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.