ELECTION FEVER: SMOULDERING HOT!

honestly, nagulat ako kasi i've met 30 or 40-something peeps here na never or once pa lamang nakakaboto.

and now that election fever is heating up, people are seeing more are attending the supposed opposition parties' rallies. nakakatuwa. pag tinanong mo dito kung ano ang mga partido for the elections, ang sagot ay PAP (the governing party) and opposition (which is around 3 or 4 other parties, all vaguely and simply dubbed as such). naalala ko tuloy sa pinas. opposition pero andaming partido (kaya kapag election, parang costume party ni rainbow brite & friends sa sobrang dami ng party colors LOL)

last night, close to 15,000 attended an opposition party in the aljunied grc. sa PAP, 1000 lang daw umattend. nakakagulat di ba? mukhang clean sweep for the opposition. hep hep hep. i did some eavesdropping and interviewing about that particular rally. magugulat ka sa mga sagot.

1. sabi ng isang kasamahan ko (who had her last day today btw), karamihan sa nagpunta for the rally ay sangkaterbang 'usi' lamang. in short, sumasagap lamang ng chismis. ang mga kuya at ate ay curious sa sasabihin ng opposition. susme, weeks before the election buzz, yung mga ministers pati yung PM, nasa talk shows - guesting. parang sa pinas, pag miting de abanse, andaming tao. kasi may artista, libreng pakain o libreng tambay.

2. according to witnesses, wala daw sense ang sinasabi ng ilang candidates. as in, they were just riding on the platform of the main players in their team. kumbaga, smile & wave to the crowd ang drama. o di ba, parang pinas lang!? some had no solid platforms too. all steam and no fire.

3. people are scared shit. yung kapatid ni boss, a teacher (therefore civil servant), believes that it is time for singapore to experience change through the opposition, PERO she will most likely vote for the ruling party. bakit? sige nga, isusugal mo ba ang nakagawian mong sistema? yung mga perks? yung laki ng benefits kahit maliit lang sweldo? nakakadalawang-isip di ba? eto pa. natatakot ang marami na kapag ang binoto nila ay opposition, malalaman ng government at pwede silang ikulong (which is not far-fetched kasi ang IC mo is connected to everything else. pag hindi ka nagbayad ng bills, simbilis ng kidlat, ma-trace ka nila); kaya gustuhin man nila bumoto, malamang hindi sila boboto.

4. people aren't comfortable to vote. some have never voted in their entire lives. sige nga, paano ka pipili kung since birth (referring to the current 18 year old kids), PAP lang ang partidong kilala mo. one can become doubting thomases of the opposition's capacity to lead. you have to understand that being part of the opposition, wala silang experience to run the government. the ruling party does.

5. people have become too lax when it comes to their suffrage. sabi nung kasama ko, buti na lang hindi contested ung grc namin; ayokong bumoto... ayokong mamili (malamang walang kalaban sa kanila. eh si lee kuan yew ang tumatakbong minister sa tanjong pagar. sige nga, kakalabanin mo ba ang taong bumuo ng kung ano ang singapore ngayon? sige nga!?). it's sad to note that younger s'poreans have lost the will to exercise their right to suffrage.

either way, it's going to be an interesting GE for singapore. still here. hey.

X-Men First Class: Watch How the Old Guys Play It Rough

x-men first class is showing here in singapore starting june 2. i can't wait. here are the prominently-featured mutants of this prequel. you have no idea how excited i am about the prequel.










CHARLES XAVIER


Xavier’s goals are to promote the peaceful affirmation of mutant rights, to mediate the co-existence of mutants and humans, to protect mutants from militant humans and to protect society from antagonistic mutants, including his old friend, the militant Magneto. To achieve these aims, he founded Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters (later named the Xavier Institute) to teach mutants to explore and control their powers.
Its first group of students were the original X-Men. Xavier's students consider him a visionary and often refer to their mission as "Xavier's dream". He is highly regarded by others in the Marvel universe, respected by various governments and trusted by several other superhero teams, including the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. However, he also has a manipulative streak which has resulted in several significant fallings-out with allies and students.
He often acts as a public advocate for mutant rights and is the authority most of the Marvel superhero community turns to for advice on mutants. Despite this, his status as a mutant himself and leader of the X-Men has only recently become public.









MAGNETO


Magneto was born Max Eisenhardt sometime in the late 1920s to a middle class German Jewish family whose father, Jakob Eisenhardt was a highly decorated World War I veteran.
Surviving discrimination and hardship during the Nazi rise to power, Kristallnacht, and the passing of the Nuremberg Laws, in 1939 Max and his family fled to Poland where they were captured during the German invasion of Poland and sent to the Warsaw Ghetto. Max and his family escaped the Ghetto, only to be betrayed and captured again.
His mother, father, and sister are executed and buried in a mass grave, but Max survived, possibly due to the manifestation of his powers. Escaping from the mass grave, he was ultimately captured yet again[16] and sent to Auschwitz, where he eventually became a Sonderkommando.
While at Auschwitz, Eisenhardt reunited with a Roma girl named Magda, with whom he had fallen in love when he was younger, and with whom he escaped the prison camp during the October 7th 1944 revolt. Following the war, he and Magda moved to the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, and Max adopted the name "Magnus". Magda and Magnus had a daughter named Anya, and lived uneventfully until one night when an angry mob burned down their home with Anya still inside. Enraged at the mob for preventing him from rescuing Anya, the young Magnus's powers manifested uncontrollably, killing the mob and destroying a part of the city.
Magda, terrified at Magnus' power, left him and later gave birth to the mutant twins Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch before walking away to die. Wanted by the authorities for the deaths and destruction in Vinnytsia, while searching for Magda, Magnus paid a Romanian forger George Odekirk, to create the cover identity of "Erik Lehnsherr the Sinte gypsy" for him.




MOIRA MACTAGGERT


Born Moira Kinross to Scottish parents, Moira MacTaggert was one of the world's leading authorities on genetic mutation, earning her a Nobel Prize for her work. She was the longest running human associate of the X-Men and was Professor Charles Xavier's colleague, confidante, and also once his fiancée, having met and fallen in love with him while they were postgraduates at Oxford University.
She ended their engagement when for reasons unknown she married her old flame, the late politician Joseph MacTaggert. Joe proved to be an abusive husband; Moira separated from him after he beat her into a week long coma and, as it is implied, raped her, leaving her pregnant. She kept her son's existence a secret, and when Joe refused her a divorce she allowed people to believe she was widowed.
She eventually created a Mutant Research Center on Muir Island, off the coast of Scotland. Moira was forced to contain and imprison her son Kevin, later called Proteus, when he developed reality warping abilities and severe psychosis. One of Moira's goals was to understand human/mutant genetics, in order to cure her son.





HAVOK


Havok generates powerful “plasma blasts”, an ability he has had difficulty controlling. He is the son of Corsair, the younger brother of the X-Men’s Cyclops and older brother of Vulcan. He often resents Cyclops’ authoritative attitude and reputation as a model X-Man.
In contrast, Havok and his longtime love interest Polaris have had a love/hate relationship with the team, often finding themselves roped into it. Both were also members of the 1990s-era Pentagon-sponsored mutant team X-Factor. After X-Factor disbanded, Havok starred in Mutant X, a series in which he explored a strange alternate reality. He has since returned to the X-Men, later taking over his father's role as leader of the Starjammers to bring Vulcan's reign over the Shi'ar to an end.
















MYSTIQUE


Throughout most of her history, Mystique has been a supervillain, founding her own Brotherhood of Mutants and assassinating several important people involved in mutant affairs. Mystique herself is a mutant, a shapeshifter whose natural appearance includes blue skin and yellow eyes. At one point, she mentions that she is over 100 years old. Mystique is the mother of the villain Graydon Creed, the X-Men hero Nightcrawler, and adoptive mother of the hero Rogue. She is forced to abandon Nightcrawler, but raises Rogue for a number of years, and the two women have mixed feelings towards one another.
Later, anti-mutant sentiment among normal humans rises and the federal government launches its own covert anti-mutant program, Project Wideawake. Believing that the times have become too dangerous for the Brotherhood to continue its criminal activities, Mystique goes to Doctor Valerie Cooper, special assistant to the head of the National Security Council, and offers the Brotherhood's services to the government. Cooper agrees to convey the offer to the President on the condition that the Brotherhood passes a test she imposes: the capture of Magneto. The Brotherhood, now renamed Freedom Force, succeeds in bringing Magneto to the authorities, though only because he voluntarily surrenders to them so he can go on trial for his crimes and soon afterward officially enter the government's employ.
Mystique is later nearly killed by Dr. Valerie Cooper, who is under the Shadow King's mental control. She then impersonates Dr. Valerie Cooper. Mystique is eventually discovered impersonating Dr. Cooper, and saves Xavier's life by killing the Shadow King's human host, Jacob Reisz. She finally reconciles with Rogue. In time, she comes to terms with Destiny's death. She teams with Spiral and Wolverine in thwarting Mojo's near-destruction of the universe. Mystique later briefly stays as a guest at Xavier's mansion. She begins going insane, and leaves the mansion under the care of Forge.




ANGEL SALVADORE


Angel Salvadore is fourteen years old when her mutation first manifests, and she is driven out of her home by her abusive step-father. The following morning, she wakes up in a cocoon. She emerges with a pair of insect wings. She is later captured by U-Men, humans who harvest mutants for their body parts for their own use. Wolverine rescues her from a mobile operating theater. He kills all the U-Men and offers to escort her back to Xavier's school. They stop at a diner along the way, which is a mistake as the owner is insane because of his fear of mutants. The owner attacks them when he sees Angel digesting her food like a fly.
At first Angel doesn't fit in well, especially with Emma Frost. However, Emma took Angel's attitude to be a challenge, instead opting to take Angel under her wing as a mentor and mold Angel into a sophisticated young woman. She later helps the X-Men fight the menace of Cassandra Nova by working with the Stepford Cuckoos and stealing needed DNA samples.
After accepting a bet to kiss Beak, her classmate in the Xavier Institute's "Special Class," Angel grew close to him, and they began to see each other romantically. Angel, Beak and the other Special Class students would be part of another confrontation with the U-Men, deep in the woods on the Xavier Mansion grounds. Angel is the only one to see Xorn brutally murder the U-Men. He convinces her to keep it their secret.
Later, Beak was made an X-Man and Angel and their children lived in a home on the Xavier property. Beak was then unhinged from time and joined the Exiles, ostensibly to prepare him for a future event during which several worlds will be threatened. As a result of this displacement, he was for a time unable to interact with beings from his home timeline, and Angel and their family believed him to have run away. Only by serving with the Exiles could he win them back.




AZAZEL


Azazel claims that many years ago an ancient horde of demonic mutants from biblical times called the Neyaphem were in an epic battle with a group of angelic over-zealous mutants, named the Cheyarafim. They were victorious in the battle and vanquished the "evil" mutants to an alternate dimension for all eternity. The Neyaphem's leader, Azazel, was the only one who was able to breach the dimensional void for brief periods of time due to his teleportation powers. His only hope to return to earth was by impregnating women because his children are linked to his dimension.
About twenty years ago, Azazel began mating with women who had strange appearances, at least with looks and abilities other women didn't have. He met Mystique in Germany, at the time she was married to a rich castle lord named Baron Christian Wagner, who was unable to give her children. When Mystique was introduced to Azazel, whom Christian knew as a business partner, she had an instant attraction to him. Although she was hesitant to betray Christian, she gave in to Azazel and they made love. Not much later, Mystique was pregnant with Nightcrawler. While Mystique had actually fallen in love with Azazel, he seemed only to be interested in impregnating her, but, in truth, Azazel found himself actually loving Mystique, making her the only woman he ever truly loved. Shortly after his "mission" was complete, Azazel left Mystique, knowing that she would be safe being the woman that she was.
Soon afterward, Mystique killed Christian and buried his body because he suspected her betrayal. A few months later, Mystique gave birth to a child. Due to the shock and the strain of the boy’s difficult delivery, Mystique lost concentration and accidentally revealed her true form. Considered a demon, Mystique was chased away by an angry mob. Barely escaping, she tossed the baby down a ravine. The child was teleported away, apparently by Azazel, and given into Margali Szardos’ care. Azazel had past relations with women before, resulting in the births of Abyss and Kiwi Black.
Azazel sired several dozen other children, who were all mysteriously called to gather and sacrifice themselves on the island known as the Isla Des Demonas. Doing this would open a portal and bring his army to earth to destroy the Cheyarafim, allowing the demonic mutants to live in the world and find their place in it. The mutant children worked together in a zombie-like state and opened the portal to Azazel's dimension, but the X-Men had followed Kurt to see where he was going and jumped into the portal. Once inside, Azazel took great pleasure in toying with the team, having them believe that he was actually Satan.




BEAST


Throughout his history, the Beast undergoes progressive transformations to his physiognomy, permanently gaining increasingly animalistic physical characteristics. These include blue fur, feline facial features, pointed ears, fangs, and claws. His physical power increases to even greater levels, as do his senses.
Despite his inhuman appearance, he is a brilliant man of the arts and sciences; he is a world authority on biochemistry and genetics, the X-Men's medical doctor, and the science and mathematics instructor at the Xavier Institute (the X-Men's headquarters and school for young mutants). He is also a mutant political activist. Fighting his bestial instincts and fears of social rejection, the Beast dedicates his physical and mental gifts to the creation of a better world for man and mutant. He also has a witty sense of humor.
One of the original X-Men, the Beast has appeared consistently in X-Men-related comics throughout the years. He has also been a member of the "all-star" teams the Avengers and Defenders.














EMMA FROST


An urbane, mutant telepath with a well-noted dry wit[1] initially known as the White Queen (complete with revealing white attire for which she is known), Frost has changed from one of the X-Men's most dangerous foes to one of its most central members.
Emma Frost was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to the wealthy Winston and Hazel Frost; she is the second of three daughters and also had an older brother, Christian Frost. Winston is cold, ruthless, and domineering, often imposing impossibly high standards on his children, while Hazel abuses prescription drugs to cope with the tensions of her household. Thus, Emma obtains no emotional support from her parents or her sisters Adrienne and Cordelia, but gets along with her gay brother Christian.
At her school, she is ruthlessly teased by the other students and has difficulties with her grades. She is supported by her teacher, Ian Kendall. After some time with headaches, her telepathic powers begin to manifest, allowing her to read the minds of other students and get answers to the tests. Because she is able to glean information, Emma becomes a tutor to other students and Ian recommends her to be a teacher, something Emma's father refuses.
On her way home from school one day, Emma's car breaks down and Ian gives her a ride home. After reading his thoughts and learning that he thinks she is beautiful and intelligent, Emma kisses him. Her sister Adrienne records it and her father uses the evidence to get Ian fired. Emma begins to fight back by revealing Adrienne's secret modeling career and taking pictures of her father with a mistress. Her actions intrigue her father, who says that she reminds him of himself at her age. Her father chooses her to carry on his fortune, but after seeing her father betray her trust and commit Christian to a mental institution following a suicide attempt, Emma rejects his offer and decides to make her own way in life.[10]
After a period of homelessness, Emma meets and falls in love with a young man named Troy, who agrees to let Emma live with him. She learns that he owes a large amount of money to a local mobster named Lucien. In order to save Troy's life, Emma agrees to participate in a fake kidnapping scheme in an attempt to extort the remainder of Troy's debt from her father. However, Winston refuses to pay the ransom, and Troy is killed while valiantly attempting to save Emma from an enraged Lucien. After disposing of Troy's corpse, Lucien's thugs handcuff Emma to a pipe and seal her mouth shut with duct tape, intending to kill her later. Adrienne releases Lucien's ransom video to the media, forcing Winston to pay for Emma's safe release. Not content with the money, Lucien still decides to kill her, but by using her powers, Emma turns the thugs against one another and then forces the remaining henchman to free her.

***
i used to collect x-men trading cards when i was in primary school. i think some of my cards are still around, back in the philippines. so you know how much i look forward to x-men first class.

still here. hey.

WHILE EVERYONE ELSE IS OUT OF SINGAPORE FOR THE LONG WEEKEND, i am stuck at home, bored, penniless, hungry for some pasta, and watching crappy free movies online. although i have tons of work, my brain is on holiday mode, and so i am both feeling too tired and too bored to work.

i hate it when my brain says "beach party" but my pocket says "better stay put."
LOL i miss my wife's spaghetti.

HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY, EVILREBORN.
Blow your candles on April 27th.

i miss the noir. some photos i took yesterday and the day before that.









i'll be out for visita iglesia today. i hope to shoot more pics.

it's almost 3am, and i'm posting on tumblr during good friday.
very un-religious. but i had to. i had an effing bad day yesterday.

i went to work earlier than everyone else. and i get a call that my kid needed to be rushed to the hospital. i go through my work, unfocused, for the duration of the day. then went to khatib for a 1.5-hour writing class.

the coordinator calls me along the way, and says that three teachers would come late - two of them got lost, riding the wrong bus and one was duped to believing there were no classes today.

at school, my kids didn’t listen to a word i said. everyone was on “holiday mode.” i ended up psyching the kids by doing a reverse rant - it’s saying that the situation sucks, but subtly in the reverse, like “this is the worst day of my life, thank you for giving me the opportunity to experience it,” then closing the statement with a smile.

none of the kids listened; no one even cared that i said my kid was in the hospital. there was a lot of bickering in class, since someone was picking on the kid who had mild autism. apparently, “someone” took his pen (eventually we found that he merely dropped it under the table. or did he?). i couldn’t finish any lecture, so i just asked them to write about some stuff. it was the worst class i had ever taught, since i broke all my personal principles: no ranting (reverse or otherwise); no loud voices; no pop quizzes when angry. i felt like i was one of the ‘terror’ teachers we might encounter in public primary schools in the philippines (or here).

i went back to the office an hour later, only to find out the milk brand lady hasn’t seen the advertorial we made the day after. i told her to have a look at it before we could run it to the printers. she comes back to me saying she wanted amendments. then she started asking why it ran for just one page. i tried explaining it to her. this i did while i was coordinating the amendments to the designer, measuring a packaging concept, and receiving a message from back home saying my kid had UTI.

my brain’s too fudged up, too tired as well. can’t even think of longer sentences. hearing people speak fragmented english is bad for the vocabulary. believe me, it’ll make your ears bleed. (and then they still give you a remark like, “you’re filipino right? too many R’s. that’s why can’t understand english lah. try to study OK?” then they give you the puzzled look. darn it.)

classic effing bad day.