2007 in 7 Lists of 7

Posted on December 30, 2007 at 9:16 pm | 10 Comments
Filed under Boggling Blogs • Bulky Books • Daily Dose • Internet Insanity • News Central • Random Realities • Site Stuff

It’s been my tradition here in my blog to post a yearend entry (2005, 2006). I usually post the most memorable things that happened to me from the very first day of January until December in my year ender specials, and in 2006, I’ve also included a list of my favorite entries for the whole year. But this year, I decided to make seven lists of seven. The lists talk about the best of 2007 except for the news category. I’ve also added notes here and there, and some are potential spoilers so be warned!

Most of the things that I have listed below are in either chronological or alphabetical order.

Books

This year, I was able to read 15 books, almost twice than last year. I really had fun reading this year.

  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — JK Rowling: The ending of Harry Potter’s epic tale was really fantastic. JK ended it with a fitting finale. How I wish there is a sequel to this book, but then, the time has come to end this very fascinating story.
  • The Kite Runner — Khaled Hosseini: I like this book very much. Furthermore, this is the best book I have read in my entire life. Unlike other fiction reads, this book is realistic. I recommend this to all, but most especially to those people who are not hooked into books and to Afghan refugees.
  • A Thousand Splendid Suns — Khaled Hosseini
  • The Chinese Cinderella — Adeline Yen Mah: [My Review]
  • Youngblood3 edited by Artura, et al: If you’re into Filipino literature, this is the book that you should buy. Very entertaining. And this is not fiction, by the way. [My Review]
  • The Dogs of Babel — Carolyn Parkhurst: The weirdest book I have ever read. It’s about Paul, a linguist, who tries to teach his dog how to speak. No, not because he’s out of his mind but because he wanted to know the real cause of his wife’s death. The words Parkhurst used in the ending of the story were really strong. [My Review]
  • For One More Day — Mitch Albom: Another tale about death. Yes, it’s a good book, but how I wish Albom would explore other topics. [My Review]

If you have read these books, you would notice that most of them are sad stories, but yeah, the characters lived happily ever after.

Songs

Entries

  • Faulty Schedule: My craziest misadventure this year. In this entry, I wrote how I spent almost 12 hours… in the mall.
  • The Perfect Duo: Chemistry and Zoology: You would fail these two subject if you don’t know how to memorize. And would you believe me that I enjoyed them? Haha.
  • The Divine Subjects: A review of my subjects back in first year, second semester. I used Dante’s concept in his Divine Comedy to give the final verdict for each of my subjects.
  • Stinks and Sells: I particularly enjoyed writing this. It’s my own version of what’s in and what’s out.
  • Big Surprises: The story how I acquired my notebook.
  • Let’s Talk About Grades (Part 2): What I realized in these posts was that grades aren’t everything.
  • Signs and Symptoms of Stress: The title says it all. I had a good time writing this and rereading it makes me laugh. XD

I know that the title of this entry says that for every list, there are seven items. But I have to break that because I reckon I have more interesting entries this year. And so we continue…

Web Apps

  • Last.fm: A cool way to discover music.
  • Google Reader: This one is a bit old, it’s been out since like two years ago. But it deserves a spot here.
  • Twitter: Who doesn’t love Twittering, eh? It’s enjoyable even though there is a maximum of 140 characters per tweet.
  • Sxipper: This one is actually a Firefox plugin. It can automatically input your information in every single form. It can also remember and generate passwords for you. A similar service is Clipperz.com.
  • del.icio.us
  • Flickr
  • Google Apps: Sign up and get your @yourdomain.com mail. All of the essential features of GMail are included. There are also other available applications that you can use.

News

Unlike the other categories, this one does not talk about the bests of 2007. These are the breaking news here in the Philippines. Majority of these are bad news.

  • Bus Hostage
  • The Glorietta 2 Blast: What’s the latest developement? Have they solved this?
  • Mariannete Ampere’s Suicide: A very very sad story
  • Erap’s Pardon: No way!
  • House of Representatives Bombing
  • The Peninsula Hotel Siege: Trillanes, please spare the hotels. Lol.
  • Peso’s Increasing Value: How come we cannot feel it?

Bloggers

I had fun reading your blogs! Keep on writing interesting blog entries!

WordPress Plugins

Yes, I know, most of things/persons that I have listed above (Especially in books, songs, web apps, and bloggers) were not published/released or didn’t start blogging this year. But then, this is my blog. Haha.

Well, I suppose, this is my last entry for this year. May everyone have a prosperous 2008! Rock on!

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Headline

Posted on November 4, 2006 at 10:44 pm | 3 Comments
Filed under Random Realities

Yesterday, I was in school. I got there around 8:30am and I found out that I had to wait for seven long hours for the person I had to see — don’t ask me who I had to see and what I want from him or her. Basically, it was a bad day for me.

I don’t like to go back home as I had to meet that person that I’m talking about. At first, I wasn’t doing anything. I was just there, sitting and looking at the looong line of students who were enrolling. I even had to resist myself from surfing the internet as it would cost me some money and I had only limited amount of funds yesterday. And it really sucks that I was not bringing a book to read yesterday.

Good thing the library was open. No, I did not read books there as there are no interesting books in our library. What I did was read the newspapers there. There were lots of stacks of the PDI that were not archived yet. I did not read everything as it’s not a good idea for reading outdated news. I only read the Super and 2bu sections and the column Youngblood (I was also looking for the column Highblood but I only found one) of the PDI. I had a great time reading them. Very interesting subjects. Much interesting than those blogs that sprouted like mushroom from nowhere lately (but not all).

And I think reading this kind of stuff would surely make me inspired!

Here are some articles that I suggest: The ghost (very hilarious), Jeepneys and Airplanes (can relate this one) and Remembrance of things past (and this one too).

Oh, I originally read this news in the PDI about the bulge. It really made me laugh for hours (until now)! [EDIT] And for those people who are taking NSTP you might also like to read this one. [/EDIT]

*****

Have you already experienced asking yourself “Hey! Where did I read that?” after remembering a quote or a line from the things that you’ve read? Well, I usually experience this. It really racks my brain whenever I ask myself that question, and most of the times, that question remains unanswered.

Does that means I’m getting older? Lol! Yeah, I think so. I’ll celebrate my birthday next month which coincides with Talamasca’s birthday. And that reminds me that Christmas is just around the corner. Please, stop shortcutting the word Christmas into X-mas or xmas… when did the letter X start to represent the word “christ”. This ain’t Math! And oh, don’t start calling me Xian! Lol!

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News express

Posted on May 16, 2006 at 7:55 pm | 12 Comments
Filed under News Central • Pinoy Pride • Tube Talk

Visit my portfolio portfolio portfolio portfolio portfolio portfolio portfolio portfolio portfolio portfolio

During my sophomore year in HS one of us was required to report at least three news everyday during our Araling Panlipunan class. One of my classmates get some news from the tabloids and you know what kind of news you can get there… no, I’m not speaking of the latest rumors that you can find at the “centerfold”. To give you more idea what I’m talking about here is the summary of the news: a mother forced her baby to drink bleach. I know it’s a sad story but we were all laughing at that time. I was also able to read stupid news from a tabloid: a gay got killed because he’s playing with a bomb. You see, you won’t get sensible news from tabloids.

If you really want to read something that has sense, buy the broadsheets instead! My favorite broadsheets are the Philippine Daily Inquirer (especially the 2BU section) and Philippine Star. Just a random fact about me, I read the news paper from good to bad in other words, back to front. Just don’t buy me a copy of Manila Bulletin, I don’t have time to read long articles and I’m not looking for a job! Lol. (I hope you know what I’m talking about).

Well, you can now also read news straight from your computer or laptop via the internet and even in your cellphone. CNN is correct — the news follows you!

Since I don’t listen to AM stations let us skip to the best way to catch the latest events which is to watch TV. There are various local and international stations to choose from. Personally, I only watch news from ABS-CBN and CNN. Why? Because I think the other stations are biased. Especially NBN (since it’s the government official station) but I don’t say that they are indeed biased! Okay? It’s only my personal view.

Let’s concentrate with ABS-CBN and GMA… the two big network companies in the country. As usual, both are claiming that they are practicing responsible journalism.

Wait, before I continue, I have this to say: I’m not a avid kapamilya nor a certified kapuso.

If you still remember, our president commended GMA (the station) for broadcasting the real stories. Or was it because GMA (the station) is only airing news that has nothing to do and will not destroy the reputation of the palace? If this is true it will prove my theory that these stations are biased.

So who is prevailing the truth? Nobody knows. If they really want to give service to our fellow Filipinos they should be practicing serbisyong totoo. Right? All we want is balanced news and fearless views!

PS: Oh, go BJ and Tyler (Amazing Race 9)! [EDIT] Woot! The hippies won! I thought they will never make it! And I just noticed that Jeremy looks like Aldred of PBB. < ?php /* I'm just going to hide something. Here it is: http://www.jaunted.com/story/2006/4/3/93331/35157/celeb/Amazing+Race+9%3A+Eric+%26amp%3B+Jeremy%27s+Half+Naked+Party+Photos */ ?> [/EDIT]

PSS: Who’s looking for a host? Yeah, hosting in here is for invitational only but since I don’t know who wants to get hosted, I’m going to ask who wants to be hosted! So, do you want to be hosted eh?

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Mega ultra stampede

Posted on February 4, 2006 at 10:26 pm | 15 Comments
Filed under Daily Dose • News Central • Pinoy Pride • Site Stuff • Tube Talk

[EDIT] Someone was able to hack (sort of) my site. He/she changed the latest entry on my gbook stating that I stole the script that I used for my gbook. No, I did not steal it! It’s from codegrrl.com. I have a link to codegrrl over the links page! For the mean time, I will disable my askme and gbook. [/EDIT]

Today is the first anniversary of ABS-CBN’s noon time show Wowowee. Frankly speaking, I hate this noon time show. Well, because there are so few hosts and guests. But you have to know that this show is not for those people who are looking for entertainment (sort of); this show is for our poor countrymen who are trying to catch their lucks. A show that tells the people who are living in the slums that there is still hope. But there is still this fact that some are joining the games of Wowowee because of their personal necessities. Until now, I can’t believe that this noon time show have a very high ratings (am I right?).

The first anniversary of the said noon time show was to held at Ultra. But an unexpected accident happened.

The world turned up-side down in just a second.

A big twist of fate.

Instead of 20 tricycles, some taxi cabs and two million pesos (about $40,000) of prizes are at stake. Lives of many people were in danger. A stampede occurred this morning. If my resources are up-to-date and are correct, there are already 80 plus people who died, mostly are elderly women.

I only knew this news around 11:00am because I was surfing the internet. At first I was thinking, “Stampede at Ultra? Hu? Is there an event there at the moment? Is there a concert? Was there a bomb found that’s why there was a stampede?”

The reason: somebody tripped on a ramp. Very impossible eh? I can’t believe it that only because someone tripped, a stampede occurred.

The consequences: aside from those 80 plus people who died, there were hundreds of people who were injured, many children were lost in the midst of that tragedy and Wowowee’s first anniversary was not pushed through.

While I was watching the news, I got irritated again. Well, I was flipping the channels from ABS-CBN to GMA over and over again (the news was not yet at CNN nor BBC). And grr… there was this women that was interviewed by a reporter from GMA. She’s telling the reporter that she’s mad because she was not able to enter the auditorium. Wow! Does not she have any single piece of feeling? There was a mayhem that happened and then there are still stupid people who does not have any common sense! This is going to support my statement above (that those people who are joining Wowowee are greedy).

It’s so nice to hear that there are still many people who are helping these poor people. I even heard in the news that there are some who are giving flip flops to the victims. And I’m so glad that the management of ABS-CBN will shoulder all the expenses of the victims even though they have no faults whatsoever.

This day was supposed to be a good one for all of the people who went to Ultra, and now, it seems like that a dementor sucked all of our happiness.

This is the irony of life…

This is my way to express my sympathy to the families of the victims…

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