in retrospect…

it’s Friday again, and as promised, all interesting posts of the past week are aggregated here for your easy reading…

• THE Filipino Technopreneur’s post, Experiencing Seasonal Online Income?, talks about the current trends in Google Adsense’ income, and why they are going down during the hot summer months [aside: very hot, indeed!! imagine, heat at 6 in the morning??]… and his conclusion?? that most of his readers are students… go figure…
• Connie’s Dilemma of the cheated talks about why losing candidates in elections refuse to accept the truth behind losing, and instead turn to allegations of cheating and fraud, either in the elections proper or the counting of votes… haaayyy naku!! talo kung talo, wag na umangal!!
• Shari talks about her boobs and the Henna tattoo she has in What is it with the Boobs?, and it is itching, and she’s asking someone to scratch the itch for her… any takers?? she’d be the next President of the Philippines, y’know…
• Aileen Apolo came up with her own version of the Top 10 Most Influential Emerging Blogs with her Blogs I Read… i have to go through each one in her list to find out if i can include them in mine…
• GM Tristan’s Gamer Food 101 talks about the food gamers like him [and myself, used to] can eat during those long nights [and prolly days, too] which are not only quick and easy, but healthy as well…
• and from one of the fastest growing gaming blog dedicated to Ragnarok Online, Carlo’s post on Ragnarok Free In-game Items with Top-up gives gamers a chance to get back some more value for their money with free in-game items when they top up their game accounts…

see you next week!!

Ciao, sweetie…

Tags: [ Interestings Friday ]

are you a fan of Google Analytics, the web web page testing tool which can help you understand which web page designs really work?? if you are and are looking for a better integration with your blog, there is now a new plugin recently released to imitate the great Google app…

Open Web Analytics v.1.0.3 released May 13th which you can install right in your Wordpress-based blog and view the reports in your Dashboard… reports range from the usual keywords, referring web sites, and search engines for inbound readers, to the least usual like entry and exit pages to feeds reports…

go to their website and download and install the plugin now and find out how easy it is to use… and if your are a Google Adsense publisher, too, you can use this tool to modify your blogs to earn more…

with the elections over, and the counting of votes now crawling along very very slowly, the tally so far shows that 8 Genuine Opposition, 5 Team Unity, and 2 Independent candidates are in the top 15 as shown in the unofficial tally below:

go to the Inquirer.net page for an updated tally…

finally, it seems that the magic that celebrities, actors, and actresses hold over the people are finally waning… whereas before, people will vote simply because the candidate was well known for their movie antics and showbiz allure, voters today are becoming mature not to vote for them again… they probably learned from the lessons from a former ex-President, and several sports and movie personalities in the senate…

take the case of 2 very famous actors who just run for the senate, Richard Gomez and Cesar Montano, who are currently in the 18 place in the case of the latter and 25th for the former… and at the rate the counting is going, they will never set foot in the senate… not even the smiles of their equally-famous pretty wives campaigning for their husbands swayed the voters one bit…

also, Lito Lapid, running for mayor of Makati City, has finally conceded defeat to mayor Jejomar Binay… electorate of Makati City was not dazzled by Lapid’s waning star… likewise, his son, actor Mark Lapid, re-electionist for governor of Pampanga is in 3rd place behind 1st placer Fr Ed Panlilio and Lilia Pineda…

and lastly, champion boxer Manny Pacquiao seems bent on prolonging his agony and not likely to throw in the towel in his title fight bid for a congressional seat against re-electionist Darlene Antonino-Custodio, who’s father he has accused of trying to kill him before…

finally!! people are seeing into the real political agenda of these celebrities, and considering the needs of the Philippines more than their weakness for celebrity enchantment… ang galing ng Pinoy!!

Ciao, sweetie…

Tags: [ Philippines | politics | OWA | celebrities ]

got this news from Matt:

the newest version of Wordpress version 2.2 dubbed “Getz’ honor of tenor saxophonist Stan Getz came out today… it has more than 240 bug fixes and a bag of goodies came along with it… the goodies are the following:

• WordPress Widgets allow you to easily rearrange and customize areas of your weblog (usually sidebars) with drag-and-drop simplicity. This functionality was originally available as a plugin Widgets are now included by default in the core code, significantly cleaned up, and enabled for the default themes.
• Full Atom support, including updating our Atom feeds to use the 1.0 standard spec and including an implementation of the Atom Publishing API to complement our XML-RPC interface.
• A new Blogger importer that is able to handle the latest version of Google’s Blogger product and seamlessly import posts and comments without any user interaction beyond entering your login.
• Infinite comment stream, meaning that on your Edit Comments page when you delete or spam a comment using the AJAX links under each comment it will bring in another comment in the background so you always have 20 items on the page. (I know it sounds geeky, but try it!)
• We now protect you from activating a plugin or editing a file that will break your blog.
• Core plugin and filter speed optimizations should make everything feel a bit more snappy and lighter on your server.
• We’ve added a hook for WYSIWYG support in a future version of Safari.

go to the Wordpress.org blog to find out more…

i tried upgrading Kubiertos and the upgrade went well without a hitch!! if you are hosting your own blog and want to upgrade to the newest version of 2.2, you can look at the Upgrading page…

Ciao, sweetie…

Tags: [ Wordpress 2.2 | Getz ]

now that the election fever is over, all stupid election commercials done away with, and all promises will remain just that, promises, where to now, Pinoy?? do we hold a fiesta for our winners?? do we bring out all our best suits and dresses and hold a ball?? or do we clean up after them, tearing down and scraping all their campaign posters posted all over?? and will something better happen now?? can we expect changes in our government now that we have put into position all of those we thought capable??

unless something astounding and freakish happens to our senators and congressmen and mayors, the same things will happen over and over again… and by the same things, i mean:

• our poor, which comprise almost 75% of our population, will remain poor and keep getting poorer… they will continue to live in shacks and eat only 1 meal a day, if even that… their children will continue begging for a few coins in the streets while their parents try to eke out a living… only 1 out of every 5 school-age children will be able to go to school… all the while, our senators and congressmen and mayors continue to fill their pockets with our tax money, living in plush mansions in Ayala Alabang, eating food bought with our money, and sending their children to schools abroad…
• those of us with 4 or 5 year old cars will continue to drive along semi-paved roads full of ruts and potholes, while our despised esteemed senators and congressmen and mayors continue to zoom along traffic in their new Expeditions and BMWs preceded by a convoy of military personnel…
• while so many of our countrymen ask for help from policemen and the law courts, our detested highly regarded senators and congressmen and mayors fuck with the little people, laugh at the courts, and waving their immunity at our faces… all the while getting protection from the the same policemen we little people pay with our hard-earned taxes…
• and, while we all grind to earn a decent and honest living everyday of our lives, we continue to hate venerate our senators and congressmen and mayors by sending them abroad on junkets so that they can have a well-earned vacation from their lives of pomp and high-living…

what can we expect this time around??

judging by past experiences, and i have had 37 years of that, i’d say more of the same… hey, we can’t expect our disdained respected politicians to change overnight, can we?? we just have to simply let them have their space and do their own thing in their own time… the time will come when we will harvest our just dues… but this will not come anywhere near our son’s sons lives…

next elections?? be ready for the same obnoxious politicians playing their obnoxious commercials on TV, attacking each other, continue fucking with the little people, and winning because of cheating their charms and stupidity wit…

remember everyone, we deserve what we get…

Ciao, sweetie…

Tags: [ Philippines | Politics ]

aside: do you own a website? when searching for your particular brand or product, do you end up at least on the 1st page if not 1st on the list? if you don’t, then maybe you need help… in comes Singapore’s Top SEO… they call themselves cyber space consultants, and they provide search engine optimization consulting, the end of which is sure to make you 1st on the list of any search engine… you want at least a PR5 or 6?? then, Singapore’s Top SEO is your ticket to more visitors and increased revenue…

This is a DigitalFilipino.com Club-sponsored post

Mirriam Defensor-Santiago in an interview with ABS-CBNs Halalan 2007

to all candidates running for a public seat:

kung hindi ka marunong magbasa, please, wag ka na tumakbo!!

to her current co-Senators:

i am thinking, kahit sino man manalo, even the most docile ones, sigurado puro kriminal yan!!

as a definite service to the Filipino people

we need someone who will run amuck and gun down these 24 [Senators]… that will definitely be a service to the Filipinos…

Mike Enriquez of GMA7s Eleksyon 2007 on Fr Ed Panlilio

sana nga manalo no?? pero win or lose, the seed of change has already been planted and will usher in a new kind of politics

a voter wanting to vote in QC because his name is not on any list

ako po ay residential na dito sa Quezon City… 15 years na po ako dito, kaya po bakit naman po ako nagiging alien dito??

Miguel Zubiri on his chances the day after elections

I am a consistent number 1 in Mindanao, and that is without cheating…

anyway, this early in the counting of votes, it clearly shows that the 2 celebrities-turned-wannabe-politician-Senators, Goma, and Cesar, are already out of the race… Cesar is number 20 with 491,827 votes with the number 12, Pimentel having 924,942 votes, and Goma is nowhere in the Top 20… yey!! at least, this shows that the voting population is already mature enough not to be taken in only due to popularity and celebrity status…

Filipinos 2, Celebrities 0

Cieo, sweetie…

Tags: [ Philippines Politics | May 14 Elections ]

tomorrow, we will all again troop to voting precincts to cast our votes on whom among the senatorial hopefuls will have the right to steal from us for the next 6 years, and whom among the local candidates can bully us for the next 3 years… we have learned so much from the just concluded campaign period, and i believe the most relevant question now should be:

will we allow the next elections to be the same??

reforms in the election laws should be in place before the start of the next election period… only 3 out of 10 [or 33%] of eligible voters believe that tomorrow’s elections will be true to its spirit of free and clean elections… this only show that most Filipinos do not believe in the voting practice anymore, and would rather stay at home and enjoy this 1 day rest from the stress of work than to go and vote… according to COMELEC ex-chairman Christian Monsod, when before the practice of cheating were simply flying voters and small-scale vote buying, today, cheating has become so massive that it has become such big business for a lot of people…

changes, then, are very much needed before the next round of elections… and i can think of 2 right now:

put more teeth in the anti-vote buying law [Sec. 261, Article XXII, Election Offenses] — [Sec. 261a] immediately look into alleged vote buying issues of any form, whether by national or local politicians… any form, in this case, would include money, grocery, food, insurance cards, or the promises of any of the aforementioned… politicians have worked around the current law, giving away insurance cards and other intangible materials, making a mockery of the COMELEC…

computerize the next elections — as part of the lobby calling for the computerization of elections, i have always maintained that the process would infinitely be simpler if we are using computers in voting and counting these votes… election fraud will also be minimized, if not totally eradicated… information technology have come a long way, and i still believed that it will help the COMELEC if computers were used in practices such as theses…

finally, i still maintain that tomorrow’s election will not be for us… the effects will not be felt long after tomorrow is finished… it will be our children who will suffer the consequences of our votes tomorrow… again, if you have to vote, vote for those who can affect positive changes, and will not be simply milking their offices dry… vote, not because the candidate is a celebrity or a boxer-hero, but because you are sure that the candidate can do wondrous things for our children…

so, tomorrow, make sure you have the following before going out of your homes to vote:

– a list of candidates you’d be voting for…
– location of the precinct where you’d be voting…
– pen you will use…

Ciao, sweetie…

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This is a DigitalFilipino.com Club-sponsored post

i’ve not had the pleasure [or displeasure] of knowing my own mother… i lived all my [put number here] years away from my own mother… so, instead, i dedicate this post to my wife, and to all friends and family who are themselves mothers…

i know the sacrifice you go through in keeping the family together… i know the aches and pains that you get running after your 1-year old kid… i know the stress of wanting to put good food on the table… and i know how you put up with wayward husbands…

and so, for at least 1 day every year, i want to say Happy Mother’s Day!! sit back and enjoy this, your day, for tomorrow, you will be doing all that has to be done all over again…

Happy Mother’s Day, sweetie…

Tags: [ Mother's Day ]

the following was from Connie, which was in turn forwarded to her via email:

Maganda rin naman ang naidudulot ng pagiging prangka ni Senador Miriam Defensor-Santiago. Ayon kay Santiago, marami ang tumatakbong Senador dahil sa laki ng budget na ibinibigay sa kanila kada buwan.

Lumalabas na P35,000 suweldo nila kada buwan ay pakitang-tao lang sa milyun-milyong budget ng bawat senador. Kada buwan ay may Fixed Monthly Budget ang bawat Senador ng humigit-kumulang P2 Milyon.

Sa opisina pa lang nila ay humigit-kumulang P500,000 and budget nila sa Maintenance and Operating Expenses (Rental, Utilities, Supplies at Domestic Travels) at P500,000 para sa Staff at Personal expenses. Kaya para makatipid ang ibang Senador, kaunti lang ang staff na kinukuha nila. Nagtataka ka pa kung bakit mayroong mga Ghost Employee?

Bukod diyan, may P760,000 allowance pa sila kada buwan para naman sa Foreign Travel. At ang masakit pa nito, hindi na kailngan i-liquidate ang mga resibo ng mga gastusin ‘yan kundi Certification lang ang Requirement.

Heto pa, lahat sila ay Chairman ng mg Komite sa Senado. Ang Committee Chairman ay tumatanggap din ng budget na sinlaki ng tinatanggap ng mga Senador na humigit-kumulang P1 Milyon din! Hindi sila mawawalan ng Komite dahil 24 lang ang ating mga Senador at 37 naman ang Committee sa Senado. There’s food for everybody ‘ika nga! Lumalabas na doble ang kanilang benepesiyo at kita kapag sila ay nabiyayaan ng Committee Chairmanship.

Sa P200 milyon na Budget para sa Pork Barrel ng mga Senador bawat taon, awtomatikong may 10% na S.O.P. o kita ng Senador na P20 milyon. Ito ang porsiyento na ibinibigay ng mga kontratista sa mga Senador na nagbibigay sa kanila ng mga Infrastructure at Livelihood Project.
Bago matapos ang termino ng isang Senador, kumita na siya ng P100 milyon sa Pork Barrel pa lang. Yung ibang Senador mas gahaman, hindi lang 10% kundi 20 - 30% ang komisyon hinihingi sa mga kontratista.

Pansinin niyo na lang ang pagbabago ng buhay ng ilan sa ating mga Senador simula nang manungkulan sa puwesto. Kung dati ay simple lang ang kanilang pamumuhay ngayon ay nakatira na sila sa mga eksklusibong subdivision, maraming bahay sa Pilipinas at abroad at mahigit lima ang sasakyan.

Ngayon nagtataka ka pa ba kung bakit gumagastos ng daan-daang milyong piso ang mga Senador sa kampanya para sa isang posisyon na P35,000 lang ang suweldo kada buwan? Bawing-bawi pala ang gastos kapag naupo na!

PLEASE FORWARD TO AS MANY OF YOUR FRIENDS AND LET THE WHOLE COUNTRY KNOW THAT ELECTION IS MORE OF PUTTING AMBITIOUS PEOPLE IN POSITION WHO ARE GREEDY IN POWER, WEALTH & PRESTIGE THAN OF PUBLIC SERVICE… ANG MASAKIT PA PERA NG BAYAN PARIN GAGAMITIN SA ELEKSYON MALUKLOK LANG ANG MGA BUWAYA SA PWESTO.

a video of the Mirriam interview can be found in YouTube…

this. is. just. NOT. right!!

Ciao, sweetie… :|

Tags: [ Philippine Elections | May 14 ]

nope, not a typo…

starting today, 11^th May 2007, a Friday, and every Friday thereafter, i will be creating Interestings Friday [IF] which chronicles all interesting posts from the week past… this means that i will be reading up on a lot of blogs, and i’ll be deep-linking one post per blog per week [that would mean a lot of reading!!]…

anyway, here goes for this weeks IF #1:

• Connie’s Six days to D-day talked about political positioning in preparation for the elections…
• Shari’s Isang Tanong: The Senatorial Forum talked about her impressions on the candidates featured in GMA-7s show…
• Apples’ Why will I vote for Cesar Montano? talked about the candidates’ blog [if that is really his] stating reasons why one should vote for him…
• Jeff’s Hi, would you like coffee in a cup with religious text? (v.0707052355) talked about Starbucks’ move to put bible verses on their cups and why this must not be done…
• Benj’s My 2004 Ballot and My 2007 Ballot compared his voting list of 2004 with that for Monday… Cesar?? are you sure??

will be doing this every Friday from now on…

Ciao, sweetie…

an officemate and i got to talking about driving conditions in the metro and outlying areas while waiting for the next meeting to commence… it all started when he asked me which top 3 drivers/vehicles among our public transport system are worse… to answer his question, my choices were:

number 3: buses, because of their volume along EDSA;
number 2: taxis, because they don’t care whether they get hit or not;

and,

number 1: jeepneys, because they still maintain that they are kings of the road, and must be feared…

our number 3 were the same, but his number 1 were taxis… when asked why, he just went deadly serious on me and said:

it is nationalism, pre… or at least the lack of it… you see, if you are a nationalistic person, it means that you respect yourself as well as the next person… with taxi drivers, it is very obvious by the way they drive that they don’t care whether they get hit or not, or whether they hit someone else or not… for them, it is just the money… they drive that way because they think they can earn more by getting to their destinations the fastest way possible… and by doing so, they don’t respect the space of the other drivers… they will cut people off the road, they will get ahead of you given the smallest possibility that they can get ahead of you, and in intersections? they simply zoom across without regard for themselves, their passengers, or other drivers…

thinking back to that, i do believe he is right, that he nailed it right on the head when he mentioned that the problem is the lack of love and respect and consideration, not just among our public transport drivers, but more so can be said for the government… that was why we have corruption, political killings, and political dynasties… this was because politicians do not recognize that the Filipino people should be first and foremost in their minds, because they thought that the esteem we held for them was due to their status in life, and because they think that the government is their own little playground to do however they see fit…

it will be election time in 5 days… unfortunately, it will not be for you, for you will never feel its effects… think of the little ones: you small brother, your children, nephews and nieces, grandchildren… this exercise will determine their future… so if you have to vote, please vote wisely…

Ciao, sweetie…

Tags: [ driving | Philippine Elections | May 14 | nationalism ]