Touch the SUN!

I happen to acquire three units of Alcatel One Touch Blaze Glory 918N as a freebie for my existing SUN group plan.  The only android phone available as reward for renewing my subscription.  I was able to grab three of them yesterday and though it would be great gifts for my wife and brother for their upcoming birthday (September and October respectively).  Now what do I do with the third one, guess I would either use or sell, regardless I think I made a good decision to get these.

Here's a review of the said Android phone at NoypiGeeks
Alcatel One Touch Blaze Glory 918N Review - NoypiGeeks Philippines

ALCATEL onetouch | 918N
GLORY X

Couch Potato: Quality for less

A very long weekend yet a few movies viewed.  Proves that I do have a life besides bumming in front of the TV.  Great list and mix by the way.

T H E   B A T T E R Y

A story about baseball, a genius, a battery partner, expectations, trust and brotherly love.

S I N   O F   A   F A M I L Y

I can't imagine why that happened, out of love or pity?

S O F T B O Y S

Softball turned culinary, what do you know? You'll never know until you try.

H A P P Y   G H O S T

Major tearjerker, deym!  Slow start with a heavy ending. 

Understand as much as we can

Since I heard the news that the members of the band would leave Franco and Franco would either go solo or just  replace the other band members, I can't help but re-post my entry in multiply here.  It was such a good band collaboration that my album review earns a re-post this early.  I won't wait for multiply's migration tool.  Here you go, posted last  Apr 26, '10 9:40 PM -ahmsterdamned

Self-titled album

Brainwashed by NU107’s never-ending advertisement of the band called Franco, a so-called super group consisting of members from Parokya ni Edgar, Urbandub, Queso and Franco Reyes the man from Cebu.  Banking on a single song that is heard on the airwaves and the roaster of talents from the band, I instantly assumed it’s not a one hit wonder thing.  I guess that would be reason enough to buy myself their album.   It’s an eleven track self-titled album, I don’t know the story behind it but then again, like I always say, who cares as long as the music is great.  I tried listening to the album and here’s what I think.

The music was rough, lyrics are poetic and deep, most of which I don’t understand so I’d consider that as deep.  Music that you can lightly bang your head on and jump to at the same time.  A high pitched vocal reminds me of the Dawn’s front man Jett Pangan, which is a ‘wow’ for me.  I can identify a fair amount of Urbandub’s beat, can’t say much about Queso though (not much of a fan).  And yah man, Ska/Reggae rhythm is prominent on the background rasta man.   

Personal favorites are ‘Touch the Sky’, ‘Song For The Suspect’, ‘Memory Kill’ and the giveaway single that made my purchase possible ‘Cast Away’.    

‘Touch the sky’ feels really encouraging, uplifting and at the same time carefree.  It started off with a heavy guitar intro, followed by a Jamaican upbeat lyric and rhythm, some hwang-hwang guitar riffs, this song is excellent.  “Me no worry you no worry touch the sky.”

‘Cast Away’ is different, it is cool sounding and the type of song that you won’t care what the lyric is telling.  I describe it as ‘feel good’ if there is such a thing, no, ‘peace’ is a better word to describe it.

‘Memory Kill’ just caught my attention; it’s like having a failed hard drive, reminding us to forget. “We’re flailing to decide, desperate to deny.  How can this be?  Kill that memory.”

‘Song For The Suspect’, strong, dictating and fighting for something, yet I don’t get it.  Can’t get enough of it maybe it’s because of JAH.  ”Understand as much as we can, as much as we can understand one love.”

All songs are of the same level, as a disclaimer I’m not considering ‘Tetrahydrochloridedub’ as a song, not one is a what-you-call a filler song.  Each tells a different story making the album a powerhouse.  

The cd packaging is dark and somewhat a piece of canvas.  They have the pearl jam save the earth thing going-on, out with the hard plastic and let’s use paper that can be recycled.  One flaw of this kind of packaging is that the glue eventually sticks to the cd.  Regardless, kudos to the designer, it’s not like I understand the ‘JAH’ thing but ONE LOVE & JAH BLESS!

Let us support OPM, good music is worth the peso spent.

With  Franco Reyes outside the good old 70's bistro Oct 11, '11
Thanks AdventurousFeet for the photo <W

Aww... Multiply no more :(

Got this when I opened my multiply account.

"Hello. Stefan here, writing you from Multiply HQ in Jakarta, Indonesia. 

As most of you are probably aware, Multiply's mission has evolved over the past year and a half to become the biggest and most beloved ecommerce marketplace in two very exciting markets, Indonesia and the Philippines. As our focus has shifted, we have reviewed all of our operations, and made some decisions that will affect everyone here.

• From December 1st, we will unfortunately no longer be able to support Multiply in its current form - notably we will be removing the social networking and content sharing part of Multiply (photos, videos, blogs, social messaging, etc.). We have decided to discontinue providing and hosting these services, as we have concluded that other Internet sites who are committed to social networking services will do a better job serving you than we can.
• For our existing users of social networking features, we will be providing easy ways for you to either download your stuff (photos, blogs, content, etc), or migrate it to other online services. We'll announce the precise details shortly. It will be your choice whether to download, migrate or just let your content lapse (and get deleted).
• For our existing ecommerce users (both buyers and sellers) in Indonesia and the Philippines, there will be no action required.
• Regarding any existing Multiply Premium subscriptions we will refund any unused balance, and apologize for any inconvenience this will cause. Please contact customer service to request a refund. Note that this is for Multiply Premium, not the ecommerce related Multiply Trust product.

I am aware of how disruptive this news may be, and understand the disappointment that it may cause. Ultimately this was a business decision, critical to our to success moving forward. Instead, we are excited to pursue our own mission to give the 350 million consumers in Indonesia and the Philippines a great way to buy and sell items online. Our singular focus now is for Multiply to retain its status as a vibrant e-commerce destination in Southeast Asia in the years ahead. 

I suspect that many of you will not like this news, and am sorry to have to deliver it now. I hope that you will be able to understand the reasons for our decision and thank you for being a part of the Multiply community over the past eight years. 

Stef "

Couch Potato: Mashed

Gener week means cable TV day, mashed version compared to last week's lineup.  I was not happy with what Red offered. It was a two out of five for me.

L I K E  Y O U  K N O W  I T  A L L

- I don't know it all.  I didn't get the point. I'm no artist.

W A L K I N G  M Y  L I F E

- A heart breaking or warming story about a man and how he lived his life until his end. Not for the faint of heart, a major tearjerker movie.  I recommend you watch this film.  Nobody is perfect, some people might think your life is ideal but it's not.

P I C K  T H E  Y O U T H

- Don't let the poster fool you.  It's not that great of a movie yet I believe most families go through this kind of situation.  Parents do tend to take control of a youth's life even if you're forty years old.  I didn't get to see the finale, if you happen to see it kindly tell me how it ended.

H E ' S  O N  D U T Y

- This made me laugh but not that much.  The movie shows the life of illegal foreign workers at South Korea  with a comical twist.

L O V E  C O M E 

- A repeat for me because most of the other movies sucked.  I needed a sure win so I ended up watching this again.  A movie about first love and finding the right love.  This is the feel good movie  that saved the day.

B R A V E

I'm including Brave on the list; Matt, Lhen and I found time to go to the movies last Saturday.  The animation was of different level, best I've seen so far.  Story wise I didn't like it.  Matthew didn't like the bear angle of the story as well.  Besides that, Matthew had fun watching the movie as it is with the slapstick humor and all.  Often comparing it to Brother Bear during the screening it always prompted me to tell him to lower his voice.
The movie pretty much reminded me of Ghibli. The small light thingy reminded me of Princess Mononoke's Kodama tree spirits and the witch reminded me of Spirited Away's Yu-Baaba.

Bookas (pop version): The Jinri Experience

Since Sunday is gloomy as any other day this Gener week, laziness won over the Jinri experience book signing event at Robinson's Galleria. Alas there is still no skipping grocery duties. Lucky enough the local grocery store managed to offer me a copy of the Magazine that I sought after. National bookstore was a fail   and I never thought that Daily Supermarket of all places would have one; that was a surprise.

I'll be presenting a glimpse of some on the pictures inside; a POP (Picture of a Picture) view if I may call it, wow I just made that up. I'll make POP part of the title, hehehehe.

The picture book was not bound by glue or anything, it was simply stapled like a regular magazine;  I liked it more that way so as if you want to make a poster on some of the pages you can easily do so.  The title was positioned on the lower right giving it a little disadvantage on some magazine stands.  Arranged in a rack, some might cover the title up; I guess the publishers had their reasons. The picture book was covered in plastic for protection yet it can be easily damaged if mishandled.

Unexpected find

The front and back covers are glossy and thick; the remaining pages were matte but still used an Oslo type paper strength.  In short, what I'm trying to say is, the quality of the picture book justified its price.

Is that her butt?  You want to know? Buy one!

The content was not what I expected it to be.  Don't get me wrong the pictures were more that enough; I just thought that it would contain more descriptions, write-ups or what not.  Then again I maybe demanding what was originally not to be expected.  The book content were merely picture captions and comic bubbles both in English and Korean.

Captions: Some are in Korean :P

bubbles

Now the juicy part is the collection of Jinri's pictures.  No question the collection was worth it; Jinri in matte paper (no glossy finger smudge effect) was a brilliant idea.  Below are some of my POP.

My personal favorite

Buy a copy now! That is if you can find one. Great job people!

The people behind the project