24 is back! Yay!

Well, that's not true... not yet anyway. The 7th season of the hit show was supposed to start back in January 2008, but it got postponed by a whole year thanks to the stupid WGA writers' strike.

24 will return in January 2009, but last week, fans of the show got something to whet their appetite. Fox aired a two-hour TV movie called 24: Redemption, which bridges the gap between seasons 6 and 7.

The movie had our hero Jack Bauer running around a fictional African country trying to save children from ruthless rebels, while, halfway across the globe, America swears in its first female president. That's right, I said a female president. And oh, her name is Allison Taylor, which is like the most vanilla name ever.

Eat your heart out, Hillary.

Eight years ago, way before Barack Obama became a household name, 24 made David Palmer America's first black president. Some pop culture pundits even credit the show for helping to make the idea of a black president palatable to some American voters, and thus possibly helping Obama's campaign.

I know that sounds stupid in all kinds of ways, but you know what else is stupid? The average American voter. Now, if season 7 of the show hadn't been postponed, Allison Taylor would have been the president on 24 right when Hillary Clinton was fighting Barack Obama for the nomination earlier this year. Could the writers' strike have cost Hillary her shot at the presidency? I guess we'll never know, but it's fun to think about.

Anyway, having a female president is nice, but Allison Taylor isn't exactly eye candy. Fortunately, we get a good dose of that from Samantha Roth, her son's hot girlfriend.

Unfortunately, she was putting her clothes on and not taking them off.

In the 24 universe, all beautiful women are either A) annoying damsels in distress who get innocent people around them killed, or B) heartless homicidal bitches who work for the bad guys. So which way will Samantha swing? My money is on B.

The classic example of A is of course Kim Bauer, Jack's hopelessly dumb daughter. In 24: Redemption, she managed to get one of the good guys killed, which is quite a feat considering that she didn't even make an appearance. I swear, the mere mention of her name causes people to die. I would hate her if she weren't so pretty.

Overall, 24: Redemption was not great, but it was a decent fix for fans like me. The body count was satisfyingly high too. One smart-ass poster on IMDB said, "Jack Bauer has surpassed AIDS as the leading cause of death in Africa." He may be right.

P.S. There was even a cameo appearance by two wayward cameramen. See if you can spot them.

Cut! Get out of the shot, you morons!

I guess this is where you send your future gay son for day care.

Observe the boy in the purple shirt. Where is his hand going??? Looks like someone is blossoming already.

Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf invited bloggers to an event last Wednesday. See L-Robot's report for a recap.

The event was the launch of Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf's innovative holiday charity program. Well, it's not really that innovative--my sister told me that Starbucks is running a similar program. But I prefer the taste of Coffee Bean products, so... screw Starbucks and whatever charities they're supporting.

The mechanics for the Coffee Bean program are fairly simple. Just get a stamp card from them and buy the 12 cups of coffee indicated on the card on or before January 18, 2009. You get a stamp for each purchase, and once you fill up all 12 boxes on the card, Coffee Bean donates money in your name to a charity of your choice--as long as you choose from their list of advocacy groups: Kababaihan Gabay ng Bayan, Philippine Business for Social Progress, Bahay Tuluyan, PAWS Animal Rehabilitation Center, Haribon Foundation, Cartwheel Foundation, Caritas, Kythe, Autism Society, Philippine Cerebral Palsy Inc., Philippine Band of Mercy, and Help Resources for the Blind.

If the karma points you gain from giving to charity aren't enough to satisfy you (you selfish ass), you also get a nice limited edition Coffee Bean notebook for free. Um, does anyone not see the irony of giving away free notebooks while you support a group that advocates against deforestation? But hey, the notebooks are pretty, so I'll give them a pass.

There's also a special challenge for hardcore caffeine addicts. If you manage to fill up 12 cards and donate to all 12 charities before the promo period ends, you get free coffee for a year. Yay! That's a great reward provided that you don't die from caffeine overdose first--144 cups of coffee in two months is... a lot.

Still, free coffee for a year sounds good. Go for it, people.

If you're a regular Twitter user, you've probably seen the Fail Whale more times than you can count. It appears every time Twitter's servers get overloaded and go down, which is quite often.

Twitter went down again the other day--no surprise there. But, instead of the Fail Whale, I got this.

What the hell? Is that a worm? Where did the Fail Whale go? Boo.

Hey Twitter, changing your fail mascot doesn't do anything to help your reputation. You still suck.

(Follow me on Twitter! Why? Um... uh... because I might decide to twit regularly again someday? Yeah, that's plausible.)

Congratulations to Charlotte Marie for winning a bag from Bratpack and to Charm for winning a Wii party package from Red Box. Check your email for instructions on how to claim your prizes from GeiserMaclang.

Philos and Chinesemafia helped me pick the winners using the Borda count method. The results were far from unanimous, and several other entries got significant amount of votes, so don't feel too bad if you didn't win.

I want to thank the following people for participating: Ade, Tiffy, Rowena, Tricia, Roanne, Jenny, Franny, Kevin, and Mark (who submitted a good but late entry).

The first time I saw the above photo of NBA superstar Allen Iverson on ESPN.com a few days ago, I thought he was just taking his temperature with a thermometer. I thought maybe he was pretending to be ill after losing yet another game with his new team.

I forgot about it until I saw this yesterday.

There it is again! What the heck is that thing sticking out of his mouth? Joyfulchicken said it's a mouthpiece. I'm not sure I agree seeing as it looks like a straight thing. But then again, how would I know?

What do you people think?

The other day, the owner of a web design mailing list that I'm a member of sent the saddest email ever to his subscribers.

I have organized 2 mettings so far but only 1 person has attended so unless there is more interest I will not be organizing any more.

Only one person attended your "mettings"? Ouch. Hmm, wait a minute... were you that one person? Double ouch.

Hotel Sogo is a chain of cheap ass "hotels" where young lovers go to do naughty stuff. And it's everywhere--almost as ubiquitous as Starbucks. I swear, whenever I drive around Metro Manila, I see a Hotel Sogo sign every time I look out the window. That annoys the hell out me, and I'm not even sure why.

Maybe it's how "Hotel Sogo" cheapened the name of the real Sogo, a chain of big department stores with branches all over Asia. I frequented the one in Taipei as a kid, and I have fond memories of the place. (Or not... I actually don't remember much.)

Or maybe it's just the ultra-lame tagline that Hotel Sogo has: "so clean, so good." I understand the importance of cleanliness in a place where people roll around naked on the beds and spray body fluids everywhere, but Jesus, "so clean, so good" sounds so tacky.

To be fair, I've never been inside a Hotel Sogo, and for all I know, it's possible that their rooms are really as nice as the Photoshopped one shown on their non-functional website. And I have no evidence that they're not as clean and good as claimed. Still, the place just seems hopelessly jologs to me.

And, horrors of horrors, they're getting worse. Here's a photo taken by Philos from a train.

It should be "every day" and not "everyday," dumbass.

I almost vomited when I saw it. Is that their new tagline? My god! Also, that dude is totally a pedophile--the girl looks underage. And I can't get over how they spelled "Valentine's Day" with something that looks less like the letter A and more like either petals or distended vaginas. Well, if it's the latter, it would actually be quite appropriate.

It's the opposite of hot.

WARNING: NSFA (not safe for anyone)

I'll post a real blog entry later in the week, I swear. In the meantime, go join our two contests down there. Tell your friends too. Go go go!

... party package for five from Red Box! What, you think we can afford to give out a shiny new Nintendo Wii? Of course not. But seriously, an evening spent at Red Box playing the Wii with four of your friends is almost as good as owning a Wii, except for the part where you have to wake up the next morning Wii-less and feeling empty inside.

We'll get to the contest mechanics soon, but first, let me tell you how much I love the Wii. I've only tried it out a few times (at the Red Box Wii Night and at Philos's brother's "bachelor party"--in quotes because a bachelor party without a stripper isn't a real bachelor party), but I already love it to bits. It's the most innovative gaming console ever, and the Wiimote makes everything feels more fun. Plus I kick ass at Wii Tennis. Well, maybe not, but at least I kicked Philos's ass.

Red Box has been around for quite a while as a karaoke place, which means that I never gave much of a crap about it. But now, the Wii is available in their rooms for just an additional 99 pesos per head. Now I'm considering throwing a Wii party at Red Box for my next birthday.

You can throw your own Wii party too if you win our contest (sponsored by Red Box and GeiserMaclang). All you have to do is leave a comment telling us which Wii game character you are and why before November 15, 2008. Be sure to include your real email address with your comment so that we can contact you later. The funniest commenter wins a Wii party package for five people.

This contest is open to anyone who has four friends and can get to Red Box (branches in Greenbelt and Trinoma). Just like our last contest, members of the Chicken Mafia blog team along with their family members and girlfriends and pets can't win... sorry, Chewie (that's Lizzy's new puppy).