Looking for Things to Do
Saturday, March 31, 2007 | 1:10 AM
The power was out the whole day, so instead of sleeping the day through like a sloth, I chose to write something in draft for my blog. And what better subject to write about on a day without electricity than the things that we usually do on a day without electricity.
ACTIVITY 1 Monopoly. The world's no. 1 board game remains to be so. We bought our deluxe set half a year ago for exactly the same purpose: to have something to play that does not run on power. Like for a contingency. And what kind of household does not have monopoly?
ACTIVITY 2 Books. Ahhh… Now this is something that I cannot live without. Reading acts as my next fix for when boredom lurks around. We have several titles at home, and my personal favorites are the Sword of Truth series and the Vampire Chronicles. Add the Harry Potter to the two.
Reading is the only activity that I willingly do for 10 hours straight (well, except for the occasional break) other than doing something on the PC.
ACTIVITY 3 Crochet. Funny, huh? But with a reason. This little outlet of queerty keeps my fingers busy, thus serving as relaxation for my mind, since it does not require too much thinking. More than this, though, is that crocheting helps to take my mind off smoking, which is a vice I am trying to rid myself of. Medical studies actually prove this as well.
Not exactly through crocheting though, but the concept is the same.
My most ambitious creation so far is a blanket. I have been trying to finish it for almost 3 months now, and I am not even halfway through. Not that I am not gaining a good pace while doing it. It is just that I get easily distracted, and at several times, detour to different projects like tabletop accents and wall decors.
ACTIVITY 4 Magic. I have kept my Magic cards well ever since I started collecting 5 years or so ago. Some of them I managed to maintain in mint condition, and I have quite a few rare and valuable ones, although I am so left behind when it comes to the latest expansion sets. Other than occasions like this one, I rarely play the card game, primarily because I have preserved my original objective, which is to merely collect the cards.
ACTIVITY 5 VCDs. I do not know how I came to have this many movies. Although DVDs are much better copies, and since they are expensive, I realized that keeping the VCD copies is worth it, because someday even DVD ones will be left behind by more advanced technologies. This is not saying that I do not collect DVDs though. Who does not?
So what do we do? We take our battery packs and watch a movie or two on the old IBM ThinkPad. Thank God we have not sold that WW II veteran of a machine yet.
The announcement was that the brownout would last from eight to eight only. Patience is a virtue, but I had thought that if it meant 8 AM to 8 AM the next day, to hell with the activities I listed above. I would just go to sleep.
Labels: Personal, Special Interests
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Great Gradient Text Effects Using Macromedia Flash
Thursday, March 29, 2007 | 10:44 AM
Here is a simple step-by-step procedure on applying great gradient text effects on any font using Macromedia Flash, like the example above.
Step 1 After opening a new file in Flash, depending on how you are going to use the image, select a nice font type and size. To illustrate the steps well, I chose bold Century Gothic at font size 80. I also adjusted the Character Spacing to -8 to give the text a better look.
Step 2 Rename Layer 1 as Main, and then type your text.
Step 3 Duplicate the layer. You can do this by first pressing CTRL+ALT+C (Edit > Copy Frames). Add a new layer, then select that new layer, and then press CTRL+ALT+V (Edit > Paste Frames). Rename this new layer as Mask. Make sure that the Mask layer is above the Main layer. Hide and Lock this layer for now.
Step 4 Select the text then hit CTRL+B (or select Modify > Break Apart) twice to ungroup the letters. This is to manipulate the text well, including each pixel group.
Step 5 Choose the Line Tool (N) then select the same color as your font. Drag a line from the first letter to the last. If there are dots, dashes, or other components, connect them to the letter group as well; you can use different segments for these.
Click the Main layer again then select Modify > Shape > Convert Lines to Fills.
The purpose of this step is to group all of the pixel components as one. You can check that you have grouped all of them by deselecting the text, then clicking it again, and being able to highlight the whole thing without dragging
Step 6 Duplicate the Main layer again, following the steps in Step 3. This time, rename the layer as Gloss, and make sure that it is the middle layer. Lock and hide this layer as well.
Step 7 Select the Main layer again and on your Color Mixer on the right, choose Linear as your gradient type. Select the colors that you want for your text. For this example, I chose #0000FF for the first color, #00FFFF as the second and for the third color, I selected #FFFF00.
Step 8 Select the Gloss layer and unhide and unlock it. On the Color Mixer panel, select Linear again for your gradient type. For the first color, select white, and for the second color, select white as well but with an alpha of 0%.
Once you have applied this gradient on the text on the Gloss layer, select the Fill Transform Tool (F), and click and manipulate the gradient such that it becomes vertical for the text. Since this is for making the text shiny, you should resize the gradient to cover only down to the middle of the text.
Step 9 We will now use the Mask layer to hide the horizontal line on the other two layers. Right-click the Mask layer then choose Mask. Make sure that the other two layers are included in the mask. You can do this by dragging the layers into the mask. Unhide then lock all layers.
You are done!
The purpose of this tutorial is to teach you the basics of how to effectively manipulate fonts. Following are some examples where I experimented with different gradient colors, shapes and angles, and different font types. I hope you learned something from this tutorial.
Labels: Graphics Design
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Media’s Role on Rape, Incest and Pedophilia
Monday, March 26, 2007 | 1:26 PM
Gelo and Ton converse about the media – television/screen, print, etc. – and its power on three of the society’s chief problems: Rape, incest and pedophilia.
Ton: What do you suppose?
Gelo: I think we should eat. There’s this great new recipe at the KIPLog Food Blog that makes me (SLURP) salivate.
Ton: Come on, Gelo.
Gelo: Aha! You’re demanding to engage me into a conversation that we both know you already have things to say about.
Ton: Precisely.
Gelo: Seriously though, I view the media as nothing more than its root - medium - an intervening substance through which signals can travel as a means for communication.
Gelo says: ...I view the media as nothing more than its root - medium...
Ton: You’re saying that media has no influence whatsoever on rape, incest or pedophilia.
Gelo: I believe that it does have an influence, just that it can’t be blamed for why these three issues recur. Again, it’s just a medium, merely a carrier of something.
Ton: Ever see those children dancing
ocho-ocho (a dance move here in the Philippines, literally meaning eight-eight, and is purportedly suggesting a sexual theme)?
Gelo: Yes. What are you saying?
Ton: Well, psychology tells us that there’s a subsequent behavior to a stimulus. An advertisement projects images, gives information, and conveys subliminal messages, which serve as stimuli to the human mind. Teenagers today have gone remote from how the teenagers were, say, 50 years ago. They no longer wear long skirts or puffed sleeves or conservative dresses. What do we see on TV and magazines, even in broadsheets? Spaghetti straps, tight-fitting jeans, short skirts.
Gelo: Hmmm.
Ton: Teens are motivated to follow what’s IN, and that motivation, media, causes the obsession, and obsession rarely doesn’t worsen.
Ton Says: ...and that motivation, media, causes the obsession, and obsession rarely doesn’t worsen.
Gelo: But you also have to consider – other than psychology – the laws of physics.
Ton: The what?
Gelo: For example, someone gets electrocuted upon touching water – your medium – that has strong electric current running through it. In this case, you can’t blame water for conducting electricity. When there’s a sexually suggestive theme shown on TV, you can’t hold TV responsible for it. To a certain extent, the blame is put on those on both ends of the tunnel. And for this reason, we have concepts such as censorship or classification.
Ton: Yes. But although a Parental Guidance message is flashed on screen, you would rarely see a parent actually doing something about it. Therefore the effect – children’s minds are filled with garbage. And this sexual trash stays with them until they grow old. Children are less mature individuals, thus less discriminating of external stimulus, as compared to adults, and become more vulnerable.
Gelo: Yes, you’re right. It’s difficult to assess the extent to which media must be blamed for rape, incest and pedophilia, though. I guess you can say it’s just a matter of perspective now.
Ton: Too many external factors interplay but there is no denying that mass media has its own share of culpability. So… how do we end this?
Gelo: It just does. Ahhh. Food for the mind. I’m okay now. (BURP)
Labels: Conversations, Society
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If You Wanna Rant...
Sunday, March 25, 2007 | 5:10 PM
If you have a problem with stuff and just want to write about it, better think twice and just forget about it, considering that a great majority of the blogs circulating here in the Philippines is about one thing: Ranting and having it published for the whole world to see.
However, to do something against your urge to do it, I suggest reading this blog site, which will give you a ton of laughs, and which stands out from all the other rant-blogs out there: You Want The Truth?
Author is Miss Diss, who also writes for the Man Blog. Note that she's the only female author there. On the site, she also left her email address if you "want me to diss anything on your behalf."
Go on, click it. You know you want to.
Labels: Blogging and the WWW
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Thanks KlipFolio
| 1:38 AM
I spent almost an hour yesterday looking for an RSS reader that suits my taste, considering functionality, user-friendliness, flexibility, and of course, aesthetics.
And this is what I found: KlipFolio!
A new (for me) personal dashboard or sidebar that allows you to monitor anything from your RSS feeds to Flickr Photos, even a live cam on the Eiffel Tower! This multitasking desktop buddy even notifies you of your CPU usage, of the date and time, even everytime your Gmail gets new email.
I am still in the early stages of reviewing this free software, and I am already impressed. I’ll give you a few of my favorites, which your eager hands would immediately experience during the first 15 minutes after downloading KlipFolio.
First is the Klips, as they call it, which are little components for each data that you want monitored (examples are Klips for the pictures on your hard drive, weekly top ten movies from IMDb, most discussed videos in YouTube). These cute little things are resizable and movable, so they don’t get in your way when you have a task. The whole dashboard is also skinnable (meaning, you can change the skins), and also allows for liquid layouts, letting you easily customize the way you view your KlipFolio.
Probably the best feature of this tool is the very convenient way with which you can manage your Klips, skins, and other KlipFolio components. At the KlipFolio website download screens, one simple click on the Add Klip button beside the Klip that you want quickly updates your KlipFolio. Downloading a new skin is even easier. At the Skins page, one click on a new skin immediately downloads it and applies it to your KlipFolio. Very hassle-free.
I’m currently trying on more Klips. With 4,000 Klips to choose from, and still increasing, I can see no end yet to my experimentations.
Here is how mine looks like so far:
And I mentioned free, right?
Visit their
website for more info about the product.
Labels: Blogging and the WWW
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Tessie Aquino-Oreta's Campaign Ad
Saturday, March 24, 2007 | 9:27 AM
The dancing queen is now exploring the august halls of the theater arts.
A few days ago, Oreta's new campaign ad was aired on TV, and it raised a few boos and eyebrows. The dancing queen was crying on that ad, apologizing profusely for "dancing". I suggest they submit that ad to the film award-giving bodies of the country.
During the Estrada impeachment trial, Oreta sided with the ex-president. She was tagged as the dancing queen (even pokpok - a prostitute - by the more aggressive opposing groups) after the little "celebration" that she did after the move to open the second envelope that supposedly contained evidence on Estrada's plunder case was shot down by the Senate Blue Ribbon committee. Today, Oreta is saying sorry, but she claims that she didn't "dance", that it was just a trick of the camera. How would you apologize for an error that you won't even accept that you committed?
This campaign period, the senatorial candidate switched sides, and moved to the Unity ticket, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the administration's camp, which headed the Estrada trial in the first place. The 180-degree turn that she did, along with two other candidates, caused them the title ASO (Filipino word for "dog"). ASO, the acronym, stands for the initials of re-electionist Edgardo Angara, former Senator Vicente Sotto III, and Oreta, and it has been used in an opposition campaign jingle. The three claim that they only switched because "they were the ones who junked us from the ticket," and that "they did not want us to be part of the opposition slate."
With the airing of her new ad, she proved that 180 is really her thang. The dancing queen said in the ad that she is sorry for reacting that way and for hurting the sensibilities of people. What it meant to me was that she regrets being part of the Estrada group.
It is such a shame that she has to switch sides two times, just to have a chance on the senatorial elections. It makes me want to admire those who went independent just so they could preserve their principles. Dancing to different sides is what this girl, Oreta, is doing. A dancer to the very end.
Labels: Politics
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Google Sitemaps for Bloggers
Friday, March 23, 2007 | 9:28 AM
I’m becoming a bit frustrated about how Google treats my blog site.
To increase my chances of being indexed in Google search results, a few weeks ago, I added this blog site to Google Sitemaps. I followed the correct instructions, however, I feel like the crawl is taking so long.
However, for those of you who are still interested in having your blogspot on Sitemaps, here is the easiest route. One of the great benefits of using Sitemaps is that it allows the webmaster to directly notify Google about certain changes or additions to the site.
Login to your Google Sitemaps account using your Google account (if you have Gmail, then that should do). Once logged in, at the top of the Google Webmaster Tools window, there should be an option for you to add your site. Type in your site URL, for example, mine is http://geloton.blogspot.com, then click OK.
Before Google crawls your site for indexing, it needs to verify that you are really the owner of that web site. Click the Verify your site link.
This will take you to the Verify site ownership window. Sitemaps will provide you with two options for site verification. You need to choose Add a META tag, and not the second option, Upload an HTML file, since Blogger doesn't allow that. The first options only requires you to add a piece of code to your template that Google will try to "find". Once it finds this code, your site will be verified.
Once you've selected this option, you will receive the code that you should include in your site.
Copy this code. After which, go to your Blogger account, and go to Template. Paste the code between the HEAD tags. My ideal place is
immediately below the beginning HEAD tag. It looks like this on your template:
After pasting it, save your template, and go back to your Google Sitemaps account. Since you've already pasted the verification code, click the Verify button to let Google know that you own the web site.
You've already verified your site. There's some debate going on about whether you should stop at verification or proceed with uploading a sitemap to Google. To read this article, go
HERE. If you wanna proceed with uploading a sitemap, then follow the next steps.
Uploading a sitemap allows you to provide Google additional information about your blog. Google will process your Sitemap and provide information on any errors and it will also download the sitemap everyday to index your blog fast.
On the Sitemaps tab, you will see a link to add a sitemap. Clicking this will take you to the Add Sitemap screen. Choose Add General Web Sitemap from the two options on the dropdown list.
You'll see that step 3 on the list allows you to input your sitemap URL. For this, just type in you blog URL, followed by atom.xml. Yes, this is the same as your ATOM feed. For example, mine is
http://geloton.blogspot.com/atom.xml. If you are using the new Blogger, you must use http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full as the sitemap URL. Click the Add Web Sitemap button.
Now wait until you get the confirmation: You have added a Sitemap to http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/. Reports may take several hours to update. Thank you for your patience!
You're done! Now, all you have to do is to wait while Google does the job for you. I'm still waiting for mine though... :(
Labels: Blogging and the WWW
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Before Voting This Coming May 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007 | 9:23 AM
Last February Sixteen, thousands of Filipinos received an email entitled What will make me leave the Philippines... An Open Letter to Every Filipino. I myself got one, and it talks about the reasons that would make Harvey Keh, a youth leader who was cited as one of the 20 Young Leaders of Asia on the 50th anniversary of the Asia Society, leave our country.
This entry is for those who are not yet aware of such an article, and could possibly benefit from reading it.
The email involves such names as people’s champ Manny Pacquiao, senatorial candidates Tessie Aquino-Oreta and Gringo Honasan, and even Commission on Elections (COMELEC) ex-Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano. It offers great advice for us registered voters on who to write on our ballots.
The contents of the email are also available on the WWW. Trust me, you HAVE to see it.
The specific article is posted HERE. There's also a related article, Youth leader to leave RP if 7 things happen, on the Inquirer.net.
Moreover, the articles on that blog site are also worth a read, so please spare a few minutes.
Labels: Politics, Society
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Mike Arroyo
Wednesday, March 21, 2007 | 8:52 PM
Don’t you just hate Mike Arroyo (Jose Miguel Arroyo, husband of Philippine Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) for suing for libel more than 50 journalists now?
For there to be libel, the accused must be proved in court to have made a false statement about another, with the purpose of defaming him.
Let me tell you. You may claim in court that one journalist is lying. There are quite a few journalists out there who deserve it. You can do the same thing to the second one. Calling the third journalist a liar, yes, it’s possible. Filing the same law suit against the fourth one may still prove feasible for you, although doing so can make you go down several notches on the reputation scale.
However, pushing your luck and reaching the number 50 on your number of journalists to sue for libel? Now there’s definitely something amiss here
Where there’s smoke, my dear... where there’s smoke.
Unfortunately, though, smoke doesn't count in the process of the law. And for our courts, that fire, wherever it is, is yet to be found. So, since we can't do anything about it yet, and while good people like Alan Peter Cayetano are looking for more fire, in the meantime, I'll just build an altar for and kneel in front of the beautiful mind that did this:
Labels: Don't You Just Hate..., Politics
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Just an Ordinary 8th of March
Friday, March 09, 2007 | 12:00 AM
When women on all continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development. That's the International Women's Day. That's what this day is supposed to be, here in the Philippines.
There have been 5,000 Filipina mail order brides entering the United States every year since 1986, a total of 105,000 as of 2007. There are 20,000 Filipina mail order brides in Australia as of 1997.
150,000 Filipina women have been trafficked into prostitution in Japan, according to the Daily Star, July 2, 1998. 150 Filipinas were sold into prostitution to night club operators in African countries, particularly Nigeria. The women were bought for $5,000 each by international syndicates. Four Filipinas were rescued by the Philippine Embassy in Lagos, Nigeria after they sought help from officials. (Manila Chronicle, May 31 1995)
In 1991, Filipinas were often sold to Japan, often to the Yakuza, at $2,400 to $18,000 each.
In 1996, 492 of 3,776 reported cases of child abuse involved pornography, prostitution, paedophilia and trafficking. There were 8,335 cases of child abuse from 1991-1996, 96% of the victims were females. (Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 26 1997)
There are 400,000 women in prostitution in 1998, excluding unregistered, seasonal prostitutes, overseas entertainers and victims of external trafficking. One fourth of them are children and each year 3,266 more children are forced into the sex industry. (GABRIELA, an NGO that seeks to transform women into an organized political force.)
Something is terribly wrong with our country. It's already 2007, and imagine how much that number has grown.
Let me give you an idea of how small 400,000 is.
- António Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, has described the situation in Sudan and Chad as “the largest and most complex humanitarian problem on the globe.” At least 400,000 people have been killed; the Sudanese government’s regular armed forces and the Janjaweed – largely composed of fighters of Arab nomadic background – have targeted civilian populations and ethnic groups just to remove support from the rebels in their country.
- It took that same number of people to land Apollo 11 to the moon.
- Malta, the most densely populated country in the EU and one of the most densely populated countries in the world, has a population of 400,000 people in 2006.
- Although only 11,000 cases are confirmed, China has an estimated 400,000 people with HIV.
According to an article in April 1998, a
Philippine Adventure Tour costs $1,645, including round trip airfare, hotel accommodations and guided tours to the bars where men purchase sex from prostitutes for as little as US $24. Tour owner and operator Allan Gaynor promises that customers "never sleep alone on this tour" and recommends that the customer have sex with a different girl every day, "two if you can handle it." Whether or not by choice, men on sex tours inevitably buy underage girls.
Sharon, a 13-year-old girl was kidnapped and sold as a virgin for US$30. In a brothel, she was raped by 8 to 15 men every night, even when she had her menstrual period or was running a fever, and by the time she escaped with a customer's help in February 1997, she had 'serviced' more than 1,500 men.
And what is the local government doing about it?
Tell me, do you still have enough reason to celebrate this day for?
Labels: Society
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Angelo
| 3:19 AM
Gelo, as he is fondly called, is 20 years old. Before he stopped studying to work in the BPO industry, he had been enrolled with the degree BS in Civil Engineering in St. Louis University in Baguio City, Philippines. He was able to finish only the basic engineering curriculum, because his family experienced a great financial difficulty, which pushed him to help his parents by working instead.
He worked in one of the biggest of the many call centers in the country. Because of his will to help his family, in addition to getting more than sufficient salary, he was soon rewarded with two promotions, from Technical Support Representative to Tier 2/Support, and then a few months later as a Workforce Management Analyst.
Unfortunately, his supervisor fell in love with him. Weird, huh? Angelo didn’t think it healthy to have such a relationship, so he discouraged his boss about his advancements. The boss was persistent as hell, so Angelo had to tell him directly that whatever his boss’s plans were, they won’t work. Because of this, Gelo’s superior made his life hell. After which, he was forced to resign.
Angelo is as happy as can be, spending his vacation with Tonichi in Pangasinan. They’re both waiting for Ton to go to Canada, so that he’ll be able to help Angelo as well. And while waiting, Angelo is waiting, Angelo is also planning to enroll this coming June. While continuing this blog, of course.
Labels: Personal, This Blog
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Tonichi
Wednesday, March 07, 2007 | 2:02 PM
Tonichi Lamsen is often mistaken as Japanese, because of his name, sometimes Korean, because of his looks. But this 22-year old Industrial Engineering student is 100% Filipino.
Up until the first quarter of 2006, he had been studying at the St. Louis University, at the beautiful summer capital of the Philippines, Baguio City. His mother, however, passed away the same year, and Ton finally decided to temporarily halt his studies, for him to help his father, and to recover over the grief of losing her.
He plans to enroll this June (that’s the beginning of a regular school year here in the Philippines) to continue his studies.
His short vacation has helped him a great deal. Right now, Ton is very enthusiastic about his new Sony Cybershot, and you’ll be seeing some of his work soon.
January of this year, Tonichi’s father remarried, and just a few weeks ago, Ton’s new stepmother returned to Canada, where his two stepsisters have migrated to. His stepmom has been working there for more than 5 years now. All these at hand, Ton’s petition papers will soon be processed.
While waiting for that time to come, Tonichi plans to spend the rest of his remaining months here in the Philippines by continuing his degree first. He also decided to work on this blog.
Labels: Personal, This Blog
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Thank You
Tuesday, March 06, 2007 | 2:00 PM
A pail of Nerds candies for you!
Thanks for bothering to send mail to us. We'll send you our response as soon as we finish OUR OWN pail of Nerds.
Continue reading our blog by going back to our
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Contact Us page, for suggestions, feedback, complaints, or if you just wanna say hi or hello.
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Contact Us
| 1:23 PM
You can get in touch with us through our mobile, +639194226859.
Send us words of love (that is, suggestions, feedback, even complaints, or if you just wanna say hi or hello) through this form:
or through the following
email addresses:
Trust us, your email address will be kept confidentail, and we will only use it as our means of replying to you.
The people over at Google are doing a great job against spam, but I'm gonna tell you now, please don't spread our email addresses for malicious purposes, okay?
Just let those emails flow in. What do you know, maybe in between our mall and concert tours :) we might actually find some time to respond to your emails. We're looking forward to them.
We DO have our
Friendster profiles, if you're interested.
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