Monday, December 27, 2004

Being the top 1 richest player on BlogShares Fantasy Stock Market this week (Sorry, Mars, you're on vacation and I borrowed your place!), I'd thought of auctioning once again three sets of Five Trillion BlogShares Dollars (B$5T) following our successful eBay auction last month.

These are the eBay auctioned items, a total of Fifteen Trillion BlogShares Dollars (B$ 15T):

• Item number: 5945932170
• Item number: 5945932242
• Item number: 5945932281

I'm urging previous bidders to participate because nonwinning bids will receive surprise B$ 'n' chip$. So? Please submit your bids now!!!

Friday, December 24, 2004

May PEACE and LOVE fill our hearts
BLESSINGS and PROSPERITY fill our world
And CONTENTMENT fill our lives this Christmas Season and beyond!

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

My silence is caused by a holiday anxiety... hopefully, I'll get over it soon.

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

The King of Philippine Movies, Fernando Poe, Jr. a.k.a. FPJ (Ronald Allan Kelley Poe in real life), 65, died in coma yesterday.

We're mourning both his death and the loss of our chance to replace the sitting president, PGMA, should FPJ's electoral protest be proven that he's the rightful winner in the recently held May 2004 RP Presidential Election. Thousands of people from all walks of life gathered at his wake to see him for the last time, recite prayers and symphatized with his devoted wife, Susan Roces.

Goodbye, FPJ, may your soul rests in peace.

Monday, December 13, 2004

While everybody was busy doing their Christmas shopping, I had fallen in love and been crying for three consecutive days.

I watched Romance in Paris (Lovers in Paris, a telenovela series in ABS-CBN Channel 2). It's a 20 episode Korean soap opera starring Park Sin Yang (President Han Ki-joo, rich businessman living in Paris), Kim Jeong Eun (Kang Tae-young, poor girl living in Paris), and Lee Dong Geon (drummer boy Yoon Soo-hyuk, nephew of Ki-joo), in Korean version but written in english. It was not my intention to watch last Friday since I was busy trading on BlogShares but Romance in Paris reminded me of how my parents loved each other in spite of total rejection by the Chinese Family of my father.

My interest to follow the story made me shed lots of tears which gave me severe headache and eyebags later when I finished the last episode. I was dismayed the whole story was written only from the imagination of a part-time maid (Kim Jeong Eun) using the laptop of her employer (Park Sin Yang), whom she later met personally in a street accident (which incident was a bit similar in the beginning of her story). President Han Ki-joo was a wealthy businessman who didn't know how to express his feelings OR, maybe all rich men are like that?

Korean soap operas indeed captured the hearts of millions of Filipinos but I have noticed that they were not good at ending their stories. Should they end the said story in a more meaningful way, maybe I'll keep thinking about it for a long time.

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Simbang Gabi is fast approaching and yet, I have not decorated the house in preparation for the Christmas Holidays. If some teen-agers from a nearby Parish Church did not visited us this evening and sang some Christmas carols, I wouldn't noticed at all that Christmas Day is two weeks away!

I'm still undecided whether we should rush ourselves to the mall and buy what those rich mall owners want us to get from their store to display in our house. My children even asked me if we shall decorate the house or not but, I told them is there a valid reason why we should celebrate it? In my opinion, I would rather buy some gift certificates and give them away than spending lots of money for Christmas decors. It's no longer practical to show off some extravagance, let's admit it, very few people nowadays remember the real spirit of Christmas and why we are celebrating it.

If my eldest son is only with us, we might celebrate Christmas. It would be a pleasure to see all my children get-together...

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

I'm fond of thoughtful and generous people. It's nice to receive gifts even when there is no special occasion but, did you know that receiving gifts online is very risky? It surprises me when someone from PinasGift.com told me that anonymous GIFT SENDER sometimes use stolen credit card numbers to send gifts. And, later on, the recipient will be charged for the gift because they received the item, based on laws allegedly implemented by VISA and Master Cards.

I was told that there are lot of cases pending at National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and lot of recipients even now in jail because they couldn't tell who the (online) senders were and how they got the gifts!

Well? It's Christmas time once again but be careful on accepting gifts online from people you do not really know. What's bothering me now is, how about those people who bid at eBay's auctions?

Good news! I am now a birthdayalarm.com premium member effective today, upon Randy's PayPal payment on december 4th. Confirmation below:

Many thanks for sending in your check of $13.95 for a 1 year eCard Subscription. Your eCard subscription will start today and end December 15, 2005.

We hope you enjoy sending unlimited eCards from BirthdayAlarm. All eCards are created by independent artists. We are adding more eCards to the site than ever before, all premium members can send the newest and greatest cards on the site!

Kindest Regards
Xochi, Michael and Paul

If you wish to receive e-Card from me, please enter your name, birthdate and e-mail address here.

Monday, December 06, 2004

Every morning as I checked my inbox, the first thing I often do was to block and delete my blog's spammers messages. Since I'm an MT user running version 2.661 (no time to upgrade to the latest version), I can click the link directly from my mails and let MT-Blacklist by Jay Allen removed unwanted entries. But, somehow, those spammers found a way to replace what I have deleted by more spam messages!

Lately, I manually added words (e.g. viagra, nude teens, casino, gambling, etc.) and sender's mail domain name to the MT-Blacklist and so far, I have noticed that fewer and fewer mails greeted me in the morning... try it, it might work with you, too!

Meanwhile, Erwin Lemuel Oliva of INQ7.net reported about Anti-spam provisions added to RP cybercrime bill:

"The anti-spam provision is the latest addition to the pending cybercrime measure that hopes to impose stiffer penalties against Internet-related crimes, according to Virgilio Peña, chief of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT).

Representative Simeon Kintanar of the House of Representatives and Senator Ramon Magsaysay Jr. were among the lawmakers being sought as sponsors for the cybercrime bill"

Also, I have noticed that almost everyday, I kept receiving Winner Notification and Nigeria-related scam mails about huge deposits by deceased depositors. Please do not entertain these kind of money winning notifications.

Sunday, December 05, 2004

Today is Pearl Leal's 21st birthday. She started celebrating her birthday since yesterday and we're so busy and tired here at home...

Sweety, Happy Birthday! May all your wishes, dreams, and expectations will all come true.

Thursday, December 02, 2004

Typhoom Yoyong (international code name: Nanmadol) with strong winds of up to 185 kph near the center and gustiness of 220 kph, is currently hitting the country.

Issued at 4:30 p.m., 02 December 2004 by PAGASA:
At 2 p.m. today, Typhoon "Yoyong" was located based on radar, satellite and surface data at 230 kms southeast of Baler, Aurora or 110 kms north northeast of Daet, Camarines Norte (15.0°N 123.5°E) with maximum sustained winds of 185 kph near the center and gustiness up to 220 kph. It is forecast to move west northwest at 33 kph.

Metro Manila: Stormy, Manila Bay rough, temperature range 23 to 27°C (73 to 81°F).

Signal no. 2 has been raised over Metro Manila early this evening and we had power outage awhile ago for about 30 minutes and there might be a longer brownout by midnight. I wouldn't play my usual trading at BlogShares tonight...

GMA7 Network's Kapuso Foundation is accepting donations for victims of floods and landslides brought on by recent tropical depression. The Foundation can be reached at the following e-mail addresses:

Please contact gmaf@gmanetwork.com or bisigbayan@gmanetwork.com.

And at the following telephone numbers:
+63 2 9284299 +63 2 9287021 locals 310, 438

Or deposit your donations through all Metrobank branches to the foundation's peso or dollar accounts:
3-098-51034-7 for peso donations
2-098-00244-2 for dollar donations

In spite of bad weather, I went to the bank and completed transactions to avoid doc stamp fee. Glad Sweety Pearl accompanied me since their class was suspended.

From the bank, we did some grocery shopping at SM North Edsa and I was surprised that even in the middle of bad weather, there were lots of people doing their shopping spree.

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

The month of November was a very remarkable experience since I started playing BlogShares Fantasy Stock Market on 31 Dec 2003. Most of us were actually surprised with the generosity of Alvino for bidding a total of US$802.56 and winning B$ 15 Trillion in the recently held eBay auction on November 22nd.

Meanwhile, many thanks to my BS Forum critics. I considered their criticism a challenge to play more aggressively. So, here is my November Portfolio:

If you do not know what BlogShares is, please CLICK HERE.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s son, Rep. Juan Miguel "Mikey" Macapagal-Arroyo (Lakas, Pampanga), is supporting a proposal to legalize marijuana allegedly for medical purposes. The question is, how many will benefit from this 'wonder' grass and where are we heading? I hope this proposal will not push through, otherwise, the Philippines will be the drug capital of the world.

There are more serious problems that need attention. Broken families and abandoned children abound. Why don't legalize divorce instead so that men will not get away from their responsibilities? Divorce Bill Law should be given more importance since it became a common practice that men abandoned their families and children without support and then, start a new family somewhere else.

The strength of the nation is in the family and legalizing divorce instead of marijuana will help our children get child support from runaway fathers to protect innocent children.