Cup Noodle Talk for the Rainy Weather

One trivia about Rai is that he is a self-confessed ramen boy. *laughs out loud* No, seriously he is. In fact, his Hong Kong trips would never be complete without him not searching for that one good ramen place.

But since he can't afford to go to every ramen house in town, he has instant noodles as alternative. I feel as if he is partial to Japanese instant noodles... maybe because (what can I say?) they're better compared with the others he has tried. *agrees with him on this*

And if there's one instant noodle that we both love (my sister and another friend are also huge fans), it's this Cup Noodle Seafood Flavor by Nissin. This cup noodle doesn't come in cheap (especially if you're to buy the original) as they range from Php70 to Php100+ in our local supermarkets. Rai might be the better person to comment on how the local version fares with the Japanese version, so I'll leave it to him to do that. :p

Honestly, all that talk is just so I can introduce to you this amusing video I saw earlier. It's a commercial for the new Curry flavor of Nissin's cup noodle that stars Takuya Kimura (also known by many as Kimutaku), a famous Japanese actor and member of a singing group called SMAP.

Japanese as dancing Indians... Indian melody with Japanese lyrics... If that isn't amusing to you, I don't know what is. *lol*

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Jacque Bermejo Causes A Stir

We all know that the last thing we need is an insensitive remark about the recent calamity that tropical storm Ondoy brought to the Philippines.

"buti n lng am hir in dubai! maybe so many sinners bak der! so yeah deserving wat hapend!"

*click to enlarge

Jacque Bermejo is a Filipina, working for a media company in Dubai. What made her infamous was her Facebook status that caught the attention and spite of most Filipinos who saw it. In a matter of minutes (or was it just seconds?), people have already spread the word in Facebook, Twitter and Multiply. A Facebook group had been created with this name: Jacque Bermejo be gone,we "sinners" don't want you here!!!. Her multiply account has been bombarded by an endless stream of hate comments. One would have a hard time trying to read them because the comments come in every second. Don't look now, but a wikepedia entry has already been created as well. Yes, that's how much rage she was able to acquire over a short period of time.

Now, we wonder what made her put that up for everyone to see. Was that supposed to be a joke or did she mean each and every single word of it? Whatever her reason maybe, the damage has been done. It wasn't the right thing to do, plain and simple.

We can't do much if people would want to retort back and put her in her rightful place. Most would say she deserves what she's getting. Then again, a person like this shouldn't be given the time of the day anymore. What we can do is to save our energy for something more important. There's so much to be done, why not take action instead?

On that note, here's a helpful site on how and where to donate and/or volunteer.

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Typhoon Ondoy on A Saturday

I'm in the comfort of our home as I type this. But then all I hear is bad news: people being on their rooftops because water level is already too high, people drowning, people stranded somewhere and can't get to their homes. This, according to PAGASA, has been the worst flooding case in history since 1967. Online, there's SOS tweets everywhere plus friends' own experiences brought about by this typhoon (i.e. traffic being horrible, cars being swept by flood, MRT/LRT commuting woes). I know there are more horror stories out there and I can only imagine and sympathize. T_T State of Calamity is declared in some parts of Metro Manila and this is just signal #1 here.

So far, there's still electricity in our place. Internet connection doing fine. But people are advised to prepare for possible power shutdown.

Also, you should know better people, stay at home. It will be safer that way.

[Edited]
For Ondoy related posts and photos aftermath, here's a tumblr site. For emergency hotlines and ways to help, see this.

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Post-MIBF 2009

I've recently been flooding this blog of event posts mainly because these are events I, myself want (or wanted) to be a part of. Unluckily for me (in as much as there are people willing to accompany me), it was just impossible to catch a Cine Europa movie because of time constraint. We did try, we just failed. *cries* And since I am currently swamped with work-related stuff, I didn't try to ask anyone anymore if they wanted to catch one of those Korean film fest entries with me. That's two missed film fest opportunities.

Nonetheless, as a consolation, I was able to go to that Manila International Book Fair (held at SMX Convention Hall of SM Mall of Asia) last Saturday. The good thing here is that I dragged not just Rai but also some of our college friends to the said fair. Coincidentally, Kulit was also inside the convention hall that time we were there, thus, making the whole accidental meetup seem like a mini-reunion of some sort.

*someone's semi-sleeping on the first pic LOL*

As for the real reason I was there... Yes, the book fair did not disappoint. There were good deals and there were good deals all around. For Php20 as an entrance fee, you get to devour books to your heart's content or buy discounted books and even get some of these signed by their authors.

I only had an hour though to check out the all the booths and honestly, I wasn't able to do just that. Instead, I went straight to those that I was really raring to visit and spent the rest of my time to see the other booths.

[The following 4 images were taken using a camera phone]


From where I got my purchases

How was my loot, you might ask? Well. I didn't get to bring home as much as I wanted to (aside from having limited time, I also had limited funds) but...

It's all good. In fact, this early, I can't wait for next year's! :)

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Korean Film Festival 2009 at Shangri-la

Cine Europa ended its run at the Shangri-la Plaza Mall last Sunday, September 20. For those who get a kick watching international movies, you will be happy to know that there will be a new film festival starting tomorrow. The Embassy of the Republic of Korea presents the 2009 Koren Film Festival from September 23 to 29, 2009 at Shangri-la Cineplex Cinema 3. Admission is still free.

To see the schedule and movie synopses, check out these images

As a tip from someone who was raring to see at least one Cine Europa entry but ended up seeing none (*boohoo*), I suggest anyone planning to catch this Korean film festival to line up really early for the tickets. The first time we tried our luck, we got to the venue 15 minutes before the 7:30 movie. Ticket staff told us that they give out tickets 30 minutes before the actual screening time (last I heard, they were giving it out 1 hour prior to the movie). I guess this is how it is when a movie is shown for free. No doubt about it though, it's not like one can not get hold of a copy of the said movies and be able to watch it in the comfort of your own home. Then again, sometimes nothing beats the experience of watching a movie inside a cinema (unless you have your own movie room in your house), right?

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Filipino Politicians and the Internet

Manny Villar is now on Twitter and apparently, he is now my follower.

The moment I read this email notification, I had to laugh at first. Imagine a politician following an ordinary person like me? Almost immediately, I realized what this is about.

It is a campaign strategy for this presidentiable (and for other presidentiables who are/maybe on twitter (or other social networking sites as well). Here's why I can say that: the moment that a person has been notified that someone has followed him/her, followed person becomes aware of the existence of this follower. In this case, I wouldn't know that Mr. Manny V. here has a twitter account hadn't I received the mentioned notification. Let's say I do not have a clue as to who Manny Villar is and I get something like this in my email, my curiosity would still lead me to check who this follower of mine is. This, regardless if this is the real Manny Villar tweeting or just one of his campaign people who tweets.

While I may commend Mr. Akala Mo for using the internet to reach out to voters (probably adopting the same strategy U.S. President Barack Obama used to build his popularity and seal his victory), I do not like the idea that they are already doing all sorts of campaigning (think: tv campaign ads that they pass off as infomercials *roll eyes*) this early.

Oh well, I guess there's no stopping these politicians now. *shakes head*

[Disclaimer:
With this post, I'm probably doing Mr. M.V. here a favor: helping him out with his publicity. Given that, let me make it clear that I am not for Manny Villar. It's still too early for me to have a definite presidentiable in mind for our 2010 Philippine general election.]

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Facebook Lite: strips down!

The world's favorite social networking site Facebook has risen to the top in no time despite being a late comer in the industry and has completely triumphed over their rivals. What's the secret to their success?

If you ask me, I'd say:

• Status Update Feed.
  
• Chat.
  
• Poke.
  
• Pet Society.
  
• Mafia Wars.
  
• Farm Town.
  
• Restaurant City.
  
• My Calendar.
  
• Give your enemies rashes.
  

Okay I made the last one up, but still, the list goes on... Most of these are applications we have associated with Facebook and are a major contributor to their status quo. However, the recent buzz talks of Facebook getting ready to do away with all these and attempts to give you more with less. Introducing Facebook Lite, which is exactly the same as Facebook minus the applications, the quizzes, the requests for mundane activities you're not really interested in. Here's a sample screenshot. I chose someone's profile that's easy on the eyes ;) and have picked the ever popular queen of Philippine cosplays herself, Alodia Gosiengfiao.

They have kept the most used features which are the friend search and the status update feed. Twitter and Plurk users will definitely feel at home with this setup, since this brings Facebook close to being a micro blogging tool, also allowing you to insert url links, photos and videos. The comments are still enabled for each post. I'd say it's like Twitter, only more organized as it is easier to keep track of the responses. It's also like Plurk, only without the karma system (something that that you can either love or hate as people are encouraged to post a lot of spam uninformative messages :p). It appears that Facebook is doing this for either or both of the following reasons:

1. They have accepted that micro blogging is the future and are positioning themselves early.
   
2. To cater to users on a low bandwidth line to minimize packet data transfers.
   

Personally, I don't have any complaints with this direction. They might not be original in all their features but you have to recognize the effort they are putting in to improve their services and probably remain the best out there.

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Facebook Adopts Twitter's @Mentions

Kulit mentioned about Facebook allowing it's users to post status updates using the @mention tag similar to that of Twitter.

I looked into it and found out that Facebook has indeed rolled out their new feature. This "tagging" feature lets you to just type the @ symbol followed by your friend's (or an application's, a page's, or even an event's) name making the "mentioned" be tagged in your status update (take note that only a maximum of 6 tags per status are allowed).

Here's how it is done:

What happens when you type the @ symbol


Drop Down Menu is revealed


You've been tagged!

I guess Facebook users but non-Twitter users would wonder what's the deal with this new stuff.

Let me then explain it this way. If before, you wanted to greet a friend on her birthday, you had to go to that person's profile and post on her Wall a birthday shoutout. Now, with this @mention, you can just post on your own profile that birthday greet (i.e. ji greets @Kulit a happy birthday) and your friend will be notified that you have tagged him/her. It will also show on your friend's feed by the way. Technically speaking, with all your thoughts and 'actions' being kept to your profile as a stream of status updates, it looks all the more like Twitter's concept.

Although imitation maybe a form of flattery, I'm not sure if Twitter users will be happy Facebook implementing this. I honestly think Facebook should have focused on fixing their bugs first instead of introducing something new. Or maybe Facebook just wants to give Twitter a run for their money?

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Kanye West Insults Taylor Swift at the 2009 MVA

Taylor Swift, being young and talented, is one artist that I adore. Not all would probably agree with her winning her first MTV Music Video Award (for Best Female Video category) last Sunday, September 13. But she doesn't deserve what Kanye West did to her:

The moment was destroyed for the young talent.

Soon after Kanye bullied Taylor, Beyonce made something good out of the situation:

Major props to Beyonce for being thoughtful *sniff*. As for Kanye... I guess he's just being himself, a jerk, that is.

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Singapore Trip Day 3 Part 1 - Singapore Flyer and Lau Pa Saht

Related posts in series:

Singapore Trip Day 2 Part 3 - Dinner with Colleagues
Singapore Trip Day 3 Part 2 - Singapore Malls

About time I got this post up ^^. It's the 25th of July 2009, and up on our itinerary we are to head to the Singapore Flyer, my Aunt and her family won't be coming with us but we'll be meeting with our friends Che and Mon. The Singapore Flyer in essence is like a giant Ferris Wheel where you are taken high high up to view the city in all it's glory. I suppose that a night view would be better but since we're running against the clock and to be fair we should consider the day ride a different experience, this isn't so bad at all. Hope nobody here's afraid of heights, eventhoug to some extent, I know I am!


The meeting place is in Raffles City Mall, that's at MRT City Hall Station. And here I took some pictures of the area while we wait for our designated tour guides for the day ^^.




It's somewhat cloudy, not so great for pictures but the temperature is great (Singapore standards :p).

Singapore Flyer
After the meet up, we took a short cab ride to get there. You need to take an elevator (a lift, if you're British ^^) ride to get to the top then cross a walkway to actually reach the loading section. Before actually getting on the ride, you will be asked to pose for a photo which you will get to see after the ride.

Different groups of passengers were put together in a unit to maximize capacity and revenue. And as a safety measure, directly below the loading area is a safety net.

Before getting on the ride, you can pick up an audio device (forgot to take photo of the darn thing) that will serve as your guide. This device is synchronized to a channel and as you go up it will narrate some history of the sights that you will see around you. You can either put it near your ear or use the headset provided.

Oftentimes the device will ask you to use the compass above you as reference.

I listened to the device only for a while since I was going all over the area for photo opportunities.


The mechanism that holds the capsule rotates along with the capsule, making it stable and swing-proof.


Several parts of the city are still under development. Singapore may be small but it's going to be one developed and busy city.


These are just miniatures (hard to tell from the photos).
After the ride you can check out the store for souvenirs. Here, you can also claim the photo you took earlier. You can choose among 4 kinds of backgrounds, 2 of which are photos of you and the inside of the capsule in either day or night shots while the other two are shots of you inside the capsule from a distance while capturing the view of Singapore. I think the souvenir photo costs around S$30-S$40 is placed in a big card holder of sort.


Notice the "No Picture Taking" sign?

Lau Pa Saht
It's only past 10am but everybody is famished since we didn't get a chance to have breakfast. We headed to this place called Lau Pa Saht, a food center that looked like a hawker's hall, something that is common in Singapore. In this place, there's no shortage of food choices.




We ended up trying a Malaysian stall whose owner was nice enough to give us special discounts for their Cereal Prawns (highly recommended!) and Black Pepper Crab :9.


Happy V! You won't be disappointed if you're craving for a certain Filipino fastfood ^^.
Now that we've had our fill, it's about time we head to Orchard to get our money changed and finally be able to shop.

Related posts in series:

Singapore Trip Day 2 Part 3 - Dinner with Colleagues
Singapore Trip Day 3 Part 2 - Singapore Malls

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