Pala-isip

This is I believe how skewed the priorities of the Philippines are. Over the weekend of Nov. 19, 2006. While the whole country stopped as they watched the "Pac-Man" beat Morales. Another group of young Filipinos brought victory to the country. Who are these people you ask? I'm talking about Kim Marco Perez, 14, Dan Joseph Garcia, 13 and Gabriel Nunez, 13 with their coach Merlina Placino. Never heard of them? It's funny, because I wouldn't have known about it until it got mentioned in by a reader on INQ7. And I had to dig deep into the website to find it on the website's " The Good News " section. What have they done to deserve praise? They just beat out 20 different countries including Japan, South Korea, Russia and Singapore in a competition we normally would not have thought the Philippines would be good at. They won the 2006 World Robot Olympiad in Nanning, China. These students came from First Asia Institute of Technology and Humanities (Faith) ...

I saw this on the web on the funniest analogies and metaphors apparently written by high school students and collected by their teachers. 1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a ThighMaster. 2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free. 3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. 4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef. 5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up. 6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. 7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree. 8. From the attic came...

I am just psyched! One of the pictures I took in the West Edmonton Mall was included in Schmap. Schmap is a dynamic interactive guide for tourist, travellers or just about anyone who is interested in virtual tours of destinations worldwide. By installing a small software, it gives you reviews, pictures and virtual tours. You can find restaurants, bars or whatever suits your taste. There's guides for several countries like the US, Canada, Australia, Europe, etc. There's none yet for Asia but they made it so that anyone can contribute to add to the content. Not only is my picture added in the guide, my Welcome Canuck blog which is a guide for newly landed Canadian immigrants is also featured on their site as a blog partner . No wonder the page impressions on my site suddenly went up! So if you're a new Canadian immigrant, a long time immigrant or just want to learn something about Canada and life in Canada, visit my Welcome Canuck blog. Here is the picture that was includ...

For those who are into old school games, here's a site I found where you can download all those old Dos based games. They got shareware, freeware and playable demos. Popular games such as Doom, Quake, Prince of Persia and others are available for download. Check it out .

Are you tired of sliding out of your mouse pad while running to frag your opponent and struggling to get back your control? How about suddenly losing control of your WoW character at the critical moment you need to move aside to avoid getting hit? Or are you tired of the skipping control you have with the friction your mouse has while you slide over the table? Well, worry no more! There's a new mouse in town and it's frictionless! It's a mouse that hovers about 1 cm from the table using electromagnetic technology. This is especially made for hard core gamers who require that extra control and fluidity in their mouse. It features 6000 dpi optical engine and since it floats on air, there is no drag. Here's the link .

Last Wednesday's storm created the single largest water advisory in Canadian history as Vancouver enters its fifth day of "boil water" advisory. A new storm on Sunday stirred up water supplies again. While no parasites or bacteria has been found in the water, people in Vancouver, Burnaby and the North Shore are advised to boil their water before using it to wash or clean their dishes. Because of this, there is now a shortage of bottled water all over the lower mainland. Prices for bottled water also has gone up. Richmond has less of a water shortage as the advisory has been lifted in the city since Friday, Richmond sources its water from a different reservoir. Bottled water is easier to find in Richmond than in Vancouver, although the prices are still higher than normal. Although it may not be advisable to drink the water, it is safe to use for washing or bathing. Restaurants around Vancouver are greatly affected because they are required to boil their water before they w...

George Martin, the legendary producer of The Beatles and who most consider as the "fifth Beatle" says that the "Love" soundtrack, which is a collaboration between George and his son Giles for the Cirque de Soleil Beatles show in Las Vegas will be his last album. The 26-track CD soundtrack is a mix of songs of only original Beatles music layered on to one another. Songs like "Strawberry Fields Forever" are combined with "Penny Lane" and "Hello Goodbye". George Martin who's turning 81 in 2 months said that he is thinking of taking early retirement. The Beatles website is offering everyone a chance to hear the full album online for free. Read here for the full story.

This article in INQ7.net is certainly something I did not expect but I'm glad it did. Its about a couple of students who qualified to join the Robotic Olympiad in China. For years, I have always wished that the Philippine school system take more measures to promote science and technology. I'm just surpised that a school outside Metro Manila took more of proactive approach to developing a class like that than one located in Metro Manila. It does seem that most of the better schools lately are located outside Metro Manila. Topnotchers in the nursing schools, doctors, lawyers, etc. I used to dream that when I got older, I would like to go back to my high school or college and teach. I would like to teach physics or a business course but I would take a different approach than what is on the curriculum. Instead of the boring physics class full of lectures and lab work that's basically meaningless. I wanted to give the students a more active approach in learning science. For exa...

I got into a debate the yesterday with my friend regarding the the value of an object. It started with this link I sent him about a voter in the US mailing in his vote with an " Inverted Jenny " stamp. A block of four of the rare stamp sold for $2.7m in October 2005. Going back to the subject of the debate, he said it was stupid that someone would buy a stamp like that and that it's crazy for a stamp to be valued at that price. I told him that the value of an object is relative to what another is willing to pay for it. He said that gold is a better value or diamond, I told him that the value of gold or diamond is also relative to what another is willing to pay for it. But he insisted that when World War 3 comes, that stamp would be worthless and that gold will be the only thing that would be of value. While I did not disagree with him, I told him that gold or diamond is only valuable as long as someone attaches a value to it. While gold would probably be more valuable co...

It's November and that means it's the NBA season again. I just love basketball and I wish I can play as much as I used to. I was driving the other day and was thinking back (I was paying attention on the road) when I used to play a lot of basketball with my friends back in college. We used to rent a gym and play twice a week. I used to never wake up before 10 or 11am, but I will wake up at 5:30am to play a 2 hour game of basketball at 6am, go figure. The biggest problem we usually have is finding some other teams to play as we don't have enough people on our team to play against each other. Usually what happens is we split the cost of the gym either loser pays or loser pays two-thirds. This basically amounts to betting and in the hope that everyone plays better because there's money at stake. The funny thing about it is that whenever an arrangement like that is made in advance, we start evaluating who the opponents are and what their strengths and weaknesses are. For su...

Neil Patrick Harris, the actor who played Doogie Howser, MD has come out as gay. All I can say is, man! I could not believe it. Playing the psychic captain in Starship Troopers, the sex craved guy in Harold and Kumar to to White Castle. Surprising isn't it? If you want to read more, here's the link .