News: Archive for January, 2008
Camera Cafè in the Philippines
Ever since I saw Camera Cafe in QTV, I was hooked, and left wanting for more. I like the fast-paced, slapstick-y formula, but more than that, CC’s best asset is the cast. Just look at this:
I LUV JOY VIADO’S ACTING! And yeah, all of the entire cast danced, and with that final signature make-face! Really hilarious!
And even though most of my Filipino brothers think that this is an imitation of the original French production (technically, it’s a franchise), I’d be so proud to say it’s not the format that brought the entire show to its peak, but the talented actors in it.
Technorati Tags: camera cafe, qtv
Filipino Copycats?
First-off, for the guy who posted this dumb question in Yahoo! Answers, why the hell should you think that Filipinos are copycats? I hate the title because it’s so demeaning, I have to post it here.
It’s not us being copycats or us being original thinkers that determines the “rightness” of being us as a race, but depriving the simple gesture of thanking your country for giving you freedom to see / experience things outside the Philippines is the most wrong thing you could do as a citizen. You are supposed to be smart because of your country. You’re using the internet and post bulls**t comments because your country allows you to be free. What f****ing more can you ask for?
To put things in perspective, if I tell you you are being a moronic copycat of a US citizen for thinking we don’t do good movies, would you be elated and be more moronic along the way, will you be busy being defensive, or will you improve things in you, starting from preventing your stupid Yahoo! questions from having “copycats” and “Filipino” in them?
Honestly, in this global world, original is outdated. Execution always matters, and being patriotic is the least thing you could do to your country that’s better than paying fastfood value added taxes. If being patriotic seems to also be a copycat’s way because the Japanese already have that, would you not need them? If we have superheroes to copy just to jade the masses’ thoughts from being negative about us being Filipinos, do you think it’s a good thing? If you think putting Filipino identification to every thing we do is stereotypical and unoriginal, then you should be living in your own pot-enhanced dimension or some fast-paced planet that takes only two days to get obsolete.
Technorati Tags: philippines, superheroes
I Love You All, Guys…
OK, before anyone accuses me of being gay, I would like to explain what the title means. I had this team from UP Diliman, whom I shared my thesis with. If you’ve been reading my blog for a long time, you would know that that project was DEEERS 6, which is surprisingly still working and being used (wonder why it’s not being used university-wide). I asked them if I could have a copy of the thesis paper we used to make, just to boost myself with my old knowledge of J2EE. Back then, I was a rockstar of anything J2EE. Now, I dedicated my professional time to doing Mac.
Anyway, to my dear DEEERS-mates, whatever you wrote on that paper, I was really touched. I always see myself as the meek geek who just does small-time stuff and doesn’t do anything big, but you guys keep on making me realize my potential and are always there to give me support whenever any hardship comes my way.
I really miss hanging out with you, guys. I wish our dream of having our own software company will still become a reality. It doesn’t matter if we put it up together or not. We will make it big!
When will our next dine out be?
Technorati Tags: deeers
Show That I Watch: Amazing Race 12 Season Finale
Everybody is now talking about The Amazing Race 12, not only because of the nail-biting episodes, but also because this is the first time that The Amazing Race has 2 out of 3 chances on having seniors as the winners of the race.
Last episode, one of my fave teams, Nate and Jen, got booted off the competition because of being consistent… on arguing. I was saddened, not only because it was Jen’s birthday on that leg of the race, but also because they want that leg “1st place” very badly, and they had this dialogue at the end talking about the couple kinda killing their relationship along the race because they were too focused on the game.
You can watch the season finale on Sunday (American time) or Monday at 9AM on Studio 23 (Philippine Live Satellite feed).
I’m betting all my money to Ron and Christina. If they win, they will be the first Father-Daughter tandem to ever win the amazing race, aside from having Ron as the oldest guy to ever win a race.
Technorati Tags: amazing race, finale
Congratulations, Vincent Bueno!
Well, the title says it all! You really make us all proud of being Filipino.
For those who still don’t know (and lives inside that virtual cave called MySpace), Vincent Bueno was the only Asian contestant, and apparently, grand winner of this season’s installment of Musical! Die Show (Musical! The Show), Austria’s ratings juggernaut ala-American Idol, which not only showcases singing talent but also amateur total performance (e.g. acting, singing, dancing, and tight-noodle walking… of course the last one is a joke).
To give you an idea how it looks like, here is, in my opinion, Vincent’s most engaging, and production-wise, the glossiest performance in the show.
I like the production better than American Idol (AI doesn’t have any design at all…), and the show pushes each performance to be musical-grade, complete with props and backup dancers.
Vincent Bueno, according to an ABS-CBN News article , is a pure-blood Filipino who grew up in Austria, and finished his Bachelor of Arts in Music and Theater Arts at the Vienna Conservatory of Music. Her mother Cora, Filipino nurse in Vienna, even joked that her son was already dancing even when he was in her womb. Her father Tony, on the other hand, said he knew his son will be a star because even when he was young, he seemed like dancing while strolling the city streets.
It seems like we’re having a Pinoy invasion these days! First, Charice Pempengco, now, Vincent Bueno. Again, congratz to our talented Filipino brothers and sisters.
Technorati Tags: musical! die show, vincent bueno
Snow Way!
An article in inquirer.net caught my attention, and though will this be ever possible in the Philippines. The article says, “Light snow fell in Baghdad early on Friday in what weather officials said was the first time in about a 100 years.”
Humid and warm (typically eastern / Asian) combined with cold and dry (typically European) equals snow. No way that is going to happen in the Philippines. We’re frickin’ surrounded by bodies of water, not to mention we’re just above the equator.
Technorati Tags: baghdad, philippines, snow
How About a Multi-million Retirement Video?
This video is the first thing that Bill Gates made to get me to laughing. Like really. Haha (… I really have to spell it out, no?).
The only people missing here are the Dalai Lama, Pope Benedict XVI, Madonna, and Sanjaya Malakar. Seriously, are they trying to be like Google, making fun of the serious work they do inside the company?
At least they made Bill’s dream come true… To be that most expensive starlet.
Technorati Tags: bill gates, ces, retirement
Whine Cellar 4: Do You Know Firefox at All?
I had a previous post about Firefox’s performance versus Safari, and of course, that wasn’t official and conclusive. I thought before that I just have this love for underdogs, but Firefox as of now is one of those applications I tend to use on an everyday basis, without ever looking away from it (there’s Camino, Safari, Flock and Opera, to name a few).
Almost all people felt like Firefox was bloated back then, and I too share their sentiments. Putting emphasis on “back then”, Firefox 3 promises to be more sleek, less bloated and more OS-friendly, and with the current beta version I’m using, I guess Firefox is doing the right strides on making itself the best browser there is.
Of course, other blog posts may say that Firefox has been so bloated and only have bugfix releases as major improvements, asking whether there is a reason to update. First off, the concept of being “bloated” and having releases the same as Opera’s is pretty much contradicting. Opera may be quick, ACID-compliant, and could also do torrent files, but the reason I don’t use it is because it’s too shiny for me. There are a lot of features to consider that I don’t even use (like mouse gestures, automatic “everything”, shortcuts, and even thumbnail views). Other people think that an application is bloated because it does stuff in a very slow way, with footprint ranging to the hundred megabytes. I, in my opinion, say that a bloated app is something that has a bunch of things put in it, but doesn’t really feel like one of those features most people would usually use. It just happens that Microsoft Office is both bloated and under-optimized, reason enough why people are confused about apps being bloated.
Firefox is a simple app. The only thing that makes it bloated is its plugins architecture, wherein people could customize Firefox for their needed functionalities. And with the next version coming, all those memory and CPU utilization issues should be ironed out, more than what I really want for my preferred browser.
Yelling and Belting… They’re Just the Same
Of course, how can I be a YouTube addict without passing the hottest video of the day? Perhaps, not only it’s hot in YouTube, but it’s all over Philippine news!
The first impression that other people had (I guess non-Filipinos) is that it so looked like lip-synching. For us Filipinos, Charice Pempengco is just the new kid in town, and we have a packed lineup of singers who have same caliber as Charice Pempengco has. What got us interested is how she brought the entire globe to her attention, singing a strictly difficult song, “And I’m Telling You, I’m Not Going” recently revived by Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson.
And by “strictly difficult”, I daresay Charice did a good job. Not excellent, just good.
First off is the problem of belting. Of course there will always be belting when it comes to singing that song. Consider Bianca Ryan’s rendition.
As for America’s taste, Bianca is better than Charice because: (1) her voice won’t ruin that $100 speaker system; (2) her voice would save you thousands of dollars for auditory operations (e.g. fixing the eardrums), sometimes denied by health insurance companies; (3) on a serious note, she sounds country-ish, and, somehow, heartfelt. These are the problems that Charice might be encountering.
But wait! I’m not saying these because I want to grab attention or something. How did she fail here in the Philippines when she, in turn, raked millions of views in YouTube? Simple. She’s not star material here in the Philippines… yet. When Charice won, she was too young to be considered as a belting-star. Here in the Philippines, if you are a young singing star, you should sing with cute voices. Another reason is during the time she won, her singing wasn’t that heartfelt. We also have a singer, Sarah Geronimo, who sings like her, and she’s just two or three years older than Charice. She won a title back when she was fourteen, I guess, because of her heartfelt rendition of a Celine Dion classic.
In my opinion, she still doesn’t have that heartfelt performance. I mean, the Jennifer Hudson song was far from being too proud. It was a song of a desperate woman. She doesn’t act or sing desperate.
Bianca, in my opinion, is currently suffering the same problems. But what do I know about America’s taste?
Technorati Tags: bianca ryan, charice pempengco, jennifer hudson, sarah geronimo
Stealing Money from Charities
This is, yet again, one of the most stupid (I did it right this time… of course I know there’re no such words as “stupider” and “stupidest”…) news to ever come out first this year. Imagine a visionary organization built to unify the world through technology, building cheap but very functional laptops for kids who can’t afford to buy those stylish portables. Of course, we’re sure they need money to fuel the production of these devices, but to encourage governments to spend money to hook kids up to technology (rather than spending them in colossal mansions and round-the-clock around-the-world trips) is one great feat.
I’m talking about the One-Laptop-Per-Child project.
The first time I’ve heard about this was when I was in college. I guess about three years ago. Now that it’s making big buzzes and a lot of countries are ordering millions of units, a few jerks enter the scene.
Including this bigger a$$ (from Engadget.com): Nigerian firm wins interim injunction against OLPC, asks for $20M in damages
Like, come on! $20-frickin-million? I guess some people are too smart to either bend the law to their side (e.g. this Nigerian firm) for a super-obvious patent (Like if I mistakenly put the characters there, I get sued?!? How the hell should I position the characters, then?) or be that already-filthy-rich company seeking for more government money (e.g. Microsoft, and Intel), making it harder for these near-to-kind-hearted companies to give third-graders access to Google and Wikipedia.
Technorati Tags: classmate pc, engadget, olpc
