Former President Cory Aquino passes away

More often than not, we've always maligned the study of history at one point in our lives, not because we weren't interested at the gist of it, but because we weren't interested in the tons of dead people we had to memorize. The repeated inconsistencies of various other books certainly didn't help, which is why EDSA I was (and still is) by far the most interesting topic of discussion for me. Many people lived through it, so the gritty anecdotes, stories and major events that happened have always been the most fun to read about.

Now, the stories have come to an end.

Today, the icon of People Power, Cory Aquino, has returned to her creator (and her husband) and was pronounced dead due to cardiovascular arrest. God Bless her soul.

“I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life.” --Corazon Aquino, Saint of People Power, a mother, and a wife. 1933-2009

Her death, like Michael Jackson's marks the end of an era fondly remembered by many. It was she (but admittedly, not solely she) who played a major part in restoring freedom to the dictatorial rule of the Marcoses, and it was she who braved all the frequent coup's that would greet her all throughout her 6-year rule. The color yellow, like the sun, will shine forever. She will be missed, and she will forever be remembered.

Some Filipino and Asian-centric apps for your iPhone

We now focus our eyes on some low-profile releases by Filipino developers or some Asian-centric apps. Just a teeny collection. Hell, maybe I could get this going on a regular basis?

Supermarket Manila

#1 on the Philippine App Store charts for paid apps, this game has a polish to it. The premise here is that you own a supermarket, and that you have to manage it. I know, it's a bit of a rip-off to games like Diner Dash, but hey! It looks like a decent rip-off with a Filipino flavor, I'm guessing. It costs $1.99.

Philippine Travel Guide

The Philippines has its own wonders and sights. So why not get yourself a mobile travel guide while you get out during summer?

You don't need an Internet connection, either. $0.99 on the App Store.

CX Mobile

Bring a football spin to your average travel guide with Cathay Pacific's CX Mobile.

It gives you everything you'd want to know when traveling to Hong Kong- probably a location you'll be going to when talking about going abroad- and it has Google Maps support. Ooh, it looks like a great companion to the free Lonely Planet Mandarin Phrasebook! It costs zilch.

TVU Player

iPhone gets live TV! And many Philippine channels work best. You can't watch on landscape though.

The thing is that you can only run this under Wi-Fi, but with my tests, I never got anything to really run. Just a loading screen. Still, several reviews state that it works, and many of the working channels are Asian. For me, at least.

Classical Philippines Radio

This free app gives you all the folk songs you want. Although they're not my cup of tea, I know that some people will want this.

Wonder how old and classic this throwback iPhone radio station gets? Does it still have Pilita Corrales in there somewhere? Or is it purely songs of the Paruparong Bukid variety?

Filipino Phrases: How to Argue, Use Slang, and More!

It's an almost 1200 word list of Filipino phrases fit for daily use.

Unfortunately, the page says, the "argument" part only reaches to "bwisit". Will it cause an uproar if they included other... "phrases"? Maybe in a tiny scale, but otherwise, no. This app is more aimed to people who want to LEARN the language. It costs $3.99.

DianHua

Ever encountered a Chinese word that you found foreign and that you want to get a translation without having to resort to the Internet nor a bulky dictionary? Well, look no further than the free DianHua Chinese-English, English-Chinese dictionary! It has saved my ass a couple times.

Wan Nian Li Chinese Calendar

Want to specifically know when the Mooncake Festival comes? Well, a Lunar calendar does that job for you. There are many, I know, but I randomly picked this one. :p

That's about it, I guess. Tune in next time, if there is a next time.

TV5: Does anyone care?

If you read the paper, you'd probably know about ABC 5's "final broadcast" as it was to be replaced by an "innovative, youth-oriented" channel called TV5. It's managed by the same people, but the thing here is that a Malaysian company bought rights to airtime, so there will most probably be an influx of Malaysian licenses and intellectual property that will be coursing through the channel's 24/7 schedule. The execs firmly believe that Filipinos won't be alienated by it, and that's because they will dub each foreign show in Filipino. Want to watch Dora in Filipino mode? You can for the first time ever.

So why is it touted as "innovative programming"? For starters, it goes out of the mold of daily teleseryes in the primetime block, and opting for something different each day. Also, it offers movies every 8pm on the weekdays, so every time you get back from work or from school, you always have something different to look out for, and you never really know for the most part.

Still, TV5 retains some of ABC's shows, most prominently Lucy Gomez's Shall We Dance competition.

Question is, though, does anybody actually care, or know about this? There were lots of prominent ads in the paper about "something new and fresh" that will unfold, and the pitch sounds like it will indeed live up to its promise. Still, it's hard to break a habit, and it will require more than a new transmitter to attract people.

What are your views on the rebooted Channel 5? Because it still seems the same to me for some reason. I'll go watch a whole day of this channel, alongside the other competing channels (ABS-CBN and GMA) and I'll elaborate and express my views on them.

iPhone gets (officially) dated in the Philippines; Price outrage

So I accidentally pushed enter when Mozilla Firefox's Awesome Bar led me to Globe instead of GameSpot, and when the page loaded while I was typing the correct address, I saw in the headlines of a portion of the site that they have officially dated the authorized release of the iPhone 3G in the Philippines. Fellow Filipino geeks, mark your calendars for 22 is the magic number- August 22.

Globe announces in their article that they will have a specialized plan just for the iPhone 3G, ranging from offering free Wi-Fi and mobile internet browsing hours to the offers that exist today. The details are really, really shocking, but you can reserve your unit now.

But I assume you didn't click on the link found in "really, really shocking", so I'll let you see what's so shocking about it.

I assumed back then that you can get the phone for free at plan 800 when you convert 199 USD to peso, but I was DEAD wrong. I mean, of course, a high-end phone without MMS and video recording should be free (but only the 8GB model, not the 16GB) at Plan 5000 although it comes bundled with unlimited WiZ (Globe's Wi-Fi service) hours and many free texts, voice minutes, and mobile internet.

And if you're on prepaid, your luck has run out. You know why? It is pricey. It's like you can buy something more feature-packed like, I don't know, a video camera? Oh wait, how about a MacBook or almost any laptop for that matter? A phone isn't worth this much, not even Sony Ericsson can match the price of this (I heretofore regard as) pile of $hit. Why? It almost costs an iPod shuffle covered in real gold; it costs 41,889 pesos for 8GB and 48,899 pesos for 16GB. But I think it's open to any network.

 

You'd get a LOT MORE value with an illegal/jailbroken iPhone 3G that's been hanging around since its release. Better yet, you can go to America and take a chance on unlocking it in Greenhills.

Dial 8 For Murder?

What a week it was for the world.

First was the devastating typhoon in Myanmar, then the high-magnitude earthquake in Shenzhen, and now, Cosme in Northern Luzon.

And in between, 8 people were shot in RCBC, 8 people- 5 of them children- were shot in the middle of the night in their own homes by a farmer's helper and 8 people died from Cosme.

What the hell is happening?!

I'm pretty sure it's not apocalypse yet, but it may as well be with all the consecutive disasters and killings happening all throughout the week. And what's with the number 8 anyway? Is the same gang responsible for stealing money and shooting people in the head in RCBC and for killing innocent children and their parents? The fact that both the gruesome killings were held in Laguna supports that theory, although it would be a bit silly for the same people to go killing people days in a row. Still, it's really disheartening to see Laguna suffering their worst crime week- maybe- ever because I don't think the province deserves it- no place deserves it.

How about you? What do you think about all this? Maybe yet another killing will happen later?

But let's look at the bright side: Taiwan and Hong Kong has united with China in relief efforts for earthquake victims. 2 days ago, I saw on television a Taiwanese telethon with all those people happily and without conviction, urging people to get paying because the Chinese are people too. Aside from that, I've only got one more thing to say...

God help us.

Jet Lag Sucks

April 29, 2008 American time
This is gonna be the last day of that hectic American vacation and we're going back to Disneyland in Anaheim for California Adventure.

It's obviously smaller than Disneyland proper, but it has a few surprises that will make you come back. One of them is Soarin' Over California which is also the first attraction we went to and it was a favorite- or rather, my mom's favorite- because she clearly wanted to go back for a second ride on that flight simulator. Oh right, it was a flight simulator that realistically portrayed people- complete with the series of seats raised up a few feet from the floor- flying over the various cities of California, and the wind would also change according to the environment. For example, when we're floating over a beach, the air would simulate a sea breeze going on your face, or when we're soaring up to the air to avoid the surfers, we'd actually feel like it even when the seats don't go up. It's kinda like a goodly engineered 3D movie, sans the dorky glasses and more of that realism.

But anyway, we also went around the ferris wheel which was near the flagship California Screamin' roller coaster ride and the spinning chairs in an orange, and my brother and sister would ride the rotating chairs contained inside an orange while my father and mother lets an artist make a caricature of them. We didn't want to get wet this time around since we were gonna go to the airport the same day for a 1:00+ flight. We'd eat some ribs for lunch, some hotdogs and corndogs for snack time, and watch some 3D films like Muppet-Vision and the A Bug's Life inspired "It's tough to be a bug". The Bug's Life 3D movie was funny with stinging on your back and the "bugs" crawling on your butt, while the Muppet-Vision is...

When 5pm struck, we went to the entrance to wait for the shuttle home when I discovered that I left the DS in the hotdog stand. I ran, the thing wasn't there. I checked my bag again, and- false alarm- it was there. Just there. I ran back and we rode to LAX.

We were first in line (in the check-in line) and we had to wait for the line to actually open. However, when it was already open an hour later, we tried to check in our bags and showed our ticket and guess what? We missed the flight one day ago. And it wasn't long ago when I'd remember them (my dad, mom and sister) arguing over the time we were supposed to be in LAX. It wrote: April 28, 2008 1:45pm and one would say, if it was 1:45pm it should've been April 29 written on the thing, and the other would say, we'd still be home by April 30 Philippine time if we went to LAX on April 29 even though after 1:45, it would be April 30 in America. It was very confusing considering the time zones but it didn't have to be! It was very clear! But then, there was the itinerary the travel agent gave us. It was stated clear, especially in the expenses sheet, that we had to go to California Adventure on this day... This day.

We were now set for Stand-By and the person representing Cathay Pacific would say that we should wait till 10:20 so we can know whether we can ride the 11:45 flight. And wait (and eat) we did. In between, I bought a magazine because I was too lazy to read Neverwhere, and my brother got Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii. Of course, since it's my avatar in YM, I'd be happy, but something more important was the fact that we were in uncertainty as to whether we could actually ride the 11:45 plane. Fortunately, we got seats located in the back, and we were one of the first to board.

The 13 hours of flight would make the time out of control again, but after that time in the plane where I met merely 2-3 hours of sleep for some reason, we got to Hong Kong airport.

May 1, 2008 Hong Kong/Philippine time
It's Labor Day! But since we missed our flight the day before, we had to wait again and be on stand-by for the flight bound to Manila. My brothers played DS and we were just there on chairs at least, because at LAX, we had to stand up for hours (from 6-10:20)!

But unlike the delayed flight we had before we went to America from Hong Kong days ago, fortune once again chose us to be able to ride the 9am flight for Manila. It was another hour and 30 minutes at the plane and minutes at the grueling baggage check. We practically flew through the other processes and went home.

But surprisingly, jet lag was worse coming here than arriving there. Still, at least I get to not exercise tomorrow because of the nausea my body experienced. It was like my feet were walking on its own at some point and I just had to sleep. And at 8pm I did. The other people in the family watched the Idol elimination where the next day I'd find out, was Brooke White (finally). Still, I wanted Jason Castro to get out first, but whatever.

May 2, 2008
Now my body has sort of settled down, with mild nausea here and there, but the pissing thing is, I also experienced the infamous Wii Disc Error accompanied with the Super Smash Bros. Brawl Wii game, and I was like, after weeks of waiting, I get this?! Why'd Nintendo make a game that they probably know can't run on all Wii systems?! Why do high-rated games have to be so elusive to us in pirated shores?! And if it were pirated, why does Nintendo put bricking for that specific title?! Damn! The game we had was already original and yet it still can't be played! This is ultimate suckage, right? Especially since you have to send it to Nintendo America for that, and we bought Super Smash Bros. at the freaking airport at Los Angeles! You can call this one of the ultimate rip-offs of gaming history because it's so damn expensive (as usual) when it's original, and it's an AAA title to boot!

Scrapping Cyber-Education and other issues...

After that stupid ZTE National Broadband Network scandal by the government, the adverse effects that would come would be sorely felt especially by the public education sector. If our neighboring countries have already been using a cyber-education system for almost a decade, why shouldn't we as well? The opportunity did arise and now all hope for the quality of education of the Philippines (to get restored) are high. Sadly, the failure of the NBN put this chance back into the darkness and teachers with, let's say, a Ph.d on Physics will only be confined to a normal classroom with forty students instead of the whole nation via internet. Yes, people, that is how money-saving it would've been for the long haul if it weren't for the scandal. The educational shows on screen stimulates the students to study more than those who don't, right? Tsk tsk tsk...

"Can I check those diplomas? Because I want to make sure that they are not from some med school in the Philippines"
You've probably already seen and heard these excerpts from various blogs, articles and news shows but frankly, I got a chuckle (and just a chuckle) out of that line! Referencing the recent botched medical exams in 2006, Teri Hatcher's role as Susan Mayer uttered the now famous line "Okay, before we go any further, can I check those diplomas? Because I would just like to make sure they are not from some med school in the Philippines.". This has definitely damaged the credibility of practicing U.S. doctors in an adverse way and racial slurs are a no-no even in this time of racial equity and hopefully, an outrage like this will never happen again.

New poll
The new poll will be about movies again. So I'll be checking Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer to see which of the best halloween films are to be released in late October.

Neil Gaiman book-movie adaptations
Though Stardust came up with mixed reviews, fiction novelist Neil Gaiman wasn't fazed at all. In fact, his classics The Sandman and Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett) are getting adapted for the big screen wherein the former chronicles the events surrounding a character named Dream and is regarded as the most sophisticated and original pop culture icon of the century (as a comic book) while the latter is a sort of parody of The Omen and is about the apocalypse told in a comic manner (I have that book and will be reading it!).