So me and my friend werewaiting in line at Shang ri-La Mall for a cab earlier- around 7:30 in the evening. We have just seen the move Red Eye (which is a pretty good film, by the way). It was drizzling. There were few cabs coming along, which was not a surprise (when are the cabs ever there when you need them?). So the line was moving real slow.

There were two big white men behind us and I couldn’t help over hearing them talk since they spoke with such loud voices. They were talking about the line being real slow and people cutting in and stuff (there weren’t really people cutting in, just people going to the front of the line because they have to cross the street). Then one of them said something about ‘important families’ being allowed to cut in line. And the other guy replied with ‘the caste system is just incredible.’

What caste system? I think they’re lost.. probably thought they were in India or something.

Anyway…
The queue moved and we found ourselves thankfully, finally second in line. First cab came, person before us went to it but the cab driver refused to give them a ride. Then a group of people who weren’t in line came to it but the security guard who was keeping the line in order told them to back off. He then called for people who lived nearby since that’s all the cab driver would take in. We shouted the place to the cab driver and he let us in.

On the way home, the driver told us that he would charge Php 60 for the ride. 60 for a ride that wouldn’t even take more than 40 under normal circumstances (normal- with the cab meter running). We told him the best we could give him is 50 but he kept insisting on 60 because it was going to be traffic and something about his having to come back and gas and stuff. None of which was our concern.

Well it wasn’t traffic and we only gave him 50 when we got home.

The thing is, his car had the orange sticker saying ‘meter tested and sealed’, so why didn’t he run it? And another, aren’t cab drivers forbidden to refuse civillians to ride in his cab? There’s like, a law about this if I’m not mistaken.

Cabs refusing people rides happen often but this guy was just so nasty I couldn’t let him pass.

So I was dropped off at the University of Asia and the Pacific yesterday for my exam. The appointment that I had was for 1pm. I arrived about 15 minutes early (hardly the occassion to be fashionably late) and this is what happened:

I took out an ID to be exchanged for a guest pass and started to hand it over to the guard. I glanced at the woman and did a double take. She had her face contorted as though she was standing on a pile of something that absolutely reeks. Must be an extremely putrid smell. I didn’t smell anything though.

Anyway, I handed it over and she looked at me. No words. Just “The Look”.

Me (quite startled):
“Er, good afternoon. I need to go to Admissions.”
Her (just glanced, not even looked at me):
“Ha? Admission? Wan o klak pa. Maghintay ka na muna diyan. Ay duun sa mga upuan.” She then pursed her black rimmed lips to point to the building to her right.
Me (after screwing my eyes to try and see the invisible seats):
“Yes I was told to come at one o’clock but I’d like to go there now because I still have some oth..”
Her (cuts me off, raising her voice, made people stare.):
“Kaya ngaaaaa. Maghintay ka muna duun. Kasi nga wanoklak pa.”

So I gave her a withering look and walked away. Got my phone out to have the car pick me up again and waited in there until exactly 1pm to go back.

I mean, she could have told me what she needed to tell me with a little more decency and politeness, couldn’t she?

I play an online game called Ragnarok.

The following is quote from a player whose character has been asassinated. Character asassination is the deletion of characters in exchange for money. It costs about Php 20,000-30,000 per character. It is done because there are tournaments for this game with more money at stake. Specifically, Php 1,000,000. The better your character is, the greater chances of winning. This asassination is usually performed by a GM (Game Master) or someone inside the Level Up Games Inc. as they can access the accounts of their thousands of clients and can basically do anything they’d like.

It is illegal.

Ragnarok is an online world and the Game Masters are the gods.

FROM WAULEEN SHADOW CIRCLE “CHAOS”
8:12PM -

Waukeen, Master Diwa, Weightless, Pepperghost, and other guildmates from SC and Insu met up at 129 Square and immediately left for Pacific Star, headquarters of Level-up-games Incorporated. We were expecting to be turned down, but we were suprised to have come upon other players sharing our dilema.

Players from Esteemed House of the Crane and Executors, top two Agit Lords in Fenrir were also there. Their Guildmasters were also hack deleted. After much discussion in Starbucks, we also found some more disturbing facts:

1.) We were all hack deleted at the same time, 1:30-1:40AM. This includes me, Master Diwa, Aisu, and the guildmasters from Fenrir.

2.) The purpose of the move was to simply DELETE the characters. All the items in the kafra were left alone. The guilds were also not broken. The items of the characters deleted also did not leave the character. Which means the hacker simply logged in and deleted the character outright.

8:45PM -

We went upstairs into the LUG office only to be turned down by their security guard. Apparently their office does not want to talk to us regarding this issue. We’ve given them the benefit of the doubt that their customer support is no longer in office because it was already late.

We’ve come to one conclusion using common sense:

This was an orchestrated attack from inside LUG. No one else could have hack deleted the contenders for the agit lords all at the same time while gaining access to their username/password and email. This is a blatant attack to our rights as customers and I would like to warn everyone reading this post:

YOUR ACCOUNTS ARE NO LONGER SAFE. YOU COULD BE NEXT.

We’ve recieved notice that LUG officials are in Davao for an event till Monday. We will be creating a letter and i’ll be asking several leaders of guilds in CHaos to sign this letter. This letter is a formal complaint to LUG asking for a player’s forum in regard to this latest incident. We will be giving this letter Tuesday next week. If LUG ignores our complaint, then we will be forced to get lawyers to drag this into the courtroom.

This is not for TGIS(2) or Ascension. This is for the entire player base of Philippine Ragnarok Online. All of your accounts are profit for IT personnel who just want to earn money through illegal activities.

Let’s all show our support to this cause, be at Prontera 5:30 on Saturday. We will be taking screenshots to show to Level-up that the community DOES NOT condone character assassinations like this.

As for those who are saying that I’m in this only to get a stat reset:

I do not want my character reinstated. I want the culprit of this act caught and put behind jail.

Over the past few months, rumors regarding character assassination have been going around. I personally never believed this, but I’ve finally come to the conclusion that it does happen.

What is character assassination?

You pay LUG IT Department 20,000 – 25,000 pesos to hack delete anyone you want in Midgard.

Ladies and gentlemen:

Master Diwa, Weightless, Sir Siegfred, and Waukeen have been hack deleted. All those said above were leaders of a faction in Chaos server. We were neck-to-neck in fighting the Brotherhood faction. But now we all got hack deleted. Others were also included but I will no longer list all their names. BUt all of them are from ASCENSION/TGIS(2).

LUG IT Department, as soon as I finish this post I will go into my car and go there.

I DEMAND AN EXPLANATION FROM LUG.

I PLAYED MY CHARACTER FROM JUNE, THE VERY FIRST WEEK OF RO. I LEVELLED UP WITH NOT BOTS, AND FROM MY CHARACTER SPROUTED SHADOW CIRCLE AND SHADOW CIRCLE INCORPORATED. NOBODY CAN PLANT A KEYLOGGER HERE AT MY SHOP BECAUSE OUR SECURITY MEASURES DELETE ALL OF THEM AS SOON AS THEY ENTER THE SYSTEM.

We must all remember that this is the Philippines.. Money is enough. It is the reason. As much as we would like to say that it isn’t true and there are some exceptions, we musn’t deny that it is the collective truth.

The expression “Money makes the world go round” applies to this country more than it does to most other countries. People would vote for an incompetent pig to be their president for 50 pesos and a meal. This problem we see here isn’t unique to this community- the gaming world. It exists everywhere from the little barangays, to corporations, to whole governments.

Now I’m not saying that we should just let it be. A proper lawsuit would be just what LUG will deserve if these accusations do transpire to be true. And I do hope their asses get hauled over to court and fried. Although, having said all those things, we mustn’t dismiss the probability that someone might in turn pay the judges to waive the case..

Even if this is just a game and those that were assassinated were only characters/game sprites- inhuman and exists only in the net world, what these people have done is a reflection what they are capable of doing in the real world. They shouldn’t get away with this.

There are the following categories: ICA Open Class, Formula Rotax Masters, Formula Rotax, Formula Rotax Novice Class, KT Light division and the Cadets (cute little kids in racer suits.. seriously adorable). And three races for each category excluding the qualification round.

Michelle Bumgarner, the reigning Asian queen of karting, only came in 5th in the ICA Open Class, bested by Stockinger who won both this and the Formula Rotax category. A one-day-early birthday present. And of course, Matteo Guidicelli was there, but he only came in 4th.

Paolo Eslao, my brother (see my heart burting with pride.. lol), won his 2nd championship by outracing local actor Onemig Bondoc and Jeje Villena in the KT Light division.

Well, he better had. I didn