Posts

Statue: The UP Oblation

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Oble - UP Oblation The statue dearest to my heart is called the " The Oblation ". The Oblation is the symbol of the University of the Philippines, the university I went to for my Engineering degree. I have so many wonderful memories of UP. It was where I met my girlfriend of course. Haha.

Gary Granada: jilted Filipino composer fights back againts network giant GMA

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I know Gary Granada from his winning the Grand Prize in the 1998 Metropop Song Festival for his song "Mabuti Pa Sila". I'm familiar with the song because we sang it in the UPCC from 2000 to 2004. The last line of that song is probably how Gary Granada felt before he made this recording... "Di tulad kong lagi na lang nag-iisa..." ~CLICK THE GREEN PLAY BUTTON~ Gary Granada vs GMA Kapuso by dosomethingworthwhile "And you have the audacity to tell me that my composition is OUR collective effort." This proves to be a case of ignorance on the side of the GMA Kapuso Foundation. I am theorizing that after they received the test copy from Mr. Granada and didn't like it, they handed it over to another composer. And because of they were constrained by time, they resorted to just changing the melodic line and retaining the rest. I think they did not know that Gary Granada would be able to identify his work because for them, all they hear is the m...

Theme Thursday: Kitchen

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From Coffee Messiah : Sometime last year a fellow blogger started Theme Thursday, and anyone who wanted could post something on their blog on Thursday relating to the theme. This week's topic is KITCHEN . Here's my Theme Thursday blog... The first thing that came to my mind about KITCHEN is, of course, that it's where people cook. I don't really cook. I just really eat. So in the absence of food cooking stories and photos of our kitchen, I thought to share some stuff about kitchens and scary movies... __________ 1. As a young boy, I loved watching horror movies even if they kept me up half the night. After a good intense scaring, I would lie in bed with the blanket covering my whole body (the feet too! coz I was scared zombies would grab my feet) and with only my eyes and my nose showing. On one particular night, after watching Freddie Kruger almost kill Nancy on "A Nightmare on Elm Street", my elder sister scared me half to death telling me she could hear a t...

If You Seek Amy

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Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! This is freakin' hilarious! Apologies to all the "serious" bloggers out there who are reading this, but it was just so funny I had to blog about it. This was only the second time that I heard this new Britney Spears song, and I only listened (deliberately) again because I was curious about an article on Google News about some Parent groups saying "If You Seek Amy" is too dirty for radio and should be banned. I'm like, "What? Why?" So I listened again... The chorus goes: Love me hate me Say what you want about me But all of the boys and all of the girls are begging to If You Seek Amy Got it yet? :p Think dirty thoughts and listen... Here's a youtube vid of it (audio only): If You Seek Amy Talk about making a controversial song for a controversial celebrity. lol.

Happy Chinese New Year of the Ox!

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Are you wondering what the Year of the Ox will bring for you? I was born in the year of the Dog, 1982. How about you? What year were you born? Check out your horoscope here: Chinese Horoscope by Yahoo! To all my Chinese colleagues and Friends... KUNG HEI FAT CHOI!!! Welcome the Year of the Ox! Photo from Wiki

Starbucks Boycott

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On January 14, Pro-Palestinian activists in Lebanon attacked Starbucks, causing the branch of the U.S. coffee shop chain to close its doors. The protesters accused the coffee chain of supporting the Israeli army and the attack in Gaza, basing their protests on a letter that indicates that the company’s chairman and president, Howard Schultz, has been donating money to Israel. Starbucks has vehemently denied this on their website and apparently the letter was published on an Internet site by an Australian anti-Zionist, who made it clear that he wrote the letter as a parody... Unfortunately, the same violent protests have still been happening, not in only Lebanon but in other parts of the world as well. Hmm. Can Starbucks sue that Aussie dude for libel? In other news, I am personally boycotting Starbucks until they give me my free Starbucks Planner for 2009. I have checked a dozen Starbucks shops in the past 2 weeks, and they're all out. :p The one in SM Batangas even said I have t...

Computer Virus "Conficker worm" spreading!

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The Conficker worm is spreading worldwide, now affecting around 10 million personal and business computers. A report from F-secure says it leaped from 2.4 million to up to 3 times that number in just 3 days. Are you scared yet? The worm can be acquired through a vulnerability in the Microsoft system which could allow remote code execution if an affected system received a specially crafted RPC request. This is not a problem if you already have the patch they sent out in October. The worm can also “mutate” and launch “brute force attacks” that relentlessly try thousands of letter and number combinations in codes to steal personal passwords and login information. Lastly, the worm can infect removable devices and network shares with an autorun file that executes as soon as a USB drive or other infected device is connected to a victim PC. This last one may be most common for personal computers, so protect yourself RIGHT NOW and turn off your AutoRun. I think you can do this by right...

Brad Pitt 2009 Oscar Best Actor nominee??

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(See the complete list of nominees at the end of this post.) Of all the Best Picture nominees for the 81st Academy Awards, I've so far only seen The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It's easy to see why it received 13 nominations, but when I saw that one of them was for Best Actor... wha wha what?? Taraji P. Henson's nomination for her turn as Benjamin's momma was well deserved. She was as convincing as an old woman as she was a young lady. And everytime she was in a scene with Brad Pitt, you just had to keep watching her. And Benjamin, despite being so curious looking, seemed to blend into the background. The Best makeup nom is a shoo-in as well. The way they made everyone go from young to old (or vice versa) seemed amazingly well researched. I would even say that Cate Blanchett deserved an Oscar nod if only for her ballet dancing. (Wow, she looked really young.) Does she really know how to do ballet? But Brad Pitt, whose "best" scene in the whol...

Intel Philippines closes its Cavite site

Inquirer.net/Intel-announces-RP-operations-shutdown http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123249785750100437.html?mod=googlenews_wsj Holy crap...I cannot believe it. I have been reading so much about the recession and the economic downturn and how so many people have lost jobs and how businesses have closed up shop in countries like China and USA, but still it surprised me when I read that Intel is shutting down it operations in the Philippines... I searched my mind trying to think of friends or acquaintances who worked for Intel but couldn't pin one down. Still, it's too close to home to not be worried. Intel is the world's largest semicon company and has had operations in the Philippines for 20 years. Their Cavite facility handles flash memory manufacturing. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, the big chip maker has not reported a net loss since 1986. But CEO Paul Otellini, in an internal Webcast to the company's employees said the first quarter was too clos...

The UPCAT Results are out!

!!! ~~~~~ LINK TO UPCAT RESULTS ~~~~~ *updated 20-Jan-09 5:30PM CONGRATULATIONS FOR PASSING THE UPCAT!!! CASTUERAS, CELINE ALMIRA PACHECO, LOS BANOS BS EE MICLAT, ARMANDO III TUALLA, DILIMAN BS BA WOW! WOW! The UPCAT results are out! I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the UPCAT results are now online. :p During my time you had to really go to UP to check the results. I distinctly remember that day when our batch's UPCAT results came out... It was a weekday, the day before the JS prom and we were all in Pisay, but some of the parents were already at UP searching for our names in that really short list they put up on boards near the Registrar's Office. There were no cellphones then so I had to call by payphone to my house. There was a line at the phone booth already! When it was my turn, my mom told me that my sister had called her earlier (also by payphone) that my name was there! Oh! The exhiliration of learning that you didn't mess up the exam...Haha! After worrying...

Free Lasik screening!

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Yesterday I went to the Lasik Surgery Center (LSC) at the Megaclinic in Megamall to claim my free Lasik surgery screening. Yes, it's free! Why, you ask? I joined a promo by Business World and Lasik Surgery Clinic where all you need to do... is tell them how lasik surgery can change your life, and for a mere 50 words and 5 minutes of your time, you get a free Lasik screening and 20% off on the actual Lasik procedure package! The prize of course is a free Lasik procedure, and only those who are good candidates for Lasik can qualify for the contest. I was really planning to get my eyes corrected this year or next year, but since the opportunity presented itself, I thought, why not? It was Batangas Fiesta yesterday so we were on Holiday, so I got myself an appointment at LSC and went. It was quite interesting really, aside from the usual test like reading the letters and looking at that red house in the distance, they made me take other tests like looking through a tunnel and anothe...

The Beginning of an Addiction: Coffee

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Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional nor have I have taken any tests that prove that I am suffering from any psychological disorders. This post is in response to a really cool website featured a few days ago on "Blogs of Note" called Coffee Messiah . It was all about, well...coffee. :D I started drinking coffee about 9 years ago. My first cup of espresso was on the dinner table of the Pizzocherro house in Cascine San Pietro, Italy. I didn't like the strong bitter flavor at first so the next time they offered I took some cappucino instead. Italians love their coffee almost as much as their wine, so every meal we had ended with a "Cafe?" from Mama Ornella... By the time we were to leave Italy I was hooked. To Manila I brought home a Moka (espresso maker) and bags of Italian coffee. After I've gone through those I went for Starbucks. :p When Starbucks began giving those planners for Christmas, I would usually get at least 2 - and that translates ...

Pagudpud, Vigan and other related adventures

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Tweet As mentioned in my last post, me and my family, my girlfriend, my sister's boyfriend, and my grandmom all went to Pagudpud for the long holiday. Pagudpud can be found at the northernmost tip of the Philippines ' biggest island, Luzon. Click here for some more info about Pagudpud.