Category: Daily Ramblings

Just call it “Kuya”.

Saw the premiere of Pinoy Big Brother. All I know of the concept is that 12 people live in a house and have their every move filmed 24/7 for 100 days. Each week a person will be evicted based on team votes while the audience gets to text in who will stay.

I just wonder though how the contestants will survive without contact from their loved ones – no tv, no telephones, NO CELLPHONES (wonder how many will be going through text withdrawals?).

The contestants are all different – different personalities: the struggling family man, the reformed bad boy, the bitch with a heart, the teacher, all seeking financial stability, perhaps the opportunity to be noticed.

But one thing this clear, in this “real” world, people are all beautiful.

I’ve got more to add to my list of movies to watch this year, these three are now highly anticipated:

Jarhead
Walk The Line
Rumor Has It

and with Dear Wendy I’m really hoping that it will be coming to Philippine shores

I felt tremors this morning before 7. Am not sure where the earthquake was but it was strong enough to move the bed.

At first I thought I was dreaming it because when I woke up the tremors had passed but Mum was going “Did you feel the earthquake?”

Update: It turns out the epicenter was near Iloilo and the quake measured 5.0 on the Richter scale. No news yet of any casualties.

The internet is off for a few hours and it comes back on to the news that there have been bombings in London.

I can’t get into the BBC’s website but you can keep track of news through Technorati.

I hope that friends living in London are all safe.

Update: Herald Sun has a timeline of events, Syntagma has raw updates

That was the question, Imbestigador on Channel 6, asked yesterday.

The whole show was in response to President Arroyo’s “confession” that she improperly had conversations with an election official at the height of the election count last year.

For the longest time, Arroyo has managed to squeak away from allegations thrown at her (and her family) but with the Jueteng (illegal numbers game) scandal and now this incident, the President has a great deal of slime on her face and I wonder if she will be able to clean it off.

The Opposition is rallying around Manila calling for President Arroyo to resign. But the question on a lot of minds is: And then what?

Will anything really change? Most of the politicians in the Opposition are looking to better their position, gain favor and get as much power as they can. I can’t see anyone who has a plan. All they talk about is getting rid of Arroyo as if that will be the magic pill. The situation is that they’re trying to stir people up but they haven’t laid out their own plan.

Sure, there’s talk of having a Committee to run the country. Fuck that I say. It took Congress an hour and a half to decide on whether to continue session for another half hour. Yeah. I can see the Huh?! look on your face. And now there’ll be a committee to decide the future of the country?

Constitutionally, if the President resigns, the Vice-President will take over. In this case, the Vice-President is Noli de Castro and I don’t think he’ll be an effective leader. So then what?

Right now the status quo is being maintained though Arroyo is fighting for her political life. But it still remains to be seen if she will survive and if she does, what is the lesson that she’ll take away from it?

So yeah, the question is, President Arroyo, Are you a true Filipino?

A few movies ago, the trailer for Charlie and the Choclate Factory was shown. Prior to seeing the trailer I had been looking forward to seeing the movie. Roald Dahl is one of my authors and I absolutely adored the 1971 movie with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka.

But after watching the trailer I’m not looking forward to the movie at all now. It didn’t seem as exciting and interesting as I remembered Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to be. I know that our tastes change as we mature (my album collection is a testament to that) but are childhood passions better left as memories?

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner are married. I was expecting it to happen but wasn’t sure when. Congrats to the two of them

Added a new theme, Coffee Cup from Zenith but I’ve modified the picture with a stock photo from stock.exchange.

Playing around with some plugins…

Making My Life Easier:
Adds more functionality to the “Write Post” screen

• In Touch – Allows you to place a contact form on your posts/pages.
• LMB Box File Press – Allows you to upload files.
• Speedy Cat – Add new categories quickly

Categorizing Posts:

• In Series – Lets you link posts belonging to the same series.
• Ultimate Tag Warrior – Organize posts using tags. Create tag clouds

To Try Out:

• Multiply : Manage multiple blogs from one admin interface. Obviously not a simple upload and activate plugin since it involves some customization and there are caveats but when I have more time I’ll test this out.
• CG-InBetween : Lets you place stuff between your posts.
• Search Reloaded : Improves on WordPress search
• WP- PHPList : Integrates PHPList with Worpdress. Don’t have a need for a mailing list here but this could come in handy on other projects

Here’s another script to deal with Spambots which bills itself as “set of PHP scripts which prevents spambots from accessing your site by analyzing their actual HTTP requests and comparing them to profiles from known spambot”.

It’s not just for WordPress and can be installed for Geeklog and MediaWiki.

Another solution to the referrer spam nightmare.