The following joke is funny but I guess sad also as it seems to be an accurate reflection of the times.
A machine invented to catch thieves was tested.
UK: It caught 50 thieves in 30 minutes!
Spain: It caught 110 thieves in 30 minutes!
Philippines: In 15 seconds, the machine was stolen!!!
I have never met the man and obviously he never knew of my existence. But I have listened to his music every now and then. When I heard of his passing, in some odd, unexplainable way, I sensed something in me died,too. And when I watched a TV tribute for him, I shed a tear or two.
Maybe it was his songs, his patriotic anthems. Or perhaps his down-to-earth personality. Whatever it was, his art was able to reach out and touched me. So now I am affected by his death and feel a sense of loss.
Three stars and a sun - Francis M. embodied his lyrics. Perhaps, in time, he just might come to represent the sun that we sorely need for our country.
This video makes me dream of the day I can gather enough guts to post my own singing video. I wish!
I just read on the Inquirer today that the half-lion, half-fish symbol of Singapore, the Merlion, was once upon a time the symbol of Manila in the late 16th century. Spanish King Philip II allowed the city to use it in its cost of arms. The Merlion can be found in the seal of Manila.
Why is it even simple things of beauty and joy don't seem to last in our country? Why do I get a feeling our country seems cursed?
Again from my Inbox -
GPS
A couple of weeks ago a friend told me that someone she knew had their car broken into while they were at a football match. Their car was parked on the green which was adjacent to the football stadium and specially allotted to football fans. Things stolen from the car included a garage door remote control, some money and a GPS which had been prominently mounted on the dashboard.
When the victims got home, they found that their house had been ransacked and just about everything worth anything had been stolen.
The thieves had used the GPS to guide them to the house. They then used the garage remote control to open the garage door and gain entry to the house. The thieves knew the owners were at the football game, they knew what time the game was scheduled to finish and so they knew how much time they had to clean up the house. It would appear that they had brought a truck to empty the house of its contents.
Mobile Phones
This lady has now changed her habit of how she lists her names on her mobile phone after her handbag was stolen. Her handbag, which contained her cell phone, credit card, wallet... Etc... Was stolen. 20 minutes later when she called her hubby, from a pay phone telling him what had happened, hubby says 'I received your text Asking about our Pin number and I've replied a little while ago.'
When they rushed down to the bank, the bank staff told them all the money was already withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cell phone to text 'hubby' in the contact list and got hold of the pin number. Within 20 minutes he had withdrawn all the money from their bank account.
Moral of the lesson:
Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list. Avoid using names like Ho me, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart, Dad, Mom, etc.... And very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked through texts, CONFIRM by calling back. Also, when you're being text by friends or family to meet them somewhere, be sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them. If you don't reach them, be very careful about going places to meet 'family and friends' who text you.
I received these tips via my inbox -
Peel a banana from the bottom and you won't have to pick the little "stringy things" off of it. That's how the primates do it.
Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.
Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!
Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating. Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.
Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.
To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.
Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic and at the end of the recipe if your want a stronger taste of garlic.
Reheat Pizza
Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low
and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza.
Easy Deviled Eggs
Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.
Reheating refrigerated bread
To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.
Newspaper weeds away
Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Wet newspapers, put layers around the plants overlapping as you go cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic but will not get through wet newspapers.
Broken Glass
Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can't see easily.
No More Mosquitoes
Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.
Flexible vacuum
To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel
roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.
Reducing Static Cling
Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a clingy skirt
or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose.
Place pin in seam of slacks and the static will be gone.
Measuring Cups
Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.
Foggy Windshield?
Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of
your car . When the window fogs up, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!
Reopening envelope
If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside,
just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Viola! It unseals easily.
Conditioner
Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's cheaper than shaving cream and
leaves your legs really smooth. It's also a great way to use up the conditioner you
bought but didn't like when you tried it in your hair.
Goodbye Fruit Flies
To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2" with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!
Get Rid of Ants
Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it "home," can't digest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so, especially if it rains, but it works and you don't have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!
Got this in my email inbox. Don't know if it is true but it would be worth a try -
"I would like to share this interesting discovery from a classmate's son who has just recovered from dengue fever. Apparently, his son was in the critical stage at the ICU when his blood platelet count dropped to 15 after 15 liters of blood transfusion.
His father was so worried that he sought a friend's recommendation and his son was saved. He confessed he gave his son raw juice of the papaya leaves. From a platelet count of 45 after 20 liters of blood transfusion, and after drinking the raw papaya leaf juice, his platelet count jumped instantly to 135. Even the doctors and nurses were surprised. After the second day he was discharged. So he asked me to pass this good news around.
Get two raw papaya leaves, clean them, then pound and squeeze with filter cloth. You will only get one tablespoon per leaf. So two tablespoon per serving once a day. Do not boil or cook or rinse with hot water, it will loose its strength. Only the leafy part and no stem or sap. It is very bitter and you have to swallow it like "Won Low Kat". But it works.
*Papaya Juice - Cure for Dengue*
You may have heard this elsewhere but if not I am glad to inform you that papaya juice is a natural cure for dengue fever. As dengue fever is rampant now, I think it's good to share this with all.
A friend of mine had dengue last year. It was a very serious situation for her as her platelet count had dropped to 28,000 after 3 days in the hospital and water has started to fill up her lung. She had difficulty in breathing. She was only 32 years old. Doctor says there's no cure for dengue. We just have to wait for her body immune system to build up resistance against dengue and fight its own battle. She already had 2 blood transfusion and all of us were praying very hard as her platelet continued to drop since the first day she was admitted.
Fortunately her mother-in-law heard that papaya juice would help to reduce the fever and got some papaya leaves, pounded them and squeeze the juice out for her. The next day, her platelet count started to increase, her fever subsided. We continued to feed her papaya juice and she recovered after 3 days!
Amazing but true. It's believed one's body would be overheated when one is down with dengue and that also causes the patient to have fever. Papaya juice has cooling effect. Thus, it helps to reduce the level of heat in one's body, thus the fever will go away. I've also found that it's also good when one is having sore throat or suffering from heat."
A thought occurred to me earlier today while I was in the bathroom. If Darwin's theory on evolution were right, shouldn't our bodies be 100% efficient by now? Meaning we don't have to pee or poo anymore. Everything we eat should be 100% converted into nutrients for our system. Shouldn't that be the case? Just wondering.
Read more...I was chatting with an old friend last night and the discussion turned to fashion. I must confess in my younger days I was more daring in what I wore. But as I grow older, I have somewhat tone down my fashion. These days I take heed from what Edith Head had to say, after all, she is just an 8 time Oscar winner for costume design -
"Your dresses should be tight enough to show you're a woman and loose enough to show you're a lady."
Now I know what I want for my birthday. :)
This is not original - I just read it somewhere -
Sometimes you have to put walls up around you... not to keep people out but to see who cares enough to break them down just to be with you.
Nice, no?
Came across this funny but inspiring story (from Inspirations from the Net) -
A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had just completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
One of the courses had a professor who was an avowed atheist and a member of the ACLU. One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, "God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you exactly 15 min."
The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, "Here I am God. I'm still waiting."
It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him; knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold. The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The other students were shocked and stunned and sat there looking on in silence.
The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, "What the heck is the matter with you? Why did you do that?"
The Marine calmly replied, "God was too busy today protecting America's soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid stuff and act like an idiot. So, He sent me."
SEMPER FI
USMC
Elaine Chow of Gizmodo wrote an article on how she was able to watch Obama's inauguration speech while in China, thanks to, in her own words, "an illegal Filipino satellite." Apparently, gray market decoders there are able to catch signals from DreamTV broadcasts via the Aguila satellite.
I don't know if I should feel proud at least our country is not that far behind in technology. But then the negative implications of those illegal feeds, especially coming after the recent World Bank's blacklisting of local construction companies, surely reinforce our country's image as a corrupt nation. Haaaaaaaaaaay.
We sure live in interesting times. Who would have thought - a black now lives in the White House that was built by black slaves.
Anyways, obviously I didn't watch the inaugural in person but I came across this Gigapan panorama that makes me feel like I was there. Actually it is even better. Because you get to see close-up the various VIP personalities and their various expressions. It is if you were seated right next to them! Check it out. The website link is here.
I went to Greenhills Shopping Center one late afternoon recently and as usual had a hard time looking for parking. I normally just park on the street where Chili's and Starbucks are as I figure less people are willing to walk. But this time around, a whole section was roped off, leaving no available space! When I asked the bantay why the vacant spaces were roped off, he said it was because there was a party later that night in one of the nearby establishments down the street and they were told to make sure the guests will have parking spaces.
I asked him why do they have to reserve public parking spaces? Doesn't the establishment have its own parking slots? Isn't this required by some law? The guy just shrugged his head and said the nearby schools don't have their own parking slots, too. It is just the way it is.
I guess it really pays if you have connections. 'Cause it seems laws don't apply to you then.
As I was getting more impatient for what seem to be an unusally long traffic light to change at the intersection of Meralco Avenue and Ortigas Avenue, I noticed the billboard shown above. It has a catchy line - Consider this ad. Before the traffic moves, u will see ur ad again.
Hmmm. Despite it being an obvious potential visual hazard (I don't know how distractingly bright it gets at night), it does rub it in the fact that you are stuck in traffic - long enough to read the message.
Then I saw the other messages. I might be wrong, but it seems the billboard is owned by the city of Pasig. If so, wouldn't this be a conflict of interest? I mean, wouldn't it be possible that in the interest of advertisers, the cycle of the nearby traffic light is lengthened to ensure viewership? Rather than have a smart light in which it automatically turns green whenever there is no opposing traffic, there would be more incentive to put in a fixed timed cycle for the light.
I am just asking. At any rate I am just alarmed there are beginning to be too many too bright LCD billboards around the metro. The one by Camp Aguinaldo really glares at you at night. Haaay. Only in the Philippines.
I switched to Google's Chrome browser because it is supposed to be faster. But since then I have found little annoyances here and there. But there is one major flaw that is making me think of switching back to Firefox.
When composing the photos in one of my other blogs, Pinay Pretty Faces, I have found out Chrome does not allow me to resize them while in Compose mode by just clicking and dragging the photos. Firefox does. I have to manually calculate the dimensions and change them in the Edit Html mode. Worse, for some reasons, the dimensions are not even listed! So I can't the sizes. Grrrrr.
Surfing the net, I came across website featuring a George Bush Toilet Brush that, according to the product description, "the build up from the rest of his reign might be impossible to clean up." It is one funny political gag collectible.
Somehow I can't imagine the a similar product appearing locally. And that says a lot about the difference between the US and our country.
Everytime I see a television network's self-serving commercial that says it is "in the service of the Filipino People," I tend to cringe. Why? Because if it truly does, then it won't do the following -
Include in the ticker tape of their evening newscast inconsequential tidbits about their actors/actresses (known and obscure) - buntis is ano, na-snub is kwan, nag LQ un dalawa. I mean who cares? For God's sake, it is supposed to be the evening news not tsismis hour. If they say their masa audience cares, they already have tons of tv and radio show to fill the masa's mind with silly nothings. Yet they play up trivia about the pool of talents in their newscast in the hope of popularizing them - at the expense of losing respect for their newscast. Nakakabobo talaga.
Accept advertorials in their talk and game shows using emcees of those shows as the spokesperson to make them appear as they are part of the show. It is bad enough that the advertorials are misleading to the mostly masa audience but most of the products are herbal stuff touted to cure certain diseases. Most of these advertorials in fact include testimonials from "users." But if you listen closely or watch their regular commercials or read their print ads, they always add a disclaimer, "No Therapeutic Claims." All those wonder claims, all those user testimonies and then to announce "No Therapeutic Claim" in direct contradiction? Boy, they must think the masa are really stupid. Oh yeah, I forgot - maybe that's the reason they do fill the masa's mind with all those stupid shows and trivia. Nakakabobo talaga.
In the service daw. Talaga ah?
Cruising through Metro Manila, I can't help but notice the many tarpaulins put up by local government officials wishing their constituents the usual season's greetings. Typically most of the tarpaulins have their faces plastered prominently on the streamers.
Looking at some of the faces, I can't help but wonder just how unappealing they must be in real life. I suppose with all the available technology today, those portraits surely must have be enhanced and photoshopped to death to make them more visually appealing while at least retaining the same physical features. But the problem is they obviously remain unattractive portraits.
Which makes me think - if these politicians are after getting more votes with the streamers, why include their portraits at all if they are not attractive in the first place? Wouldn't that make them lose the very votes they are hoping to get?
Or has all that power, actual and otherwise, made them believe they are as attractive as some movie stars who have turned into politicians?
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