Never Has A High Profile Beauty Ever Bestowed Such Attention On Me

The original post is here 

That 50 Million Sure Is A Wacky Number

This was the original post then shared by the attorney.

Huh ? The same people condemning a 50 mil cauldron were okay with 50 mil per senator during Corona televised circus https://t.co/iiDlsCkgsJ

— Ed Lopez (@edrlopez) November 22, 2019

Five Most Depressing Songs Of The 80s

Read Ed Lopez's answer to In your opinion, what are five of the most depressing songs from the 1980's and what makes them so depressing? on Quora

My Attempt At A David Letterman Style Joke

You know what I can't stand about teaching English are the people who have bad pronunciation, defective subject / verb agreement, faulty conjugation, using laughter as punctuation. And that is just my fellow teachers. 

Why Do People Love To Quote Movies

I gave this answer in Quora. 

Why do people spent so much time quoting movies?

Ed Lopez, former Credit at Long and McQuade (1988-1994)

Answered just now

Let’s start with some observations.

1. A lot of work goes into a movie script. A long time ago, movie theaters used to run this particular PSA about keeping quiet during the movie. It was set against some scenes from the Coen brother’s Barton Fink. John Turturro on a typewriter accompanied by stats explaining how much work goes into the script of a movie. Of course their message was to respect the work that goes into the precise words
2. Who knows how many movies one sees in a lifetime? I am 53 and I have no idea. Of that number , how many of them actually emotionally register with you that you care about reciting lines from them in certain situations?

I was never good enough to write professionally but I write anyway . My goal was to make a connection with the reader the same way other writers make a connection to me when I read them. A movie line though is even more than that. It is a situation, build up music , the way the actor says the line etc. Like the line from a very young Jennifer Connely in Labyrinth .

It is that moment of truth , that realization. A certain line will stick to you. Like this one.

If my memory serves Rhett had enough of the drama and says bye bye. He has reached his tipping point. Haven’t we all been there?

The key word here is resonate. Different things resonate with different people. For some it’s song lines, others it is movie dialogue. For some it is their personal situation when they encounter something . Meryl Streep wrote the creators of the Mamma Mia musical that they were able to provide all this joy in the context of the Sept 11 attack.

I love quoting Spinal Tap , Hans Gruber and Marko Ramius. Doesn’t love make the world go ‘round?

Beware Of Fake or Hoax BDO Emails Claiming Your Account Is Temporarily Unavailable

Just today ( August 8 2019 ) I got this email. 

The exact wording if the picture is too small for you is as follows: 

On Thursday, August 8, 2019, 4:45 PM, BDO Unibank <callcenter@bdo.com> wrote: Dear Valued Client, Greetings from BDO Unibank. Please be advised that we need to verify your account as a part of our regular review to avoid certain interruptions of our services. Your account will remain temporarily unavailable until it is fully verified, This is necessary to maintain the safety and integrity of your account. You can verify your account by clicking the link below https://online.bdo.com.ph/ These communication channels are available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Thank you for banking online with us! The BDO Unibank Important: Please save this message for future reference

What caught my eye is the phrase "temporarily unavailable " which will probably catch your eye too if you depend on your ATM card like most of us do. These guys want to scare you into immediate action so bad that you may not take certain precautions. Precautions like using Google or logging into your account independent of the email you just got. 

Please note the email address (  BDO Unibank [callcenter@bdo.com ]) 

A quick Google search for that address produces the legitimate email address/ url  of BDO ( Banco de Oro) 

As you can see , everything legitimate BDO does online has a '.com.ph' domain not a just a ".com". Lastly as a  blogger I know that just because something is highlighted , it doesn't mean what you see in the email is the exact link it will go to. For example just because you see   https://www.bradpittwasclonedfromedlopez.com    it does not mean you will go to that URL. Try it. 

On the actual email you see the real URL of BDO which is https://online.bdo.com.ph  but it does not go there. In fact when you run your cursor over it ( on a desktop/ laptop)  you can see where your browser  is really going As I show in the illustration above.

Bottom line, the more dire the consequences, the more time you should take to investigate. Google is your friend.  I wish BDO had examples of this kind scam online and even shut down the urls  ( for example https://www.engineersinstitute.com/BDO-Online-Banking/Redirecting.php?_=1\ )   of these people spoofing.


Ed

Derwood Flange

 Derwood Flange, if memory serves was a character used in 7-11 Canada radio ads in the early to mid 80s./  I Google  / YouTube searched  any kind of reinforcement of this and I don't seem to find anything . 7-11 back then was Slurpees , wheelies and burritos . Now that I am in the Philippines , 7-11 has decent coffee plus the chocolate section and Heineken . No sign of Derwood Flange.

Why Some Details Seem Completely New When Watching A Movie Again

The second time around you know how everything will end. Most of the mystery is gone. Now you are watching for appreciation. Now you are watching to connect the dots knowing where the dots will end. You may be using the same level of attention and focus but previously a lot of it was spent wondering where you will end up. You don’t have that burden the 2nd time or the 8th time.











Link To The Original 

Simple Philosophy of Lebowski

Big Lebowski Life Goes On GIF from Biglebowski GIFs

https://tenor.com/view/big-lebowski-life-goes-on-jeff-bridges-gif-4966806



Link 

Because We Are Selfish

I got this from  pages  173-175  of one of my favorite books Season On The Brink. It is a non-fiction book yet I get stressed out reading this. Bobby Knight has that effect on people. Bobby Knight was also a gifted teacher. These three pages always contained so much for me. Including:

• Be in the game even if you are not "in the game".
• Be supportive of any teammate 
• The best thing a sport can teach you for the rest of your life is how to compete. 
• If you are selfish on the court then you are also selfish in life. 

If somebody doesn't like something to the degree you like  that same thing then the tendency is to say " they don't get it" .   Well when I was looking up the Goodreads link to this book I read a bunch of people who " don't get it." When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. You might learn a lot from this book. What to do and what not to do. It is very real. If you get something from the following three pages , who knows what you can get reading the whole book? 

Ed

"I want to tell you people about Todd and about Stew," he 
said. "I'm not sure anyone in here gives us more than Todd does. 
He's got bad knees, so bad he maybe shouldn't even be playing. 
I looked down the bench at him at the end of the game, he's got 
tears rolling down his cheeks — and he didn't even play. 

"Andre, I looked at you and you were no more into the game 
than someone sitting in a home for the mentally ill in Northern 
Indiana. We've got guys like Todd rooting like hell for you, and 
when it's your turn to root, you just sulk. I think there are people 
here in this room who resent that." 

Knight paused. "If any of you disagree with my assessment, 
say so. I'll respect the hell out of you for standing up and dis- 
agreeing." Knight waited. No one said a word. He went on. 

"I want to tell you something else, Andre, you too, Todd Jad- 
low. Stew has been here four years. He's helped us win some big 
games. He's started, he's come off the bench, he's not played at 
all. He had no idea Sunday how much he would play, if at all, 
and there was no one more into the game than he was. If we had 
fifteen guys like that, this team would be a lot different than it 
is." 

More than anything. Knight was philosophical. "You know, I 
tell you all the time that basketball is thinking and playing smart 
and working hard. You hear that so much from me you probably 
stop hearing it after a while. But I was thinking this morning 
about Scott May. I can remember Scott May coming in here on 
Sundays, his one day off, and working for two hours on not 
walking with the basketball. He ended up a two-time All-Amer- 
ican and player of the year as a senior. And I'll tell you something, 
he didn't have any more athletic ability than a lot of you do. But 
he wanted to compete so much, he made himself better. 

"See, boys, basketball should be your favorite class. Because 
what basketball has done for teams here in the past is taught those 
kids how to compete. That's a great thing to learn. I guarantee 
you we've had players who have sat in the classroom with people 




who had 3.7 cums, who they no way should have been able to 
compete with after college, and have gone on and done much 
better than those kids did. 

"Why? Because they knew how to compete. They knew how 
to stay after something. They knew how to get knocked down 
and get up. Those other guys, 3.7 and all, some of them couldn't 
sell handwarmers to eskimos. But until this team, or the last two 
teams, we always had players who wanted to play and wanted to 
compete. I feel like with you guys that you are required to play. 
And I hate using that word — required." 

The lights were off in the locker room, the tape machine was 
frozen right behind where Knight stood. He hadn't raised his 
voice once, but he certainly had everyone's attention. "Let me 
take a wild guess at something here," Knight went on. "On 
Christmas night, all of you had dinner at Dr. Rink's house. I 
would imagine that Mrs. Rink spent the better part of three 
days cooking that dinner for you. What did you, as a team, do to 
thank her for dinner? Tell me. Did you all kick in a dollar to 
send her some roses? Did anybody write a thank-you note? 
Anybody? Speak up, anyone who did anything to thank Mrs. 
Rink." 

He looked around the room. No one looked back. He turned 
to Alford. "Steve, why do you think I was able to ask that question 
with absolute and complete confidence that no one had done any- 
thing?" 

"Because we're selfish." 

"Exactly. And that is reflected in the way you play basketball. 
The most selfish thing in the world is only worrying about guard- 
ing your man or only worrying about boxing out your man. If 
Winston helps me when I lose my man, you better believe I'm 
going to try like hell to help on his man when he needs it. But 
you don't do that. You just worry about yourselves. And as long 
as you do that, you'll continue to play selfish basketball, you'll 
continue to make the mistakes that cost us this game and you 
won't be able to beat anybody. Think about it." 

This time, when Knight left his players alone, they did have 
something to think about. As the coaches followed Knight out of 
the locker room, Kohn Smith said softly, "Now that was coaching." 



The next morning, Mrs. Larry Rink received two dozen roses, 
courtesy of the Indiana basketball team. 

What Dream World Are You Living In Where Politicians Tell The Truth

I was reading this.


Here is my response to a troll there.

But you are the same guy who advocates:

a) a former presidential wanna be who name drops a a lame political family in the backdrop of the one of the worse storms in Philippine history
b) You favor a political party that loves to photo opp Muslims and born again Christians in a Catholic mass.
c) You favor a former president who loves to deceive the public with red herring dates with beauty contestants during his time in office just to obfuscate the fact that both feet are firmly in the closet
d) you favor Mr. Whip It Good who favors your political political party of choice by intentionally changing code to alter the VP race
e) Aforementioned V.P. of choice did not tell the truth about her affair with someone who likely has a wife
f) You favor a detained Senator who lied about getting driven by her driver without a car and there are even videos to prove it.

Yet you : 1) come down hard on Sara Duterte saying politicians lie when the ones you so brazenly shill for lie left and right and can’t even come out of the closet. 2) You are loyal to the yellows and not your country. The yellows who can’t tell the truth and kept their relevance by cheating the FIlipino of their vote.

Filipinos Seem To Be Okay With Cheating In The Elections

David Lee Roth Quote

It was the mid 80s and I used to record the rock documentaries that the local FM stations used to play. It was always interviews with the stars and then their music played. This was so long ago that Van Halen had the original line up. I can't remember the question to David Lee Roth that brought the following quote on but who cares? If anybody can produce audio it would be cool. 

Success is never final
Failure is never fatal
The third most important part of that quotation is , it's not whether you win or lose. It's how good you looked.

JBL Glorietta And Other Time Wasters

" it seems such a waste of time , but that what's it all about"

- Billy Joel



 All of us buy things. Part of the cost of buying something is your time and whatever it costs. The key to happiness in life is reasonable expectations. If you have to lie to a customer then you do not deserve that customer.

You know all that . Well let me tell how it happened to me today Feb 1 2019.

Where :
JBL Bonifacio High Street B3, Bonifacio High St., Bonifacio Global City, Taguig 0917-779-4594 (02) 799-9344

In the end it does not matter what I bought. The fact is I bought something and by now you might reaize that I got more than I bargained for. The simplest way to tell this story is with a simple time line then fill in the rest later

12:30 PM- My credit card is authorized for the amount of the purchase . Standard operating procedure is that the product is opened and tested. Right away I knew one channel was not working but they were blaming it on lack of a charge. I was being called to my lunch so I told them I will charge it with my powerbank and I will return if there is anything is wrong.

1240 I leave JBL B3, Bonifacio High St

140 PM I return to JBL and they do further charging and testing. They then finally agree with what I told them earlier that the product was defective. They said they will send somebody to the other store and I asked how long will that take? Where is this store. The answer was Megamall. I balked at that idea. Silly me. That may have been the last truthful statement I will hear while sitting in that store. I was then told of the " Glorietta " store. So I said since I live closer to that place why can't I get it there? "It has to be processed here " he countered.

210 PM I am showed to their home theater demo room. It just me and Dwayne Johnson in Skyscraper. This serves to pacify me for maybe an hour till I realized very few things add up. The ETA he gave me earlier was less than an hour. This is Makati/ Manila Friday afternoon traffic we are talking about.

335 PM I left their home theater thinking I will survive not knowing what happened to Dwayne's daughter. BTW for a movie shot in Hong Kong it is hilarious that almost every car in that movie had the driver on the left seat of the car. I confronted him that when I made the decision to buy something there I did not want a stay in that store till 4 PM as part of the purchase price. We were well over his ETA. You will love his counter offer. He wanted me to upgrade ( which means more money for him and the store) even offering a woman's product which was mentioned right there on the box. He did not make any apology for not warning me. For not giving a disclaimer it was a woman's product.

I countered with the fact that they wasted this much of my time and I did not exactly feel like rewarding them. I told him I was willing to walk out of the store and complain to JBL that I have no product and at no time did he ever offer a refund.

Further defensive behavior . He kept  calling his staff tasked to go the "Glorietta" store . He kept offering his staff advice to ditch the bus and start walking/ running. I doubt the guy was coming from "Glorietta". The product eventually came and they asked to see my ID. Strange , the antagonist in this story never volunteers his name but he wants my ID.

435 PM . The unnamed clerk called me a GRAB and walked me to it. Never gave his name or a card or anything. Just the usual pinoy pacifier "pasensya lang sir". 

The Grab driver was fine as the bulk of them are. I tried telling this story but I am not sure I gave it justice. I will try to send this to JBL Philippines head office +632865 2317 . 

Forgive me but as a customer I think I have realistic expectations like:

• realistic time estimates
• offer of a refund if the item I paid for is defective and there is no working substitution 
• not to have a product marketed to the feminine part of the target market offered as an upgrade substitute. 
•  offer an upgrade that requires additional charge AFTER the initial purchase. Hours after the initial purchase. It is self serving. 
• not spending between 2-3 hours after payment in the store . I walked into your store out of my own free will and spent money. Respect my time. 
•  fabrication of fantasy branches. Respect my ability to Google 
•  be accountable for short comings and just be honest.

In short , since I have no intelligence to insult, please don't insult my stupidity. As I looked over to see how much I have to pay Grab. The name on it : Al Loreto . Too bad I can't give Al five stars for putting up with my rant during  the ride over.




JBL Bonifacio High Street B3, Bonifacio High St., Bonifacio Global City, Taguig 0917-779-4594 (02) 799-9344

Moronic Claim

What a stupid , moronic claim . And no I am not talking about me being refined and civilized. The numbers may be correct but every brag requires context. Aquaman came out in the US Dec 19 or 21. It did very well during the peak movie going time. I am assuming the movie they are promoting came out the second week of January. Actually you see the column LW. Stands for “ last week “ . Upside was not ranked because it was not out. The gross figure you see there is 100% of the gross of Upside. Aquaman ‘s figure is about 7% of their total take and yet Upside beat that 7% by 3 million . So  yes for that week it beat Aquaman but they did not have the same starting line . Some advertising people think all of us are imbeciles.