Thailand blocks Youtube (UPDATED)

(JIM’s Notes: Italicized are additional edits for this post timestamp: 9.00pm, Bangkok time.)

If you happen to be in Thailand and try to access your Youtube account, you’ll be welcomed by this page.

The Bangkok Post reports that the Thai government blocked access to the popular website after Youtube turned down request to remove a clip about King Bhumibol that it deemed offensive.

Here’s an excerpt of the article:

Internet users reported on Wednesday that Thai authorities had blocked the popular website YouTube, over an insulting video of His Majesty the King.

Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, the minister of information and communication technology, told the Reuters news agency he personally ordered a block of the entire site from Thailand after the ministry’s attempts to block the offending page last week failed.

“Since Google (which owns YouTube) has rejected our repeated requests to withdraw the clip, we can’t help blocking the entire site in Thailand,” said Mr Sitthichai. “When they decide to withdraw the clip, we will withdraw the ban,” he said.

So, it’s a wait and see situation for us here. My kids have to settle for their regular Thai soap operas for now instead of their usual Philippine movies and Eat Bulaga excerpts.

CNN posted a report at around 0827 GMT (1527 Bangkok Time) today that the Offensive YouTube clip ‘removed by user’. While there are news that the ban might be lifted, Thai media, ironically, reported a way around the ban. They reported early this evening that users can still view Youtube via http://www.proxxxy.org.

I think Google has been very insensitive on this issue and to compare Thailand’s King to George Bush is simply illogical (I won’t elaborate on this). I think Google might have reacted differently had it been a different group. Enough said.

The 2007 Philippine Blog Awards winners

It was impossible for me to attend the awards night but followed the event online (well, waited fro the result this morning 🙂 And the winners are…

Best Personal Blog: Misteryosa
Best Home & Living Blog: Wifely Steps
Best Socio-Political Blog: Philippine Commentary
Best News & Media Blog: Inside PCIJ
Best Fashion & Lifestyle Blog: Bryanboy: Le Superstar Fabuleux
Podcast of the Year: HappySlip
Best Technology Blog: Leon Kilat: The Cybercafe Experiments
Best Business/Entrepreneur Blog: Reflections of a BizDrivenLife
Best Entertainment Blog: Retzwerx
Best Sports & Recreation Blog: Who rides a Vespa?
Best Travel Blog: Ivan About Town
PhotoBlog of the Year: Señor Enrique: Wish You Were Here

For the Special Awards winners, we have…

Best Blog Design: Far from Neutral Notions
Best Free Custom Theme: Blu3zin3
Best Plugin/Extension: iPap
Best OFW Blog: Kwentong Tambay
Bloggers’ Choice Awards: MarketManila

And last but not the least, the Globe Broadband Awards winners…

Blog Achievement Award: The Mommy Journals
Pinoy Ako Blog Award: ederic@cyberspace
Family Blog Award: About My Recovery
Blogirl Award: Well Whatever
Deliblog Award: Dessert Comes First

To the winners (also to the nominees and finalists) and organizers (great job!), congratulations!

Mabuhay kayong lahat!

The 2007 Philippine Blog Awards FINALISTS

The list of finalists of the 2007 Philippine Blog Awards has been released. I was a bit disappointed that only two of three nominations I submitted made it to the finals–but ei! still good. Anyway, voting for the blogger’s choice awards is on this week. I think one has to choose from the finalist list??? Anyway, here’s the list of the finalist for the main awards:

Personal:

• Bikoy.net
• Fight Pompe
• Jessica Rules The Universe
• Last Leaf Designs and Chronicles
• Misteryosa

Technology:

• Digital Life by Chin Wong
• PinoyMacLovers
• JaypeeOnline
• Stellify
• Leon Kilat: The Cybercafe Experiments

Travel:

• Byahilo: Your Journey Begins Here
• Coconuter
• Ironwulf.net: En Route
• Ivan About Town
• Walk This Way

Entertainment:

• Kiven
• The Man Blog
• Pinoy Rickey
• Retzwerx
• The Rocketboy Chronicles

Home & Living:

• dessert comes first
• Finestkind Clinic and fish market
• MarketManila.com
• Our Awesome Planet
• Wifely Steps

Socio-Political:

• Far From Neutral Notions
• Philippine Commentary
• Philippines Without Borders
• Salita Blog
• Tingog.com – Voice of The Filipino

News & Media:

• blog @ AWBHoldings
• By Jove!
• Cyberbaguioboy
• Inside PCIJ
• RG CRUZ, Observer

Business & Entrepreneur:

• Jozzua
• ManuelViloria.com
• Reflections of a BizDrivenLife
• Sonnie’s Porch
• The Unlawyer

Sports & Recreation:

• Be@rbrick Love
• ChiyoDad Learns Go
• Sporting Break
• Vespinoy
• Who rides a Vespa?

Fashion & Lifestyle:

• Beautynomics.Com
• Bryanboy: Le Superstar Fabuleux
• GIBBS CADIZ
• Manila Fashion Observer
• Nostalgia Manila

Photo Blog:

• The Dubai Chronicles
• Glance Over
• Project Manila
• Senor Enrique
• The Sleepy Traveler

Podcast:

• Cuying Podcast
• Happy Slip
• The Liberal Times Manila Podcast
• Noypi.com
• OhMyGulay

Special Awards finalists are as follows:

Best Blog Design:

• Far From Neutral Notions
• Ironwulf.net: En Route
• Midori-X
• Noel Perlas – Perlas Design Studio
• Seasonal Plume

Best OFW Blog:

• Balikbayan Box
• coffee with amee
• francescanfrance
• Kwentong Tambay
• Palabok

Best Free Custom Theme:

• Blu3zin3 by Tew Reonal
• Papillon by Beng Hafner
• Psalm 8 by Joni Ang
• SimplaZEN by Jorge Cosgayon
• WoWza by Kevin Codamon

Best Plugin / Extension:

• Guestbook Generator by Andrew dela Serna
• iPap by Markku Seguerra
• Name Dropper by Andrew dela Serna
• Post Avatar by Vicky Arulsingam and Dominik Menke
• Top Posts by Category plugin by Marc Macalua

To all the finalists, congratulations! Awards night is on 31 March 2007, 5pm at Podium 4, RCBC Plaza Auditorium in Makati City.

Mornings in Bangkok

If I’m lucky (or not too tired) I wake up early in the morning, go to the office and catch monks collecting offerings from Buddhist around Bangkok.

I got lucky this morning and caught one monk around our neighborhood carrying a pot for offerings. A lady rushed out of her house to greet the monk with her offering. She removes her slippers before approaching the monk. With heads bowed down, her hands joined together in prayer in front of her face, the lady prayed to the Monk.

She then offered her the offering walked backwards to retrieve her slippers and waited for the monk to go his way. It was an awesome sight.

On the way to the office, I got luckier and yes good thing I have my camera with me. I caught five to seven novice monks following an elder monk, they, too, have just completed collecting offerings around the district.

As you can see they don’t have any slippers on whenever they are doing this duty. They started early.

On an ordinary day, though, these monks have slippers on, rides the bus for free (with a dedicated seat reserved for them–so when you’re sitting on it, you are required to vacate it and give it to them regardless of your age or gender), rides the taxi (I think they pay when they ride luxurious mode of transport) and yes, they rest.

PHILIPPINES FRAUD-CASE COUPLE FIND B.C. HAVEN (The Province, 05 Mar 2007, Page A1)

This is big news in Canada, but obviously not big news in the Philippines and to think that they defrauded the Philippine Government that much money??? Is the Philippine government that stupid or there were just too many (or few powerful ones) who benefitted from this racket.

PHILIPPINES FRAUD-CASE COUPLE FIND B.C. HAVEN

The Province
05 Mar 2007

read more…Tech Tags: The Province newspaper Front Page

Read the full story here.

I’m on Blog Addicts!

My first blog confirmed a new-found passion (well, addiction with a purpose, i.e.–keep me sane in my mind-cracking activities). After a few months of blogging, with the last four months almost regularly, I’m starting to get the feel of it and starting to get friends online–and yes started to get some exposure–vane :)! I’ll get on the purpose of this post as you read on, by the way, title was inspired by Cyberbaguioboy’s entry.

To business, as of this writing, my hottest post (most read post) is my post on Inquirer.net’s Radio Online. Most people got to find my blog when they searched Filipino radio, Inquirer.net Radio, Radio online among others. It got me thinking, hmm, Inquirer.net has got a few good hits from this site. Well, I think that was compensated recently. Well, my plug of recent developments in the Philippine Media especially Inquirer.net got reciprocated–I’m on Blog Addicts! The post also got some attention from cybersoc.com as having some good links in here worth exploring.

Yes, this is the second blogsite of Inquirerbloggers.net–after Joey Alarilla’s @play (I think they’ll be building this site just like Inq7.net, i.e., take-off sites for blogsites of Inquirer.net).

Inquirer.net reporter Erwin Oliva explains that Blog Addicts is a team blog on Inquirer.net. He further explained that…

Blog Addicts is a section under YOU (a youth portal on INQUIRER.net) that features bloggers.

The Inquirer.net‘s blog addicts are Joey Alarilla, Jayvee Fernandez and Erwin.

Thanks to Joey for adding me in his blogroll at @play–indeed an honor!

More power to Inquirer.net and to the millions of Netizens, enjoy reading (didn’t I tell you that readers will benefit in the end from this new media development)!

Cheers! 

Abbey Road in Singapore?

The concept was Abbey road but the kids can’t hold their pose so they made a monkey of their pose.

As you can see my youngest (right) is wondering what’s happening–she always do that whenever the camera’s on, well outdoor, i.e. This was taken during our recent Singapore holiday. Taken near Esplanade Park near the famous Singapore landmark–the Merlion.

The Babel Machine, Cyberbaguioboy and others writes on Eheads

When I was in Manila, I tried to salvage my collection of Eraserheads albums. Well, I know I will not get my old tapes so I just aimed to buy the Eraserheads anthology for me and my wife–which I did. As you all (well, Filipino fans of the Eheads) know, the band’s lead singer, Ely Buendia, recently suffered a heart attack. The news brought me to memory lane and made me promise to collect the complete album, but I think I won’t be able to find Ely’s Bedspacer album.

Anyway, a day after I left Manila, I learned from Joey that some people were organizing a fund raising concert for Ely–fine, I definitely missed that. As I’ve learned, Ely was not informed re the fund raising concert but Ely was grateful nevertheless. So, while I missed the concert–I was in Libis (where the concert was held), Tuesday of that week!–glad to hear things are fine with him now and that the concert was a success. 

I later learned also from Joey and cyberbaguioboy an Eheads Anthology book was on the way (and they are one of the contributors)! Oh swell, mukha mami-miss ko din to ah! Hopefully, I can still catch a copy of the book when I return this April, better yet, Joey or cyberbaguioboy could reserve one for me. 😀 (pushing my luck!)

Maquiling

Mt. Maquiling view from the side of Batangas Province. Originally uploaded by jimboombastic.

“Hinahanap kita, o diwatang Maquiling, Maquiling” (I’ve been looking for you fairy Maquiling, Maquiling) so goes the first line of the song by Kalantog. The song kept playing on my mind as I become nostalgic past the majestic mountain. I have so many fond memories about Mt. Maquiling. It is the big (forestry) laboratory of my Uni and where part of the Uni is located, it is also where my dormitory is located, it is where I experienced numerous roller coaster ride (spiritually!). It was the venue of the annual concerts of the dorm’s band (where I tried to play as lead singer and bassist–used to dream to be the Ely Buendia of our dorm open house!). It is also where I met the woman I married. 🙂

Some trivia, by the way, I tried to join Kalantog as bassist but ended up joining their theater group–if you can’t join ’em, join their affiliate group! hahah! 🙂

Anyway, I was home on official visit last week, so nothing much happened as I was holed up at the training venue almost for three days. I trained a few veterinarians–they were equipping themselves on preparing for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (bird flu, avian flu–well the bird disease that kills people). I was able to meet up with my Pastor, Carlo Panlilio, and some brethren at DMI–and I think that equipped (read: inspired) me to endure the two-day training

I was able to visit my relatives, albeit short, courtesy of my friends back at the office. I was with my my parents and relatives in San Pablo City for about two hours, one hour with my father-in-law and about another hour with a friend in Lipa City. The schedule was definitely tight but I said that I (with my family) will definitely be back in April to catch up, with quality, with more relatives and friends. And yes, I was able to do my shopping at SM Lipa City but I forgot to buy TJ Hotdogs!

Happy New Year… Part 2

Today, my family and I just went to a friend’s house to celebrate the coming new year. The place was almost an hour away from our place. After spending almost the whole day in their place we headed back home at almost 5.30pm. I suggested that we take the bus to Victory Monument then take a taxi from there to our home in Dusit.

Well, the thought of the convenience of going home on a taxi (straight from our current location) prevailed, we arrived home at about past 6pm (I believe). We offered coffee to my wife’s brother-in-law and his friend. Then they left to go home and possibly go to Central World to join the countdown. My family and I are resting to prepare to go to a church in Sukhumvit 63 later that night to welcome the new year when a colleague called me to break the news, which I later read over Bangkok Post Breaking News. She said there were reports that seven bombs exploded almost simultaneously in several locations in Bangkok. We cancelled going out tonight.

 Aftermath of bombing at a bus stop at Victory Monument.

I then received an SMS from our personnel officer informing us about the bombings and warning against attending any gathering tonight, the UN security also sent a similar advice a few minutes later. My wife and I called relatives in the Philippines before they get wind of the news here to assure them that we are fine. As we followed the news, it got clearer how God moved to protect my family.

A bomb went off at about 5.30 to 6pm in Victory Monument, where we planned to get off. A grenade was allegedly thrown in Saphan Kwai, where the bus was supposed to pass by. We planned to go to a church in Sukhumvit 63, a bomb went off near Sukhumvit 62.

As the news develop, conflicting reports on the Thai government’s reaction to the bombings including details surrounding it came out. The first news was that the countdown celebrations will continue, however, this was later corrected to calls of cancellation–the countdown in Chiang Mai was also cancelled as a precaution. Thailand once again has to cancel one of its most awaited celebrations of the year, however due to a man-made incident (The first one was right after the Tsunami of December 2004, no new year celebration happened in Thailand as a sign of mourning).

 Emergency medical service staff at Rajchavithee Hospital tend to a wounded person following a bomb attack at nearby Victory Monument.

Further details about the bombing become clear, two people died, scores were hurt in 6 simultaneous bombing in Bangkok. No one has yet to claim responsibility for the bombing. Now, remember that I just blogged about having a more restrained new year in Bangkok?! I guess I spoke too soon.

We celebrated new year at the comfort of our home. However, some Thai people would never budge on the recent bombings (maybe a statement on their side that they will never be shaken) and went on welcoming the new year with their own festive fireworks (real fireworks, I mean). We also watched the fireworks from our apartment veranda.

For the collateral damage of this senseless violence, may God be with them.

(Just as I posted this entry, I received another SMS from the UN Security, “After the new year started, three more bombs exploded at Central World, Pratunam and Khao San Road. Situation still unclear. Previous SMS instruction remain in effect.”)