Sore Losers

A sore loser is someone who loses in a fair competition but whines about it on a constant basis, blaming everyone around them for their loss except themselves. Fun to taunt, but no fun to play with.

Someone who can't simply be honorable, by accepting defeat and/or trying again. On the contrary, said individual or group engages in childish pissing and moaning; bitching about how it's not fair and the other side cheated, etc.

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Definitions from Urban Dictionary.

Welcome Back

Suspended, adj.. Printed on two tarpaulin banners in green letters on white background, the very first thing seen by the DLRT PEPT (sic) Squad when they turned and faced the Ateneo crowd for their customary angas routine during halftime at the game yesterday.



Oh, by the way, we won, 80-77.

The Best Fully Choreographed “Thriller” Reenactment By Prison Inmates You’ll Ever See

Hey. Our penal system works.

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Props up to Allan, PhD for the link.

On Writing Digests

She handed him a long, thin black quill with an unusually sharp point.

'I want you to write, I must not tell lies,' she told him softly.

'How many times?' Harry asked, with a creditable imitation of politeness.

'Oh, as long as it takes for the message to sink in,' said Umbridge sweetly. 'Off you go.'

She moved over to her desk, sat down and bent over a stack of parchment that looked like essays for marking. Harry raised the sharp black quill, then realised what was missing.

'You haven't given me any ink,' he said.

'Oh, you won't need ink,' said Professor Umbridge, with the merest suggestion of a laugh in her voice.

Harry placed the point of the quill on the paper and wrote: I must not tell lies.

He let out a gasp of pain. The words had appeared on the parchment in what appeared to be shining red ink. At the same time, the words had appeared on the back of Harrys right hand, cut into his skin as though traced there by a scalpel - yet even as he stared at the shining cut, the skin healed over again, leaving the place where it had been slightly redder than before but quite smooth.

Harry looked round at Umbridge. She was watching him, her wide, toadlike mouth stretched in a smile.

- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Double Whammy

For a couple of days, I and my former boss, had a nice little thread going about the phrase "double whammy." I saw the phrase in their website, and I thought two of the four pillars came crashing down the steps of the main building. (You can't really blame me. It's not only some run-of-the-mill double whammy, it's a "historical double whammy.") Apparently, no such disaster occured. My boss, who actually agreed with me, later on asked some people to make the necessary changes, only to be informed that neither of them has the authority to make the correction, that is oh-so-begging to be made.

As if that's not bad enough, what makes it worse, is that you are practically telling anybody with an IP address, that either there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth because of some horrible, unspeakable catastrophe, or you don't know squat about idioms.

Double whammy means "a double blow or setback." A whammy was originally "an evil influence or hex," and double whammy emerged not long afterwards. Wiktionary refers to the word whammy as "a serious or devastating setback" or "an evil spell; a curse or hex." It is never used in a positive context, and using it to highlight one of the better achievements of your institution in recent years, is like spending the rest of your life on a Caribbean island, sipping piña coladas and strawberry daiquiris with a hot, supermodel girlfriend, and calling it a curse. It doesn't make sense.

If my memory serves me right, this is not the first time they used the phrase. They used it before in the same context, thereby producing the same confusing and wrong result. Now, to me, that is what you call a double whammy.

Do You Have a Cheer?

"Save the cheerleader, save the world."
- Hiro Nakamura

Girls have been with the Babble since a few years after the UAAP came up with the cheering competition. It was weird for some of us, who came and went, without ever seeing a cute girl wearing a blue and white skirt prance at centercourt during halftime. From what I've heard, tradition did not go down without a fight.

Now, not only do you see girls cheering with the Babble during the halftime show, they also dance. Yes. They dance. You know, that stuff that other schools used to do during halftime because they had no cheering squads. Well, actually, they still do that to this very day, only now, they are wearing cheerleaders' uniforms, and chanting pirated cheers. Come on. We all used to make fun of that stuff.

Back in the day, before 2002, when every other team but the Bulldogs beat us, the Babble made sure that we never lost during halftime. You can go to the games knowing that the Babble will at least make your day at the half. Now, we have Kuya Germs' That's.

Please, for the love of everything good and holy, quit dancing during halftime. Maybe it's time to keep the dancing in the cheerdancing contest (which no Atenean I know has really cared about). If I wanted to see dancing, I'd watch Billy Joe's TV show.

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Notes on the UE game:

There were a couple of plays down the stretch in the game last Sunday, which made me think, "God, we really need a point guard."

We really, really need a point guard. Jai Reyes and Eman Monfort are shooters. They are, in fact, very good outside shooters. But, they are not point guards. The UE game, if anything, showed that our guard corps doesn't know what to do with the ball when the game is on the line.

(By the way, UP point guard, and former Eaglet, Mike Gamboa scored 25 points against NU last Sunday.)

Brain Teasers

Can you memorize the following in five minutes or less?

Every will, other than a holographic will, must be subscribed at the end thereof by the testator himself or by the testator's name written by some other person in his presence, and by his express direction, and attested and subscribed by three or more credible witnesses in the presence of the testator and of one another.

The testator or the person requested by him to write his name and the instrumental witnesses of the will, shall also sign, as aforesaid, each and every page thereof, except the last, on the left margin, and all the pages shall be numbered correlatively in letters placed on the upper part of each page.

The attestation shall state the number of pages used upon which the will is written, and the fact that the testator signed the will and every page thereof, or caused some other person to write his name, under his express direction, in the presence of the instrumental witnesses, and that the latter witnessed and signed the will and all the pages thereof in the presence of the testator and of one another.

If the attestation clause is in a language not known to the witnesses, it shall be interpreted to them.

Apparently, neither can I.

Res Ipsa Loquitur

Well, you have to hand it to whoever came up with this, uhm, campaign. After all, do you honestly believe that people would even care to take a second look, if it compared itself to the Tayabas Bible College?

Besides, having your school inside a mall just screams international.