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A Theme Thursday post "Good day sunlight, I'd like to say how truly bright you are..." Summer ended early in the Philippines this year. Too early! It was only the beginning of May when the first typhoon arrived and a storm warning signal was declared over parts of the Philippines. Now as I type this post, typhoon Feria (local name) is raging outside my window... Next week it will be July. That means hoping for a bright sun shiny day is over, summer has lost to rain. This battle is now over. Soon the rains will completely take over: the skies will be dark for most of the day, the stars at night hidden by the dark clouds. "You don't know me, but I know you, see, you're my favorite star..." I miss the summer, when the sun is out and up. I miss the beach at summertime, when the sand and the water is warm and the nights a cool respite. I miss having ice cream and halo-halo to cool off. I miss not needing to bring an umbrella every time I leave the ...

"...biyayang bigay na galing sa Diyos..." I stumbled upon this youtube "video" of a recording of a song I did way back when i was still in the University. It's called "Lagi na Lang" ("As Always") and was written and composed by Pastor Norman Dagdag, Drums, Acoustic Taylor guitar, and sound engineering by Mr. Ike Heredia, Mixed and Recorded @ STUDIO 7 Grand Villas, Quezon City. Lead vocals and back-up vocals by your truly. :D This was 2nd of 3 songs we recorded, and was the most fun to do. Haha! Hope you watch and leave a comment! A quick translation for non-Filipinos: I hear your voice, and I am with you You bring treasures overflowing I am thankful for all the blessings that come You show a path that is true You care for and protect me Day and night you love me Your power moves my life Your blessing are never ending Always, for always   Subscribe in a reader

I have not been this excited for a movie in a long time. Haha! Around this time last year they announced that there will be a movie version of the Emmy award winning cartoon series from Nickelodeon, Avatar: The Last Airbender. I was really excited I blogged about it too. Now they've released the first trailer for the first movie of the trilogy! (Guys, seriously, this is sooo much better than that vampire movie thingy. Hehe!) The first movie is set for July 2, 2010. It will be titled "The Last Airbender" because some other movie was named "Avatar" already. I can't wait! This will be awesome. (Think, Lord of the Rings.) I pray they won't make the same mistakes they made for "Dragon Ball Z" (like hire a white dude to play an asian dude). M. Night Shyamalan who will write, direct and produce, better not mess this up! And by the way, Dev Patel of "Slumdog Millionnaire" fame will be playing Zuko. Hehe! That will be cool. Anyway, the ...

About an hour ago, DOH announced the Philippines' first fatality related to swine flu or Influenza A H1N1 virus. The 49-year-old woman from Metro Manila died from congestive heart failure (the blood passageway to her heart was blocked), but was discovered after she had died that she was infected with the swine flu virus. Her death is the first reported fatality related to Influenza A (H1N1). Her husband and son are currently quarantined, and DOH is doing a contact tracing of the family. Meanwhile, several more schools have suspended classes due to the outbreak. The Philippines reportedly has the highest number of infections in the South East Asian region. Sources linked after the jump... Sources: GMA - DOH announces first death in RP linked to A(H1N1) ABS-CBN - RP confirms first A (H1N1) death _______________________________________ This report got me really worried. And this swine flu is really making me paranoid. Last week my girlfriend was sick, turned out it was common flu. And...

I've read a lot of posts ranting about the Political ads running on TV like the one above of Manny Villar, and the one on this blog , of Mar Roxas. Bloggers like Adaphobic are lashing out at the audacity of using money for TV ads instead of for helping the poor... Here's my 2 cents... It's like Affiliate Marketing Sure you, and me, and a lot of the bloggers are, as you say, "cringing every time we watch these ads", but let's keep in mind, even though we are part of the voting population, these ads are not meant for us - it is meant more so for the majority of the voting population, i.e. the people with nary a dime but have talking boxes in their 2x2 meter living rooms (which also double as a bedroom at night). They are the people who will go, "ay, talagang para sa mahirap itong si Manny Villar!" every time they watch these ads. And THEY have the power to put a President in office. Now, my intention is not to demean poor people (or eve...

No surprises there, the University of the PHILIPPINES (ehem...my alma mater...ehem) is still the top University/College in the Philippines, ranking #63 in the 2009 "Top 200 Asian Universities" of QS.com Top Universities . It is tied at 63 with Universitas GADJAH MADA of Indonesia. Other Philippine Universities that ranked are the De la Salle University #76, the Ateneo de Manila University #84, and the University of Santo Tomas #144. According to the site, this is the first regional ranking from QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd, the compilers of the Times Higher Education - QS World University Rankings. Previously published rankings were all Global rankings. In the 2008 Global ranking, UP ranked #276, a big jump from the previous year's #398 ranking. The 2009 Top Asian Universities are as follows... #1 University of HONG KONG Hong Kong #2 The CHINESE University of Hong Kong Hong Kong #3 University of TOKYO Japan #4 HONG KONG University of Science and Technology Hong...

I didn't think I would make one, but after reading an article on Time magazine, I was convinced. So here's me: Follow me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/reyjrdotcom Subscribe in a reader

On June 11, Liz, Bing and I went to the Mall of Asia concert grounds to see us some dolls: some Pussycat Dolls. We had scored some discounted tickets c/o Clear shampoo, went on leaves from work, rocked sexy outfits (the ladies only hehe) and made our way, (the first time for me) to the Mall of Asia. We didn't have a hard time finding it at all, it's kind of hard to miss with that huge globe. Anyway, if you need directions, just leave a comment, I give OC directions. Haha. Anyway, we arrived at around 5 in the afternoon, already a bit late from the 3pm we originally planned. Luckily, a lot of people also had the same idea as most of them arrived at 7pm! Not to say that there weren't a lot of people already. There were several lines already beside the entrances, one for VIP, 1 for Gold, 2 lines for Silver and one major line for Bronze. I was actually beginning to get pissed because the lines were so disorganized and the guards and the bouncers were doing nothing to organize t...

Nope, they haven't shown it here in the Philippines, but from the trailer I found on YouTube and the reviews I've read, I think " Glee ", the new musical comedy series from Fox will be a big hit in the Philippines too. Filipinos are very musical people, this is evident in the sheer number of choirs from universities, high schools, churches, companies, towns... anywhere where there's enough people, there's a choir. Haha! And here you have a series about a choir! A Glee Club! Haha. Actually, I'm excited that they're putting choirs back into the mainstream. A couple of years ago they did a series in the US called "Clash of the Choirs", I dunno how that ended up. But here's a series, on primetime TV, about a choir! (Why am I excited? I was a choir member for 6.5 years!) Here's the trailer of the pilot episode of "Glee"...

I've been absent from Theme Thursday for the past couple of weeks. But since this week's theme was my suggestion, then I will play! The theme for this week is: "SWING". I gave a few suggestions in the "Whoops" theme post and mentioned about possibly moving to "verbs" after taking on several "noun" themes. I think verbs can prove to give a broader spectrum, and hopefully get our creative juices flowing. I was really interested in themes that can be interpreted in a lot of different ways so that the posts will also be as varied! Anyhow, here's my take on this week's theme... The Real Group "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!" I have been particularly interested in a song for quite a while but never really researched about it until now! I was introduced to it via this version by The Real Group, an amazing, amazing professional vocal group composed of 5 singers from Sweden. The group itself was formed ...

Tweet Welcome everyone! Go ahead and click, it's safe! Better late than never! This post is in support of a project that began on Macuha.com way back in 2007. It was simply called " Pinay scandal ". The goal was to steer Google searches away from websites containing Filipinas on "display" and direct them instead to these blog posts. Keyword "Pinay scandal" is one of the biggest all time keywords in the Philippines, and when I checked, apparently, "Pinoy scandal" is even bigger. Lol! Welcome men, women, boys and girls. I apologize if this was not what you were looking for, but since you're here anyway, why don't you SUBSCRIBE? [Post continues below] Enter your email address: Delivered by FeedBurner Okay Okay, I don't want you to leave empty handed (ehem...) so here's something for all y'all. For all of your who came here looking for something Asian, something exotic, something that you'll want over and...

Our overnight stay at Balai Indang or Balay Indang was thanks to the wedding of Kuya Dean and Ate Joy. Their wedding was in the morning of a Saturday up in Tagaytay (Caleruega, Nasugbu to be exact), so they had booked their whole entourage at the Balai Indang on Friday so that no one would be late! ;) (great idea ya?) ___________________________________________ We (Liz and I) went via Tagaytay from Batangas where we left at around 5:30 in the afternoon. Unfortunately for us, May is the season for fiestas in Batangas, and with fiestas come bumper-to-bumper-traffic-causing processions. :) About half an hour from when we first got stuck, I was already ranting about how they should make laws preventing processions from completely taking away half of the road and effectively freezing traffic! Calling governor V? :p Driving to Balai Indang This procession, along the main highway through Bauan, Batangas, held us prisoners for a little more than an hour. The 1.5...

Today, June 5 is World Environment Day (WED), according to the UNEP Homepage , it is the day when the United Nations stimulate people and governments to push for action on environmental issues. The theme for WED 2009 is 'Your Planet Needs You-UNite to Combat Climate Change' . Climate Change has been in the forefront of environment related discussions for the past few decades, and numerous promotions have been made to try to address the issue. There is a particularly wonderful page on the UNEP Homepage about how to: " Easily Green your daily Routine " (and it rhymes too!) which details small adjustments to your lifestyle that will help in big ways. Things like "wear jeans more than once" or "usa a washable mug for your morning coffee" are very easily doable. My question though is have we gone far enough to effect a slowdown of this inevitable future of climate change? How have we in our yearly Environmental Day celebrations been able to effect chang...