crooked road

August 2, 2007

 

I wasn’t able to write about this immediately but I saw last week a student of about nine or ten years old adeptly swipe an FM radio from one of those sidewalk stalls along Crooked road.

Two steps towards the stall, reach out, lift, conceal, walk — all that took only a second or so. Of course, what I saw was the culmination of days of planning. That kind of seamless larceny doesn’t happen on a spur of a moment. He studied how the old lady manning the stall always seemed busy talking to somebody, a friend, a customer, or passersby. I know because I studied that vendor’s habits just to see how the boy did it.

Looking back, I think his timing was perfect. If I had to do it, I would have done exactly the same thing.

Let’s see, the time would be between 3:30 to 5 p.m. when the students or employees would have gone home from school or work. That way, the streets would be busy with students and workers. How is that important? Mornings wouldn’t have been as busy since people or students wouldn’t loiter around the area without risking being late for work or wherever students go these days. Plus, the vendor’s alert in the morning unlike in the afternoon when distractions and fatigue are sure to falter her sharp instincts.

Twice in a row I saw the same guy in a Muslim headgear taking up most of the lady vendor’s attentions at about the same time the crime occurred. This must be what the boy saw was the perfect opportunity.

Also, the thick crowd in the afternoon makes for a great screen to obscure the theft or, more importantly, a hasty retreat.

Being casual is the key. Who would anyone think an elementary student has the gall to steal in broad daylight?  The casualty can result to a potential witness second guessing himself, which in turn buys the boy some time to make his escape.

It’s rare for a witness who just watched a crime being committed to take action. Surprise renders the witness motionless while his/her mind process whether what he saw was real or not. The odds get higher if it was a first-time witness.

I wonder how the boy knew this.

His casual manner and the item he stole made me believe that it wasn’t his first time. I could understand if it was food he pocketed but an FM radio is so superfluous. This is something you brag to your classmates and friends afterwards. The kind you do on a dare. I wouldn’t be surprised if he narrated to his friends in detail how he pilfered the radio from a sidewalk stall.

I hate social profiling but the kid was clean, mestizo and quite portly. The kind of kid you see lounging around exclusive schools waiting for their ride home.  He’s got a Spiderman backpack which he hugged towards his chest to conceal the loot inside his white polo shirt.

I followed him towards Madayaw and while his behavior appeared casual enough, his strides was uptight, walking on tiptoe as his stance tilted at a nearly 45 degree angle — a taut little birdy in his first flight.

The traffic light at the intersection turned green. The boy stopped and I caught up with him and we were now standing side by side. His sandy hair reached out only to my solar plexus.    

I had to let him know that, you know, God was watching.

“Dong, unsa nang naa sa imong polo?” I asked him pointblank.

“Wala ‘ya oi,” he mumbled.

“Nakita nako naa ka gikuha sa tindahan ganina, asa to?” I probed, more stressful this time.

Subdued and anxious he showed me the loot, a black cube measuring 2” by 2” and still encased in plastic.

“Okay, tagoa na basi makita ka pa sa uban,” I said. “Asa ka uli?”

“Sa Matina ‘ya,” he replied, obviously surprised I didn’t turn him in.

I gave him P10 for fare back home.  

Snippets

April 18, 2007

Okay… I've transferred all my baggages from my old blogsource here to my new home, which is kickin'.

Ahhh… I just love the smell of new paint. I feel like I've upgraded my lifestyle or something and so have to scour around for new furniture. For the time being, however, I like my crib. It's easy on the eyes and I'm especially glad I have all these stones to throw to critics and haters out there.  

I wonder if I have friendly neighbors, though. Guess, I'll find out soon enough. 

——–o00————- 

This layout is cool. All I need now is a hammock and some pillows and I think I might settle here. 

But knowing me, I might change the layout tomorrow, which is fine, because this domain provides basic templates but still allow you to push some buttons for modification to suit your personality. Perfect for a technology-challenged idiot such as yours truly, hehehe.

It also comes with its own tagboard, which precludes me from all the hassle of signing up for a tagboard and trying to come up with a good username and password.  I have enough passwords in my mind already that I often mix them all up.

The web gods really outdid themselves this time. Good job man, er… god!

———–o0o———– 

I'm new at this blogging game. My first anniversary is still a good four months away but I've had a surprisingly fun time. Blogging to me has been like a dreamcatcher, which is a woven net or web used by native Americans to trap nightmares, only instead of nightmares, blogging traps my thoughts.

As I read back on some of the entries I reckon it would have been better if my thoughts just faded away.  Forgotten, like the P6.00 jeepney fare I should have paid the driver yesterday but didn't because, you know, I'm broke .

————–o0o————– 

The comments I got have so far been positive but there lies the rub.  Everytime , I get a positive feedback it perpetuates the fallacy that my opinions matter to everybody else. That my life matters to somebody.

I've always been insecure about my writing skills but unlike the journal (you know, with the old-fashioned notebook and paper), you get to read other blogs and be bowled over with their design. Now I have two things to be insecure about — my writing and my blog. Go figure.