Saturday, March 21, 2009

Forbes' The World's Billionaires 2009

On my birthday (hehe) Forbes' published this year's list of wealthiest people in the world: The World's Billionaires. You can find the full article on the Forbes' website.

According to the article, there are less Billionaires this year than in 2008, largely because of the economic recession. For 2009, there are only 793 billionaires. From Wiki, the current estimated population of the world is 6.76 billion, which makes the billionaires oh, about 0.00000012% of the population. Haha.

The Top 3 are still #1 Bill Gates (up from #3 last year), #2 Warren Buffet (down from #1 last year), and Mexican telecon titan #3 Carlos Slim Helú (down from #2).


Without further delay, here the list of Billionaires, top 10 only...

#1 William Gates III $40 billion Microsoft/U.S.
#2 Warren Buffet $37 billion Investments/U.S.
#3 Carlos Slim Helú $35 billion Telecom/Mexico
#4 Lawrence Ellison $22.5 billion Oracle/U.S.
#5 Ingvar Kamprad $22 billion Ikea/Sweden
#6 Karl Albrecht $21.5 billion Supermarkets/Germany
#7 Mukesh Ambani $19.5 billion Petrochemicals/India
#8 Lakshmi Mittal $19.3 billion Steel/India
#9 Theo Albrecht $18.8 billion Supermarkets/Germany
#10 Amancio Ortega $18.3 billion Fashion/Spain

Other notable Billionaires, the Waltons (owners of the Walmart franchise) are at numbers 11 to 14 (yes, they are billionaires - EACH ONE of them). New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is at #17. Filipinos Henry Sy and Lucio Tan still make the list at #234 and #522 respectively. Celebrity Billionaire George Lucas and Steven Spielberg tie with others at #205, and of course, Oprah Winfrey is at #234.

See the FULL LIST HERE.



Thursday, March 19, 2009

Theme Thursday: Vegetable

Quickie post!

Did you know that the term VEGETABLE is not a botanical term, but only a culinary term?

Did you know that a tomato is NOT a vegetable but a FRUIT! Well, a BERRY to be precise. It is referred to as a vegetable in culinary terms, but it's really a fruit (like a coconut is not a nut but a fruit!)

And the tomato is NOT the only culinary vegetable that is a botanical fruit: eggplants, cucumbers, and squashes of all kinds (such as zucchini and pumpkins) share the same ambiguity.

VEGETABLE backwards is ELBATEGEV. - random!

From the letters in VEGETABLE, you can form the following 5-or-more lettered words: table, beget, beetle, bagel, gable... add some more!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

An Irish Blessing: Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Even though we don't celebrate it here in the Philippines, this traditional Irish blessing has a very special meaning for me.

When I was on tour around USA and Europe with my college choir, we would sing this blessing everytime before we leave a tour stop. We usually stayed with locals at every stop, sharing wonderful moments and memories during our short stay. Every place that we left was a sad goodbye to the friends we made, sometimes it was goodbye for good.

We often sang this around hugs and tearful goodbyes,

CLICK HERE AND PLAY THE SONG >>> An Irish Blessing by the UP Concert Chorus

May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sunshine warm upon your face
The rain fall soft upon your fields

And until we meet again
Until we meet again
May God hold you in the palm of hand...

Nerdy Joke #01

A Hydrogen atom and a Helium atom were strolling in the park when suddenly the Hydrogen atom exclaimed, "Oh shit! I lost an electron!"

The Helium atom asks, "Hm.. are you sure??"

And Hydrogen says, "Yes! I'm POSITIVE!"



tee hee hee...

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Theme Thursday: Animal

こんにちは、ようこそ!
Here's a couple of weird/unique animals we saw at the zoo in Tagaytay.

The first one is a 5 legged-cow...




This second one is an albino carabao (water bufallo) with an albino baby...




Both photos are from my Valentine's Day 2009 set, Liz and I went up to Tagaytay for Valentine's Day, which will be the topic of a separate post. :p

On Thursday we're off to Baguio! Yay!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

It's a virtual birthday!

I spent most of the day processing my driver's license renewal, then went off in a hurry to Makati to get the Baguio staffhouse occupation documents. The day was quite stressful and yet, here I am, at the end of my (birth)day with a big smile on my face and a happy heart.

Here's a big THANK YOU to all those who remembered my birthday!

...to everyone who posted a greeting on my Facebook wall!
...to everyone who emailed my GMAIL account!
...to those who sent (offline) messages on the Yahoo! Messenger!
...to everyone who sent me a message on Friendster!
...to everyone who commented on my Multiply and Blogspot blogs!
...to everyone to called or texted me through my cellphone!
...to everyone who called me via landline! (Tatay!)

...and of course to those who greeted me in person!


You have all truly made my day. :D