This is not a circus but we have a wolf who wears an underwear, breathes fire, and plays the Russian Poker

I always get mixed emotions whenever I observe a person trying to impress others by implying their greatness and engraving them on a stone, seal it with a magical ward and parade it on the street while waving to catch some attention (okay i went overboard there but you get what I mean). The heterogeneous feeling makes it more difficult on how to deal with people like these especially if the confidence that they have supersedes those of the gods of the old times, while unconsciously, or rather oblivious of the fact, that they are making a fool out of themselves. While I don't usually encounter those people head on, it doesn't mean that they are tolerable. Never wander inside my mind while these people are in the premises, else, you'd die of the curses brought to reality by my strong imagination in my imaginary world.

There was a line that was mentioned in a game familiar to most of us gamers but easily forgotten. I don't blame those who chose to set that memory aside since it was dubbed as one of the worst Final Fantasy ever (by most of the fans, though it can be brought into argument, but I won't be participating in any of those...please!). The game--none other than Final Fantasy IX.
Sure it has got it's ups and downs. But it's not the game that we are focusing at here for the moment. It is a line that Zidane mentioned in one of his flashback with Amarant (non-FF fans, forgive me, but you'll soon get it in a while). Zidane said to a, then, arrogant and hot-blooded Amarant, "A sly eagle hides it's claws."

The quote explains itself but allow me to elaborate more.

There was this wolf who happened to drink a potion left by an elder dragon. This potion, without him knowing, gave him the ability to breath fire like dragons do. After wandering about, he saw a pack of wolves, who shunned all other wolves trying to get in the pack or even those who are just trying to pass by. The lone wolf, realizing it too late, was drawn into a fight with the leader of the pack after trying to pass by. The leader howled, signaling the start of the duel. The lone wolf, seeing his disadvantage, cowered in fear. The whole pack laughed and sneered at his pathetic state. In an effort to redeem some of his pride, the lone wolf tried a howl, but instead a squeak came out. This made the whole pack laugh more and the leader who was waiting for his opponent, was rolling on the ground, jesting and mocking on the lone wolf, making the whole pack laugh harder. Belittled by this, the lone wolf gathered all his courage, took a deep breath and howled towards the sky. The dark night glowed beautifully as a pillar of fire ate the darkness away and illuminated the moon with crimson brilliance. The wolf pack seeing this stopped laughing as fear grew inside them. The leader stood up, with tail behind his legs, trying to step back and run away from the fight. But it was too late. Before he even moved, a hot stream of fire engulfed him and soon, he was consumed by the fire. The lone wolf triumphantly howled once more. The pack mimicked this howl as a sign of recognition of their new leader. Thus, the lone wolf became the new pack leader. Sometime later, the lone wolf, along with the pack, met a young lone wolf passing by. As a rule, this lone wolf should be challenged by the leader. So, as the new leader, the lone wolf stepped up and howled once more to the moon. Again, a pillar of bright fire filled the night. The young lone wolf stepped back and ran towards the stretch of the prairie. The new leader ran after the young lone wolf breathing fire. But the young lone wolf dodged skillfully at every attack. Soon, they were inside the forest. The leader furiously chased the lone wolf through the thickets and trees and bushes and shrubs but the darkness of the forest made it more difficult to see. At last he came into a small cliff with a clearing just below in which, on the other side, on another small cliff, stood the lone wolf, waiting for him. The lone wolf growled and at the leader, beckoning him to fight against him. The leader gave one more mighty howl and started towards the lone wolf. As he leaped downwards, instead of touching solid ground, he splashed liquid all over the place. The leader struggled to get out of the murky waters and swam towards soil. He had barely got out of the waters when a bite came on his shoulder. He looked at the attacker, and no doubt it was the lone wolf. He growled then opened his mouth to breath fire, but no fire came out. He tried again and again yet nothing happened. The lone wolf attacked him mercilessly, and by the time he stopped, blood dyed the soil. As life faded away from the leader, he saw a figure of the old leader whom he defeated. He tried to breath one last stream of fire towards the old leader yet none still came. The old leader just smirked at him as it evanesced with the next howling of the wolf.

We've seen so many things like this in the past, either fictional or in real life. Just like in a game of Russian Poker--never reveal that two of diamonds unless you have pairs, trios or full houses. Yes you can win by singles if you play it right, but knowing what your trump card is by an opponent will get you into trouble rather than giving the opponent a reason to fear you. And nobody fear the two of diamonds alone.



I remember this old pun text message:

What's the similarity of an underwear and knowledge?
You hide it until you're going to use it.


Perhaps people who flaunt their knowledge up and about like a prancing idiot wears their underwear outside their pants.
Sounds about right.

You know how they try to wrestle those beetles with gum?....hey, why are you sticking that taser there?

It has been a while since I have posted here but I was trying to collect all of my thoughts, ball it into one great idea and then slam it in on this page like a rolling down a bowling ball knocking all the pins down. Soon you'll see that that great ball of ideas is nothing but the loud representation of the author with a column named Zero Level Omniscience.


I remembered when I was in grade school, there was always a man in outside the campus who would bring every whatchamacallit things and sell them to kids for an unreasonable price. Gullibility seems to be inherent to kids without the aid of their parents. While the latter would appear immune to sales talk and coercion that only works on kids, gullibility visits them every now and then when they hear squalls and cries from the main arbiter that ties them and the whatchamacallit vendor.

In more ways that one, I have seen the angel of salesmanship whenever I frequent the gates of our campus back in the years of shorts-for-uniforms, only to find out later after staying in school for a few more years, that angels coming down from heaven, that are neither Gabriel, Michael and Raphael must be fallen angels--and I have fallen into their trap. *sigh*

Moving on, or in this case going back to those years, upon getting a message from the (then) angel of salesmanship, I have decided to buy this device that stings your finger with a sudden jolt of electricity when you press the button. It was worth Php 2.00 but hey, I was a student back then and it wasn't those times where "baon" would translate to money.
Anyway, hard earned money (meaning money that was raised from constantly looking down while walking) allowed me to satisfy myself with this piece of junk. But hey, a kid's got to love what he bought with his sweat and blood(?)!

You know, the funny thing with this toy is that at first when you know what it does, you feel like not experiencing it first hand, but once you test it, you feel like you don't want to end it. You just want to keep on pressing that button, feeling that sensation that brings euphoria, psychological in manner (whatever the vehicle is). Kind of like when you play with beetles. At first, you gross out when it's spiky legs comes in contact with you but when you get the hang of it, you don't want to let go of it till it dies. But then it still dies, and that stupid button-driven-small-taser-device gets dull and the jolt becomes no more than a prick. At any rate, the discomfort brought by these two ends--but in two different ways.

There are many ways for a beetle to die.

• Don't feed it
• Give it to the birds
• Pretend it's a Walking Stick (the insect)
• Mother makes a stew out of it
• The Natural Death

I could go on with the list forever, but it only separates the ways into two categories: natural and induced.
For an induced death, refer to the first four on the list. These are sure ways of removing that awkward feeling that you get from those horrible spiky legs.
Natural death comes to beetles when the owner decided to endure the awkward feeling. But eventually he becomes liberated from that.

Now, the mini-taser is an object that could be destroyed in a few ways:

• Place it on the train tracks
• Feed it the dog
• Pound it with a hammer
• Press and press the button till friction bears fruition and μ becomes negligible
• Press and press till the body becomes accustomed to the damn jolt

There are lots of awkward situations that we encounter. Majority of these awkward encounters entails us to distantly escape or hastily end it. It maybe in the form of a slow and grueling escape or have your Mom do it for you in the kitchen. Nevertheless, you would still try to kill the beetle.

A minority shares the same fate as the mini-taser in the sense that we try to cope up with the awkward jolt and press the button continuously till μ becomes so small that we don't even feel anything anymore. We know, in our minds that the awkward feeling is there but, as we keep on pressing the button, we acknowledge the fact that we can't get away from that feeling and as we perpetually press on the damned button, oblivious of blisters and callouses, we are fully geared to face it--helmets on.



So let me go on ahead and roll the ball down the alley. It'd probably be too small to even down one pin.

*Aaaargh!* Gutter!!