The DJ who's not a DeeJay

a line of pine trees swaying to the cool breeze east of Manila

silhouette of the great Jose Rizal at Intramuros

Their latest promo is the Krispy Kreme FaveFan Promo where everyone has a chance to win a year's supply of doughnuts including a trip to Krispy Kreme headquarters ! To celebrate 72 years of service (6 dozen in Krispy Kreme numerology), Krispy Kreme announces a worldwide search for its number one fan.

The Krispy Kreme FaveFan Promo is open to 9 countries, Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, United Kingdom and the Philippines (aren't we lucky ?). To join, all you need to do is go to http://www.krispykremefavefan.com , click on the Submit Entry and complete the form. The form also requires you to answer the question "How has Krispy Kreme made your life special?" ( in a maximum of 1,000 characters). Include a photo with your entry and you automatically have a chance to be selected as the Krispy Kreme Fave Fan for the Philippines. Winners from all participating countries will win a year's supply of donuts plus a trip for two to the Home of Krispy Kreme. You'll also get the chance to design your ultimate donut !

If you see the person in a corridor, you could take the stairs, take a u-turn and go another direction, bow down to hide your face, turn your head the other way as if you had a stiff neck, or if you have the guts and ability, look the person straight in the eye in an emotionless state (dedma).

It's not that easy to avoid someone when you're in an escalator or an elevator. That's why I call these 2: social traps. You'll just have to endure being with the person you're avoiding because you have no complete control over the machine you're taking.

When you're in an escalator, you are bound to see everyone at the opposite side. And if you're already on the escalator, there's no turning back. You could always go back and walk double time. But that would catch more attention. Plus, if you don't have the agility, by the time you've jumped off, chances are, the person you're avoiding just stepped down from the other side. The best way is simply to look away or hold a huge newspaper in front of you.

Elevators offer a different awkward situation, especially if you and the person you're avoiding are the two last people left inside. What's difficult about this situation is that you have very limited options. Due to the elevator's size, there's no way to distance yourself from the other person. There's not much room to look away and you're bound to get closer against your will when you have to press the floor on the elevator panel. In addition, and depending on how many floors both of you are going to, the torture ride must be endured anywhere from 10 seconds (fast elevators going up or down only 1 floor) to 3 minutes (old buildings with super slow elevators and it stops on every floor with no one getting inside).

Just how can you avoid someone in an elevator ? Facing the other way looks stupid. It's like riding a rollercoaster and facing the back. If the elevator had other people, you could manuever your way to hide beside or behind someone. If you're really desperate, you could get off the next floor and wait it out or take the stairs.

A worst case scenario is you're in an elevator with the person you're avoiding and you and the person are the only two people inside. Things keep awkwardly quiet. You start to perspire in anxiety and suddenly, the worst thing you were hoping wouldn't happen, happens. The person makes an initiative to talk to you. Do you want to acknowledge ? Hell no ! You've been avoiding this person. Ignoring the acknowledgement would only make the person think you didn't hear it well. But in an close-to-empty elevator with only the two of you in complete silence (unless there's elevator music but that's a at minimal volume), it's very hard to convince the person you didn't hear them (unless your tone-deaf).

So what do you do ?

You could place earphones on your ears. Whether you're actually listening to music or not isn't important. In this case, it tells the other person you may not have heard them. But that may also just make the situation worse, especially if instead of talking to you, the person taps you to signal they're talking to you.

So what do you do then ?

You could pretend you're on the phone with someone but would have to constantly talk so the person wouldn't have any chance at all to butt-in and have social time with you. In this case, you're not granting the person any chat time by pretending to be talking with someone else. And if you're going up several floors, you'll need to know how to talk constantly without pause.

So what's the best thing to do ?

Don't take these social traps if you have a hunch you'll be caught in an unforeseen and awkward situation. But then again, how do you know when these things happen ? They just do. So just be prepared how to handle them. And if I were you, I'd take the stairs.

But that's just me.

a bunch of colorful balloons

My blogger friends who have DSLRs would share photography tips and techniques , show their new digicam accessories or get excited about upcoming cameras in the market.

Even though I have my own set of cameras (I'm still a Fuji & Olympus fan), I've seen that a lot of my friends own either a Nikon or Canon camera. I can't really relate that much when they talk about their cameras but I enjoy the passion and thrill they exhilarate.

So for my Nikon enthusiasts, photographer, proconsumer fanatic friends, here's a site I discovered earlier: http://nikonrumors.com and for Canon buffs, there's http://www.canonrumors.com

And for the general public who may happen to own other camera brands, there's http://photorumors.com

Learn the latest unofficial news about your favorite camera brands. May you get hyped up by rumors and sneak-peeks at future releases and start saving to buy before they come out.

stack of cups ready for hot tea

One of the channels I enjoy watching is National Geographic. You won't find any of their shows aired anywhere. That's because they take pride in providing new and original shows. It's also a very educational channel and as much as you learn from every show, you don't feel like your confined in a classroom setting. It makes learning entertaining.

Last week, National Geographic International has announced the premiere of "Asia's Titanic," a one hour exclusive about the MV Dona Paz ocean distaster in 1987. MV Dona Paz collided with an oil tanker in the evening few days before Christmas. The accident is considered one of the most tragic in Asia as 4,000 passengers died and only a handful of people lived to tell of this tragedy.

This documentary is also a first for a Filipino filmmaker to direct and produce a documentary that equals the hallmark standards of National Geographic. Director Yam Laranas and his team had to adhere to several guidelines in producing top quality documentaries that National Geographic standards hold.

The project took a total of 3 years in the making. Aside from the filming, the project involved extensive research which included interviewing survivors and rescuers for first-hand accounts, actual transscripts from the Philippine congressional inquiry regarding the tragedy, archival actual footage and photos and the re-enactment of the collision.

"Asia's Titanic" will premiere on the National Geographic Channel (Sky Cable Channel 41) on August 25, 2009 at 9:00pm. with replays on the following dates and times:

August 25, 8:00pm (Tuesday)

August 26, 4:00am (Wednesday)

August 26, 9:00am (Wednesday)

August 26, 1:00pm (Wednesday)

August 26, 9:00pm (Wednesday)

August 30, 9:00pm (Sunday)

August 31, 1:00am (Monday)

August 31, 5:00am (Monday)

September 5, 6:00pm (Saturday)

September 28, 8:00pm (Monday)

September 29, 1:00pm (Tuesday)

Don't miss this Filipino documentary of a Filipino tragedy, only on National Geographic.

jumping with one hand behind her back

centerpiece and a chandelier. So how many candles are there ?

a ballpen spring

A regular lamp photo twirled with the help of Irfanview.

(lamp art inspired by the Lamp Art Blog)

It's not the same as a ship and a pier, or a bus and a bus terminal. Planes and Airports are huge.

Sometimes I think that if I'm stressed out, I could relieve my stress in an airport and just spend some time relaxing over a cup of coffee in the airport cafe.

We did look for it everywhere possible in their room but we just couldn't find it. We were hoping that it wasn't accidentally thrown in the garbage.

While we were all losing hope, I decided to try some other keys in hopes that one of them may open her cabinet even if it's not the actual key. I tried around 20 keys and none of them even budged.

With all options exhausted, I suddenly thought of the unthinkable... to pick the lock.

I've never picked a lock and I've only seen it done in movies and on TV. So I took a regular paperclip and deformed it to make it long enough to insert inside the keyhole. Then I took my precision screwdrive set and got the smallest screwdriver to help me maneuver around the lock.

After a couple of tries, I decided that I was thinking the impossible and it would never work. I then took a last look at one of the keys that looked similar to the lost keys and tried to manuever the keyhole again with the paperclip and screwdriver.

And after 20 minutes of trial and error, I shocked myself when I was able to open the cabinet ! I was ecstatic and astounded at the same time. And my next reaction was: "Hey ! I got a new skill !" There was still the other half of the cabinet locked and so to test my newly acquired skill and to prove to myself that it wasn't just luck, I tried picking the other lock.

Since I had some practice from the first lock, I was able to open this lock in 10 minutes. "So it's not luck !" I exclaimed. I was beginning to think if I could do this for other locks too, but didn't bother to try out any other lock cause I already spent around a half an hour trying to open the cabinet.

Funny thing about this all is that not more than 20 minutes after I was able to successfully pick and open two locked cabinet doors, my mom finally found her set of keys. I could've just waited a few more minutes and I wouldn't have to try opening the cabinet... but I didn't mind cause I acquired a new skill: "lock-picking".

a set of precision screwdrivers

All we were told was to proceed to the 2nd floor of the main building near the entrance cause we would have the best view of the event. When we all got there, we were as clueless as all the other mall-goers strolling around the mall and shopping.

And then we heard loud dance music. We looked down and saw a guy breakdancing. A few seconds after, the people nearby who looked like innocent mall-goers suddenly joined in the dancing. By this time, the dancers caught the people's attention who gathered around to watch what was going on. People watching at the ground level were constantly surprised cause a guy or girl beside them would immediately join in on the dancing. Little by little, people of all ages and different walks of life were dancing in sync to such wonderful choreography.

Soon were we to discover that the total people dancing reached a whopping 300 ! Kids, teens, adults, parents and even some grandparents were part of the exciting dance. Then, all of them took off their shirts, revealing a Jollibee t-shirt underneath. The newest Jollibee jingle "Iisang Sarap" by Parokya ni Edgar was played and they all danced to the catchy song commemorating the Jollibee Yumburger. 3 huge tarpaulins on the 2nd floor were also unveiled simultaneously revealing the cause of the event.

The dance lasted for four solid minutes of fun, excitement and surprise. It was so exciting to witness one of the country's biggest viral campaigns.

I figured that there must have been a huge amount of planning and secrecy to make this event possible. And I was right. The dance was choreographed by much-renowned dance gurus, Whiplash and directed by popular TV and music video director, Mark Reyes. Aside from that, you have 300 people who were in on the big secret that rehearsed for this big event. And the SM Mall of Asia had to be in on the secret too, but despite the easy urge to promote the event, they stuck to its essence to catch everybody offguard and witness the biggest flash mob dance in the Philippines.

It's so exciting that I hope I could be a part of something like this in the future... and be one of those dancing and surprising people.

Check out their official website at http://bestyoucanbee.com

custom posed Lord Starscream action figure

the beautifully landscaped rotonda beside Market Market