The DJ who's not a DeeJay

Starting July 31, 2014, 5 international airlines will be transferring from NAIA Terminal 1 to NAIA Terminal 3.  They are Delta Airlines, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Cathay Pacific.

I've always admired the efforts by foreigners learning a Filipino song and actually singing a good version.  Here Matthew Mannucci arranges and performs his own acoustic version of Yeng Constantino's hit "Chinito." His version is obviously called "Chinita."  Kudos to you Matthew!

This blog has just reached its 100,000th view!  Thank you to everyone for visiting my blog.

After 8 years and over 900 blog posts, my blog has finally reached 100,000 views.  It may not have taken that long for other bloggers or if I had blogged more often, but I'm not competing with anyone and definitely not catching any deadline.

It has always been a hobby of mine to blog and aside from this being my main and personal blog, I have also took on several other blogs, some which have been consolidated here and some are still ongoing because they have an entirely different theme and niche.

I've been blogging on blogger since 2006 but I've been writing since I was a teenager.  In high school, I started my fascination for writing.  In college, I created a computer program to duplicate Doogie Howser's journal as shown on the TV series just so I could enter write daily thoughts like he did.  Unfortunately, it wasn't as profound as his and so I ended up writing about my college crushes.

Trivia: My 1st take at writing for a publication was actually in college where I was a contributor for the Ateneo Math Club newsletter.  Yes, it exists! And my 1st assignment was to interview one of the new Math professors, Ms. de Lara.

After college, my first job was being a musical arranger (thus the DeeJay).  I also merged my love for music with my original college degree, Computer Science and creating a music website became the next logical step.  My experience in handling a website honed my skills in writing articles and music reviews.

Aside from writing professionally, I also wanted another venue to write about personal ideas, experiences and just about anything I considered interesting to me. Hence, the birth of this blog.

I could go on and on but I'd like to keep it short and thank everyone again for visiting and reading my blog.  Hope you find it interesting to read my past and future posts.

Autobot Drift gets a feel for island slippers while getting ready for a stroll in the beach.

Not your "bu" but mine.
Not quite a chocolate kind.
Juicy mix-mix time.

Since Michael Jackson's unreleased song "Love Never Felt So Good" in his new album Xscape debuted worldwide last month, I've fallen in love with the song.  Its retro Michael Jackson sound makes me relive the sound I grew up with.  After each new popular song released nowadays, do a YouTube search and you'll find dozens if not hundreds of versions of each song.  Name it you got it: acoustic, acapella, choir, opera, rock or even reggae.  So far by the best instrumental version for me of this song is this rendition by Stot Juru  Check out his sax lead for "Love Never Felt So Good."

I had time to spare and was kinda bored at the hotel in Cebu.  I looked out the window around noontime and noticed the cloud formations were ever-changing. Was hoping to take a video using my digicam but unfortunately, the red battery blink of death dawned upon it.   Turned to my celphone to take a video but my memory card was full.  So it kept me thinking what could I do to record a video.  Then I instantly remembered that my new laptop had a very decent built-in webcam.

So I took out the ironing board, placed it beside the window, placed the laptop on top, and set the webcam to record.   After a few tries, I figured out how to set up a few things for a smooth recording.

• Plug laptop especially if you'll be taking long videos
• Set battery to always on (so the laptop won't hibernate)
• Cover background with curtains so the glass window won't show any reflection of the room

1. If the number of your followers reach 666 and stops, you are cursed.
2. If you post a selfie underneath a ladder, you will receive #socialmedia bad luck.
3. If you're about to be the 13th person to like a status update, wait a while for someone else to like before you do.
4. Your tablet picks up two WiFi signals, named "Heaven" and "Hell" and you scaringly await which signal your device will connect to.
5. You doubt Google's "I'm feeling lucky" whether it means good or bad luck.
6. If you watch a YouTube video about a ghost at exactly midnight, that ghost will watch the beside you.
7. If you're in a webchat that says you're all alone, but messages scroll blazing fast coming from you even if you're not typing, your device may be possessed.
8. Your smartphone has 3G but no SIM, you have WiFi in a deadspot and your phone is running without a battery!
9. You switch your smartphone's camera to front-facing mode to take a selfie.  Your entire background can be seen, except you.
10. Your phone's display replicates and becomes the exact display of every TV, tablet and phone within your WiFi coverage. Can you say everybody is watching you?

• Roundabout traffic: letter O
• Highway traffic: letter I
• Traffic on a zigzag road: letter S
• Gridlock on an intersection: letter X

Define courageous: 

My overhead compartment at my office desk is all tea!

I love tea. I actually prefer tea over softdrinks.

I used to drink a lot of bottled fruit juices and teas but since a lot of them contained a lot of sugar, I cut down on my manufactured tea consumption and switched to hot tea where I could control the sugar intake and choose what kind (brown, coconut, splenda or none at all).

Since then, I've tasted a lot of teas from different countries (thanks to all who've been giving me different tea flavors to sample too!)  I actually have over 25 different flavors in the office.  Having tasted a lot of teas (and boiled lots of water in the process), I present my Top 5 Favorite Teas.

1. English Breakfast tea - it's your all around tea, so breakfast is not the best term to describe it.  But it does have that kick that you'll most likely need in the morning so I guess that's why they call it such.  It's also one of the most popular complimentary teas you'll find in a hotel room.
2. Jasmine tea - I actually don't like flower-based teas.  This is the exception.  Jasmine tea doesn't taste anywhere near a flower.  Its light and mild flavor makes it easy to consume more than a cup.  If you have a tea pot of this, don't be shy to get a refill.
3. Oolong tea - Whenever I'm in a Chinese restaurant, I won't think twice on ordering this as my drink. This is one tea that doesn't need any additional sweetener to enjoy. This is best taken before and after meals as it would bring your taste buds back to normal.  No matter how full you may be after a hefty meal, an additional cup of this tea won't make you any fuller.
4. Blackcurrant tea - I actually liked the tea line of berries (strawberry, blueberry, raspberry) until I tasted this one and instantly preferred this over the berries.   Its grape-like flavor is good if you prefer a stronger taste for your tea.
5. Mint tea - I'm a fan of any mint-flavored candy (peppermint, spearmint) and so this tea flavor was no-brainer for me.  This tea leaves a fresh and soothing taste and sometimes feels almost as if you just brushed your teeth.   

Last January, I was invited to attend the launch of Google Street View Philippines.  Unfortunately, I had work that day (I regret actually not going).

Since its launch in January 2014, Google Street View, which has been popular for making it so much easier to virtually tour streets and places in the U.S. with this technology, brought the same technology to the Philippines.  For the 1st time, Google Street View capturing tools were going to capture Philippine streets and lcoations.  The Google Street View car started going around taking imagery to attach to Google maps.  And in places where the Google Street View car couldn't fit (think eskinitas and other terrain that a car couldn't traverse), there was a backpack version of the Google Street View device where a person could just strap the backpack and walk around capturing the same imagery.

It was only this morning that I actually saw one in action.  Well I don't really know if it was recording at that time, but I did see the Google Street View car going around.  It entered the Skyway from Bicutan in Paranaque City and exited somewhere around Magallanes in Makati City (I think).

I was keenly interested if it was travelling at a constant speed so it could capture images.  However, with the 60kph minimum speed limit, I figured it would need to go at least that fast.  Funny that it sped up, then slowed down, then sped up again.  I was thinking maybe it was taking instructions from a computer telling the driver to go faster or slow down similar to taking a panoramic shot.  But anyway, it was just nice to see the actual Google Street View car on the road and in action. If you've seen it elsewhere in the Philippines, post a comment and let us know where you saw it.


Related articles:

• Google Street View Philippines launched
• Mabuhay, Street View Philippines!
• Google Street View Car in Marikina

Since this blog has been up for years, let's do something different.