Bigger rewards program

The SAP Community website is revamping their Member Rewards Program. The gist of the new rules is that it will be harder to get the reward items, but the reward items will be more expensive than what were available before. Geez, I don't know. Hopefully they won't be sending defective items like the 4-in-1 Clock I got as my first reward item. An expensive defective item is still defective. *lol*

The Village

I saw The Village last Saturday. It's not bad, but I felt short-changed. The surprise at the end is not satisfying enough. And the fact that the book that was reported to have been plagiarized by Shyamalan, Running Out Of Time, has a better premise isn't helping. I won't recommend it to horror film afficionados. The score by James Newton Howard is very engaging, though. And Bryce Dallas Howard (Ivy Walker) is a very good newcomer actress. I'm sure just like Rachel Hurd-Wood (Wendy in Peter Pan 2003) Bryce may also want to be a marine biologist some day. *corny joke*

The bad comes with the good

The good news is that my GPRS service from Globe is back (since Sunday, September 5). The bad news is that I just found out today that instead of charging me 15 centavos per kilobyte, I'm actually being charged 49 centavos per kilobyte. I'm going to do some further tests to see if the charging is consistently off the mark. This isn't right. I'm still seriously considering changing operators.

Colin, Lord of the Race (wannabe)

In some previous post I said that Charla/Mirna is my least favorite team among the teams competing in The Amazing Race 5. But I shouldn't have spoken too soon. Last week, it became apparent that Colin/Christie is my least favorite team. Colin is an arrogant and pompous ass. While Christie is well an inch short of Colin's slave.

In episode eight, Colin tried to stiff the cab driver by paying him only 50% of what is agreed upon. He blurted, or actually shouted out some incredulous reasons surely for everyone within a mile raidius to hear that he can get away with paying only 50% of the fare if he so wants. Thankfully, the cabbie called a police officer to talk some sense out of Colin. But of course Colin won't go down silently. He ended up in the police headquarters, and there he told another version of the story to the station chief. Thankfully, the chief didn't believe him. The taxi driver decided to file criminal charges against him and so in the end the pompous ass was forced to give what is due to the cabbie. Of course, without the camera crew he would have been in jail for at least maybe enough time for them to miss their chartered flight to Kenya, or worse beaten by the driver and the police officers.

And to make it even worse, Christie was there all along trying to convince Colin to just give the driver the complete fare. And of course, Colin was blurting out some random comments like how Christie was making the situation worse by convincing him to pay up. In the later part of the episode Christie was actually the one who apologized to Colin. This with the effect of a resounding uproar of some women in alt.tv.amazing-race newsgroup.

I take my words last week back. Colin/Christie is my least favorite team. I hope they never made it to the two Philippine legs of TAR5. Or even if they did, I hope the locals (my fellow Filipinos) put him where he rightfully belongs. (This race was supposedly recorded from January to February 2004.)

Globe sucks, big time!

Last August 21, I ran out of (Globe) prepaid credits. Because of this, I can no longer use WAP over GPRS. So I quickly reloaded my account. But up to this day, I still can't access my favorite wap sites. And I'm getting frustrated already. I've already called their customer service hotline but apparently there is no available technical person to talk to, the one who knows how to solve my problem.

Because of this, I am now seriously considering switching to another carrier, SMART. A lot of people told me that Smart is so much better in terms of services. I would have switched long ago but my main apprehension about Smart is that it has many subscribers (it's the biggest wireless network carrier in the Philippines with almost double the number of subscribers compared to Globe). But as it is I can no longer stand Globe's lack of customer service. Within this week I plan to buy me a new Smart SIM kit. I'm going to try it for maybe a month and see if I like it better than Globe. And by that I mean, better GPRS service. I don't have a very expensive phone, but despite this I still feel that my phone's features are wasted on Globe. Of course Smart is not the only alternative. I'm going to also try Sun Cellular one of these days. I think it's better to seriously try all the alternatives before switching completely from Globe. Loyalty is not rewarded when you're on prepaid so I might as well switch to the better carrier. Not much to lose, better service to gain.

So long... Charla & Mirna

My least favorite team of The Amazing Race 5 is now gone. I'll surely miss them. But only because I enjoy watching them and my other least favorite team of Colin & Christie fighting each other. And my favorite team Chip & Kim finished first in this leg of the race. Yey! I hope they make ithere in the Philippines and eventually win this season's race.

The Amazing Race 5

The Amazing Race is back! It is my favorite reality show. What's more it will have two pit stops here in my country, the Philippines. I am very excited to know which teams will make it here since according to what I have read, the pit stops here will be the last two before the final two or three teams go back to the US for the finish line. My two early favorites, Jim & Marsha and Marshall & Lance, have already been eliminated. So, now my favorites are Chip & Kim followed closely by Brandon & Nicole. My least favorite team is that of Charla & Mirna mostly because of Mirna. My second least favorite would be Colin & Christie mostly because of Colin. [posted via mobile phone]

Defective 4-in-1 Calendar

I received my first reward from garnering 1000 points in the SAP Community Forums last week. It's a pretty cool gadget. It has four functions. You turn it to one side it becomes a calendar, showing date, time, and day of the week, with alarm function. Turn it another side and it displays the temperature. Turn it again and it becomes a timer. Turn it yet again and it becomes a countdown timer. Pretty cool indeed, except that it's missing an LCD line so that 8 is displayed as E, 0 as C, etc.

This month's reward is a tumbler. I guess it's a much better reward than a high-tech but defective gizmo so I am now working on another 1000 points to get it.

Cable me up

I finally gave in to my craving and subscribed to a cable television service last Saturday, June 26. They hooked me up the following Tuesday, June 29. Although our TV is still acting up from time to time, meaning it won't show anything from time to time, I still couldn't resist subscribing to cable. I just can't stand having only eight channels on my TV, especially that two of the broadcast networks have nothing to offer on primetime except recycled worn-out stories in telenovelas (soap operas). Worn-out stories Mondays to Fridays, primetime? Tsk tsk. I missed the good ol' days where diversity was the key in primetime programming. I have to shell out 550 pesos per month for the subscription but this early on I can say that I shell it out without regret.

Post summaries

Blogger now has a help page for showing only the summary of the post in the main page and showing the full post only in the item page. I was very excited but then when I read it, it was the same technique that I found out by myself about a month ago. If only they posted it then.

Finding Neverland

I just found out that J.M. Barrie's Neverland has just been retitled to Finding Neverland. It won't come out till October 2004. And I have reason to believe it won't arrive here in the Philippines during that time. It supposedly has plenty of historical inaccuracies as it is based on a play that highly fictionalized Barrie's life, The Man Who Was Peter Pan by Allan Knee. But I'm still excited. Why? Well, because it's about James Matthew Barrie, creator of Peter Pan. And because this year marks the 100 years anniversary of Peter Pan. Hogan's Peter Pan, the live-action movie starring Jeremy Sumpter, Rachel Hurd-Wood, and Jason Isaacs released last year that bombed at the box-office should have been released this year. This year would have been more appropriate. And there's no Return of the King to clobber it. It was an excellent movie though. I'll never understand why it wasn't a hit.

Reward me

I joined the SAP Community forum yesterday. I wouldn't have joined except that I really need to get started on ABAP programming already. And my co-worker told me that there's a member reward system. Everytime my rewards point reaches 1000, I get to receive the Item Of The Month, free of charge and free shipping. In other words, free as in beer. What's even better is that I'm really motivated to learn this thing now.

Thunderstorm

Its raining very hard tonight! And I mean really hard. Theres really no problem except that it is actually a thunderstorm. Four lightning strikes that by the looks of them and the near simultaneous clap of thunder mean that the they were fairly close. I dont want to confirm it by looking through the windows, though. In fact I am staying well away from them because glass windows are known to shatter you know. :-) Living here in the Philippines all my young life I should be used to thunderstorms already. And I am. Who wouldnt? But just because I am doesnt mean that the glass windows in my bedroom and in our living room wont shatter when, God forbids, struck by lightning. I hope this storm dies down soon.

Movies a plenty

Last Saturday, May 29, me and my friends watched Shrek 2
and The Day After Tomorrow. Shrek 2 was very
funny, even funnier than the first one. What it lacked was memorable music
that the original Shrek had plenty of. The Day After
Tomorrow isn't memorable in terms of dialog. I even think the dialog is
bad. But I didn't really expect much from a disaster movie. I just want to
see an effects laden film and I wasn't disappointed. The special effects
were excellent.

Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban opens
nationwide today. And I've got this urge to watch it also today,
the first day of showing. I think it will be worth it. Prisoner was
the first of the books in the series that I've read so in a way it
introduced me to the whole series. The trailers were very good, too, so I'm
about 99.9% sure that I'm gonna like this movie. And it is helmed by Alfonso
Cuaron, the same director who helmed A Little Princess, the anime
version of which I grew up with back in the early 90's.

Spider-man 2 is also set to open here nationwide on June
30. So depending on how many times I'm going to see these movies June will
be a "busy" month at the moviehouses for me.

Shut up! Shut up!

The canvassing of votes was suppose to start today. But apparently the opposition is succeeding in delaying the start of the official canvassing of votes for president and vice-president. Here in the Philippines, the two houses of Congress do the canvassing of votes for the president and vice-president.

Yesterday, the session was brought to an abrupt end when a congressman lost his cool when a spectator, who was apparently tired of the congressman's delaying tactics, passed him a note saying, "shut up". The congressman was so mad that he asked the deputy speaker of the house to put whoever wrote the note in contempt. His request wasn't granted so he kept on shouting "shut up, shut up" interrupting whatever the deputy speaker was saying. It was all caught on tape and was shown in last night's newscasts. It was both funny and embarassing that our lawmakers can behave like that. Well, at least it didn't result to chair and microphone stand throwing likethat in Taiwan and South Korea.

Potter kids outgrowing roles

This is one of the buzz accompanying the release of the third Harry Potter movie. And I am thinking, so what. Big deal. Among the three principal kid actors, Rupert Grint is the only one that I will miss. He is a very good actor and he plays the role pretty well. Emma is good at playing Hermione, but Rachel Hurd-Wood (Wendy in Peter Pan 2003) is a better actress and can play Hermione better. As for Dan Radcliffe, well, he may be playing the lead role but I think he is the worst actor among the three. I believe that it is only for convenience that he was kept for the role. Harry Newell, John Darling in Peter Pan 2003, can portray Harry Potter better than Dan. Newell does not only look the part but acts very well too. Those who are in doubt should buy or rent PP 2003 DVD. The kids there act very well.

Note: I used my phone through WAP to post this. So I was limited to 839 characters and can only see three lines at a time while writing it. This is I guess how I write without the benefit of being able to see what I've written so far. Hmm... Not bad.

Opposition delays canvassing

More than two weeks after the elections and the canvassing of the votes for president and vice-president has yet to start. This is already the third presidential election since the fall of Marcos, and yet the Congress tries to convince us, the Filipino people, that what's happening in Congress is normal. It's not normal. The opposition legislators are in frantic hunt for ways to delay the canvassing of votes. And at first glance, their delaying tactics seem to work. Short of changing the election returns I don't see how delaying the official canvassing will help their cause. If indeed, as they claim, Poe won the presidency then why would they delay his proclamation? They can't fool me. But apparently they can fool majority of Filipino voters. Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. After all if majority of Filipino voters were really thinking clear, Fernando Poe, Jr., an actor (a bad actor at that, in my opinion) without a single trace of public service or even mere participation in charitable fund raising events like some other actors do, wouldn't be a treat to a trained economist and former senator for the top public position in the land. If they were thinking clear, the biggest treat to Arroyo would have been former Senator
and former Department of Education secretary Raul Roco. As it is Roco is even having a hard time keeping the fourth spot.

Film Critics

I wrote the following in an online forum and thought I might as well post it here. The topic was about film critics, particularly Ebert and Roeper.

I particularly like Ebert's review of The Passion of the Christ. I felt it was honest. And since then I've been reading his review on the movie that I am about to watch, though not to stop me from seeing it if the review is bad but just to have an overview of what I am about to see.

The Passion of the Christ is a very special movie to me. It greatly minimized my once high regard of the Rotten Tomatoes tomatometer. Not to mention that it also changed how I feel about certain reviewers. I feel that reviewers will oppose a movie no matter what if they want it not to succeed. Of course it would be wrong to think that critics will treat all movies the way they treated The Passion, but the reviews that came out are particularly telling of how certain critics are unable to objectively review a movie. I know that a movie is an art form so therefore critics are naturally subjective in their reviews. But I tend to forget this and the reviews for The Passion sort of reminded me about it big time. Maybe I was just naive for relying on the venerable tomatometer too much. But what can I say; there are things in life that are obvious to some and not so obvious to me. We live. We learn. Better late than never.

What's the big deal? Well, say you have been using a gadget thinking you know how it works, and it was very helpful and that it help you decide things, and then after say after several years you realized it wasn't working the way you thought it was working. Bummer! Big waste of time.

Notable: Shrek 2 Shatters Records

Box Office Mojo has this to
report on Shrek 2's performance in the box office this weekend:

A fractured fairy tale broke records as it mended a heretofore soft summer.

The widest release ever yielded the biggest single day gross ever, the
highest bow ever for an animated movie (topping Finding Nemo's $70.3
million), the second best weekend ever (behind only Spider-Man's $114.8
million) and the first uber-opening of the summer.

The $70 million Shrek 2 raked in a whopping $108.0 million over the weekend
at 4,163 theaters, bringing its five-day haul to $129.0 million since
debuting Wednesday -- the third biggest 5-day bow ever. It beat DreamWorks'
$104.3 million estimate by $3.7 million, thanks to a stronger than expected
Sunday.

Read the full article

An even better news is that acccording to Click The City, Shrek 2 is already being shown here in the Philippines. Nice.

Absurdity Check: Pamela Sitt

Seattle Times staff reporter Pamela Sitt has this absurd things to say in a recent article:

After last week's frenzy over La Toya London's untimely exit on Fox's "American Idol," order was restored last night with Jasmine Trias saying aloha.

Further on the article she says:

Fans complain that they can't get through the phone lines to vote — the result of local phone lines not equipped to handle a spike in call volume.

Read the full absurd article

Absurdity Check

This is not the first and I expect not the last absurd article about American Idol voting. Her claims are not only absurd, they are outrageous. Here's why:

• Phone lines, unlike Sitt, are not biased. They're jammed as much when the "right vote" (another absurd term being spread by journalists like her)is cast as when the "wrong" one is.
  
• Fans complain. Really? She should qualify that as fans that cannot accept that majority of other fans don't agree with their choices. Because after all, those who voted for the other contestants are also fans of the show.
  
• She would like us to believe that when La Toya was voted off there was chaos and when Jasmine was sent home there was order. Wow. She might as well stamp a "sour and loyal La Toya fan" on her forehead.
  

I don't have a problem with the fans of other contestants expressing their support for their favorite. But for them to spread lies and presenting them as facts in that support is way over the top. And for articles like that of Pitt's to ever see the light of day in respectable papers is a bit dispiriting.

Blogging On The Run

I am writing this blog thru email using my cellphone's
WAP browser. It's nice that I can blog whenever and
where ever my phone can catch a signal. It's limited to
839 characters though, so I have to be extra concise.
Either that or I'll have to resort to txt splng. :-)
This is a really cool blogger feature, very useful and
convenient. It is kind of tiring on my thumb but I like it just the same. Thank you Blogger. Thank you Yahoo! Thank you Globe, my
network operator. Well see if I'll be able to put this feature to good use.

Edit: The apostrophes were removed when my blog from my cellphone was published. I guess the character encoding on my phone is not 100% compatible with what is used in Blogger. So I guess I'll just have to remember not to use apostrophes when blogging from my phone.

Couch Potato’s Worst Nightmare

What else but a television set that tells him when he can and can’t watch his favorite television program. Our six-year old Sony Trinitron TV is having a fit. It just turns black and mute in the middle of my favorite programs like the Survivor: Finale. Sometimes it goes on and on until I get tired of waiting for it to feel good. Sometimes the fit lasts only for a few minutes. I think this is the same problem that our even older Sony TV had. Although in that one, it turned to white and mute instead of black. Like any other couch potato, I of course consulted with Google first. And of course Google found me the right answers. Not only did I find the answer that I was looking for, I also found out that this is a very common with Sony Televisions. The next television I will buy will definitely not have a Sony logo in the front or anywhere else for that matter.

And my PC that has always been there for me when there’s nothing good to watch on TV is having a fit of its own. It takes forever to boot. I found out later that my hard drive is failing although not completely, not yet anyway. It’s just my luck. Tsk tsk tsk.

Related Link:

Sony TV Tuner and IF Solder Connection Problems

Jasmine Trias Moves On To Final Three

I love big upsets in competition. They are the most satisfying games or contests to watch. And last night’s American Idol result show is no exception. Jasmine Trias, condemned by almost everybody (except me, of course) to be the one packing up her bags actually ended up among the top two vote getters along with Diana Degarmo. Fantasia Barrino and La Toya London ended up in the bottom two, a night after where even judge Paula Abdul had trouble finding good words for Trias’s performance.

And like what happened after Jennifer Hudson was voted off the competition, the three judges who obviously tried everything the previous night to let America know whom they want America to vote-off once again rattled off condemnations. Travesty, America got it wrong, holy sh*t. Ha ha ha. I say the judges don’t get it. How can you possibly say to somebody that he or she got it wrong by voting for his or her favorite? Now that is travesty.

Good luck Jasmine. Never forget to pray. Always believe in God and in yourself. That’s all that matters. Don’t ever give up.

What Others Have To Say:

[Jennifer King of RuggedElegantLiving.com]

The ultimate success of these artists will not be determined by phone calls and text messages. Rather success will be defined in the marketplace as people start spending their hard-earned cash to buy these artists' albums. It will be very interesting to watch who sells more CDs: La Toya London or Jasmine Trias?

Yeah, we know that. But the ultimate success in American Idol is to garner the most votes. The judges did say that La Toya has not really improved. That she is still the same La Toya from the start of the competition. I assume of course that they don’t think La Toya is perfect already and needs no further improvement. Interesting indeed.

[Anika Van Wyk of Calgary Sun]

Even more puzzling, LaToya was joined in the bottom two by Fantasia Barrino.

What is most puzzling of course is that why are most columnists or journalists do not know that there is no such thing as “wrong favorite”.

Last Dance for Jasmine Trias

According to USA
Today's recap of the May 11 performances all is set for the ousting of the long-time underdog Jasmine Trias of Hawaii.  Ken Barne of USA Today has never been a fan of Jasmine and neither has "Jaded" of the recap
from Idol official website.  If you read their reviews of past performances they have been harsh to her even when most other reviewers praise Jasmine.  I think they'll finally have their wish coming true tomorrow night.  I have never been a fan of Jasmine's performances myself.  She is sometimes noticeably out of tune.  But I actually love her style better than the "Idol divas".  A little more vocal training and I think she'll easily outshine them.



Good luck, Jasmine.  I'm not a big fan, but since you have
Filipino blood running inside you I hope that God will bless you wherever your experience in American Idol takes you.

Hello World

This is my first post on my first first blog. And this is just a simple test to see how my blog looks. Hopefully this is not my last post. We'll see...

If my test is successful then I won't see this text in the Main Page of my blog.