Merry Christmas

It will be hot tomorrow here and here’s my warmest greetings for this season whether it’s cold or hot in your place. 🙂

Merry Christmas!

Multiply and ABS-CBN inks partnership

Early last month, social networking site Multiply inked a partnership with ABS-CBNi, the interactive division of Philippine media giant ABS-CBN. The agreement covers a multi-year, strategic advertising agreement. Multiply explained that “under terms of the agreement, ABS-CBNi will sell advertising and mobile services for Multiply’s Filipino users, with the two companies sharing revenues in the rapidly developing regional market.” “The partnership allows Multiply to monetize a significant portion of its traffic while still retaining a primary focus on product development and global customer acquisition.,” Multiply explained.

Some multiply users welcomed the development while some were skeptics. Some invoking loyalty to the network while some questioning the relevance of the deal to users. The bottom line of this story, well, Filipino users will now be able to receive localized advertisements just as users in Australia do. 🙂

Australia’s population now over 20M

Australia recently announced that its population has breached the 20 million mark reaching about 21 million in a recent official census. Western Australia was the fastest growing state in terms (both in population and economy).

News.com reported that “immigration accounted for 56 per cent of Australia’s growth, while 272,900 births minus 134,800 deaths made up 44 per cent of the increase.” This is a welcome news here in Australia as there were fears before that the country might suffer Japan’s predicament of having an aging population. The Australian government has placed incentives for couples who decide to have a child giving  a “baby bonus” of about Aus$4000 for a baby (dead or alive) and an additional weekly support (if alive).

On a personal note, I can personally say that the booming economy here in Western Australia is definitely felt at the household level. Almost everybody (even as young as 12) has a chance to land a job whether part-time, casual or full-time. Now, this is an economy working.

Back home, the Philippines has breached the 90 million mark. A July 2007 estimate was placed at  91,077,287. I can personally say also that my family back home are not feeling the fruits of the economic growth that the country is apparently achieving.

Busy, Busy, Busy… :)

Well, I might be stating the obvious but yes it’s been a very busy past few days/weeks but the good news is that my blogging hiatus came rewarded. 🙂 A poster presentation that I gave at Uni was awarded the first recipient of the Geoff Griffiths Prize and my recent introductory seminar went well (thanks to my colleagues at the trailer trash who came to listen. :)). So, many things happened in the past few weeks, Australia has a new prime minister (now I’m hearing some mates claiming to be proud to be Australians again!), Beckham-mania hit Australia while Trillanes “snapped” and holed himself with his mates in a Philippine five-star hotel, the Spice Girls were re-united and the US becomes the only developed country not to ratify Kyoto.

Thanks to Sasha, by the way, for the invitation to the Blogger Meet and Greet in Manila last 30 November. Well, for another obvious reason, I couldn’t honor the invitation but I would have loved to attend (maybe next year, given the chance). 🙂

Name Meme. :)

Here’s another fun tag game courtesy of Chuck (apologies for this loooong delayed response). 🙂

This should be an easy one (though it took me some time to answer this!). 🙂

• Your Rock Star Name: (first pet and current car)

  JINGKY NUBIRA

• YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)

  Choco oreo
  

• YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name)

  D Car
  

• Your detective name: (favorite color, favorite animal)

  Blue bird
  

• YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)

  Dela Cruz Manila
  

• YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first)

  Car Do
  

• SUPERHERO NAME (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink)

  The Green Coke
  

• NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)

  Domingo Bernardo
  

• STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy)
  

  Calvin Mentos
  

• WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names)
  

  Pimentel Nuevo

• TV Weather Anchor Name: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with same letter)

  Dionglay Davao
  

• Spy name/bond girl: (your favorite season/holiday, flowers)

  Winter Lotus
  

• Cartoon name: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now ! “ie” or “y”)

  Mango Island Spicy

• Hippy name: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree)

  Rice Hotdog Ipil
  

• Your rockstar entourage name: (“The” + your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”

  The TV Watching Sun Tour
  

• Your porn name: (First pet +name of street you grew up on)

  Jingky Ambray

   

This was definitely fun. 🙂 (nadala yata si Chuck sa tagal ko sumagot. 🙂 )

Now off to giving back the fun. 🙂 Shari, Ivy, Elaine, Karlo, Czille and Ayie!

Going blind… (on one eye)

Well, God willing, it will be only temporary albeit for a few months.

I recently consulted a General Physician due to some black spots that I’ve been seeing for about a week now. Apparently, I got it while driving without my sunnies on. The after image was gone about after five minutes right after I unintentionally looked at the sun’s reflection in another car. The following day, the after image appeared again and I was having a hard time reading or writing as my vision is impaired. So, I consulted the GP, who referred me to an ophthalmologist after finding no apparent abnormality.

The ophthalmologist’s examined my right eye and said that I have a Central serous retinopathy (CSR), also known as central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC). Everybody has it for no reason at all, the doctor said. But as I’ve read, it only happens with male aged between 20 to 50 and likely with “type A personality.” The usual attributed causes of CSR is stress.

Indeed, I’m in a bit of stress these past few days trying to catch up with various writing deadlines that I’ve almost slipped out of my regular “stress-relieving activity”–blogging. Anyway, I still hope that this will only be temporary but one thing is certain now, driving at night will be harder than usual. Although, one way I manage my CSR is by winking more often so to freshen up my right eye–though I don’t do it while walking lest I get a slap from women or men that I come across. 🙂

By the way, fruityoaty‘s back and she’s made it in the semi-finals round of this year’s Philippine Web Awards, blog category along with other heavy weights-Yuga, etc. :). So, register and nominate her or Yuga if you will 🙂

Quick to the terror, slow to the accident

Philippine National Police Chief Avelino Razon recently confirmed that their American and Australian counterparts ruled out bomb blast in the Glorietta 2 blast this October.

I didn’t blog about the event but I do feel for all those who were directly and indirectly affected by this accident. However, the careless comments from various Philippine authorities led to a number of confusion, which led the media to a roller coaster ride–one time the headline said that it was confirmed that it was a terrorist attack, another time it was possibly an accident and so on. This happened after the bribery of several local government executives and before the eventual pardon and release of Erap. So, was this incident intentional and that there was a big deal of motive for the government to sponsor it?

Only in the Philippines

Barely two months since Joseph Estrada was convicted of plunder, elements of the government moved swiftly to work out an easy way out for the disgraced leader. There were still some pride from Erap and his lawyers but apparently the overwhelming evidence or their belief that Philippine justice is just inefficient–changed their mind and they opted to forward a plea for pardon.

My Workplace (Another Tag Game)

Got tagged by Chuckie a few weeks ago (pasensya na Chuckie). Took me a while to answer back as I keep forgetting my my camera. Well, as most of you have read in Chuck’s entry, this tag game is quite simple, just post a photo of your work place and that’s it. However, for me it took me a while, as aside from the forgetfulness alibi, I still don’t have a permanent work place at the Uni.

So, in short, not only did I need to address our being NPAs but I also have to settle my permanent work place. Anyway, here are photos of my work place, the trailer trash!

When media “dictates” the story

The Philippine Daily Inquirer recently made a major blooper bannering a headline that President Arroyo was present during an alleged bribery of several politicians. The news was also carried on Inquirer.net. Apparently the error was discovered only before the daily deadline for the day’s stories, which is at 3pm.