Lotsa stuff to type about today...

======Pinoy Big Brother: What's the hype for? (IMHO)======

The second season has just ended and now there's nothing to see of the other housemates except their appearances in ASAP or Ysabella (sounds like a hair salon if u ask me lol), etc. But this overhyped show has become somewhat annoying and I'm guessing why the heck people still watch it and/or be intrigued by it. I mean, the crazy housemates do indecent things like most notably, bathe in pig's blood (it was a task... and I'll never eat dinuguan again) as well as put a hand in someone's pants (I don't watch the show obviously, so I don't know any names... oh and this one was explicit and intentional). So reiterating my question again, why the heck do people watch this show???!! (sorry, Mr. Spam) And in case you want to know where I got all that data, it's from reading the paper!

======RSS and How It'll Help the Student Body==========

In case you don't know what this is, it's an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. Just click it and you get to subscribe to the so-called feeds. It may arrive in your Inbox (Mozilla Thunderbird, MS Outlook), web mail (My Y!, Google Reader) or a built-in reader inside the browser (Apple Safari). It brings you up-to-the-minute news, stories, etc. from all the different sorts of sites in the web. Heck, you can even use it to subscribe to my blog! Or to anyone else's even! But how will it help the student body, you ask? Well, this sort of technology can be useful for posting homework online or posting news regarding classes whether there will be any or none, etc. I mean, there are so many possibilities, or rather benefits if schools praticed using this...

======Software Reviews=========================

Apple Safari 3 Beta for Windows/Mac

Overall: 8/10

Stability: 7/10

Speed: 9/10

Ease of Use: 8.5/10

Features: 8/10

Apple's browser has become the preferred one to use in Macs, will it be the next one for Windows? Not quite. But though it isn't a Firefox, it's still a diamond-in-the-rough, hence the word Beta, but it's still quite a fast experience in Vista.<-- reading RSS in Safari

My Vista is definitely, undeniably slow, but if I want to load Safari, it only takes a milisecond compared to the few seconds it takes Mozilla (which means that Apple lived up to this promise) but being a beta, its stability is still needing some work as well as the pop-up blocker (check the checkbox that says "Block pop-ups" and it'll literally block ALL pop-ups, so it's quite a hassle to turn this on and off) which is not so smart. But Safari gains plus points for being a great RSS reader as well as an enjoyable Bookmark organizer. I mean, I've NEVER organized my Bookmarks before! But the New Folder button needs to be on top and not necessarily on the bottom like iTunes. All in all, Safari is still needing some work, but if you want to read RSS without having to connect to the Internet, this is the pick. (RSS feeds that can be read offline are the headlines and its summary)

Realplayer 11 Beta

Overall: 7.5/10

Stability: 8/10

Speed: 7.5/10

Ease of Use: 8/10

Features: 7/10

RealPlayer is THE player that can play almost anything. And now, it can play AND download YouTube videos... but not convert it. Of course, that's not the thing that bogs the rating down (it's a big, great blessing to be able to do just that) but the very strict limitation set in the free version. I mean, you can't burn a CD with out subscribing to Rhapsody! That'd be bad news for us Filipinos because we can't do that! It's only open to other countries wherein the nearest is Australia. But still, it's a relatively reliable player and is more stable than other betas (of players) I've tested. Speed is also faster than the last version (and that was when I was still in XP!) and it still has a user-friendly interface. And of course, the only revoulutionary step it took is the recording and downloading of on-demand, live or YouTube web videos (I think this is the first mainstream player that offers this). It also plays DivX, and other formats where you normally waste more time downloading alone (RealPlayer is 15MB compared to 30MB on DivX!)

============Movie Reviews==================

Vacancy Released by Sony Screen Gems

Starring: Luke Wilson, Kate Beckinsale

Rating: 4.5/10

Yawn. It's about a couple who checks in a motel which shows slasher flicks which are actually caught in their own room. Now, they want to escape before they're the ones who become the next stars of the motel's next flick. Obvious ending here... and it's not scary at all. It's a bit absurd even. There are just a small amount of cheap thrills and nothing more. So I don't think you'd want to watch this movie anyway.

Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer released by 20th Century Fox

Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon

Rating: 6.5/10 (Yes, it's better than Vacancy)

Childish and occasionally funny, Fantastic 4: ROSS is faster, better and has much more action and meat than the very boring first one but it has its cheesy moments. (Cameo: Stan Lee's a regular in Marvel hero films... and this one is funny actually) The comic book fans, as well as the kiddies will like it more than the ones 10 and up. Oh, and the Thing still has bad, blocky presentation but Chris Evans sizzles the screen as the Human Torch, Ioan Gruffudd is better off as a scientist than a partying type of guy (awful dancing scenes!) and Jessica Alba is... Jessica Alba with bad force field effects.

============Music I'm Listening To========================

Teenagers by My Chemical Romance

*And Catherine, it's not the usual "scary" video, lol

Umbrella by Rihanna

The song doesn't get out of your head... (Umbrella ella ella eh eh eh)

Wait For You by Elliott Yamin