High Quality Miss Saigon (Lea Salonga) Videos Found

While browsing through the web, I stumbled upon this high quality video of Miss Saigon top-billed by the Philippines' pride, Ms. Lea Salonga. Enjoy!

Why Apple’s Move to Block Flash is a Great Leap Forward?

By now you probably have heard about this little tussle between Apple and Adobe. The fight became “public” when Apple CEO Steve Jobs posted an open letter of sorts about his Thoughts on Flash where he criticized one of Adobe’s flagship products – Flash. Our good friend Steve said some unfriendly things against Flash, it being not secure enough, not touch-friendly enough, not technology forward enough and most of all, not open enough. So, enough is enough. Flash can’t get anywhere near Apple’s mobile devices. Whew!

Many people might not agree with Apple’s position. After all, more than 90% of all websites on the Internet have some Flash in them. Some even run almost entirely on Flash like HBO.com that if you try to visit the site and your computer doesn’t support Flash, you’ll see an almost blank page except for a line that says: You need to install Flash. Surely, if that much websites use Flash, it couldn’t be that bad, right?

Wrong! At least in Apple’s point of view. For Apple, Flash has no place in today’s mobile computing devices so they blocked Flash on iPhone, iPod and iPad. That means, if you recently bought an iPad, you now have in your hand ‘the best way to see the web, email and photos’, except that you can’t play Farmville, you won’t enjoy HBO.com and you will see some missing elements on CNN.com, Disney.com and millions of other websites running Flash. Huh?

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Purpose Driven OFW

It was a few years back when I heard about this speech made by a little known student named Patricia Evangelista. The then 19-year old sophomore from the University of the Philippines, has grown more popular these days. What with some hosting gigs and regular column for a major broadsheet, she has made a name for herself in the field of journalism and, might I say, literature.

Sadly, the speech that was instrumental to her success has now gone to relative obscurity. The speech that has won her the International Public Speaking competition in 2004 besting 58 other student contestants from 37 English speaking countries, including US, UK and Australia, has been sidelined by forgetful Pinoy. The speech that jolted me the first time I read it (as a student) because of its form and elates me now (as an OFW) because of its substance, has totally lost its luster.

Maybe it’s time all of us Pinoys working abroad get a wind of the message being imparted by this inspiring speech. We are living in a borderless world. However, it does not preclude the idea of a home, the idea that wherever we are, whatever we do, we are driven by a purpose. A purpose to give back to the country that shaped us, a purpose to serve, albeit remotely. Now, it is our turn to shape the world. We will start by being inspired.

Below is the full text of the speech entitled, Blonde and Blue Eyes

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Behold the beginning of the jejemon world

Quick, answer this question: What do jejemons and kris aquino have in common?
Easy. Both are annoyingly popular.

Maybe it started as a simple typing error. After all, “j” is just right beside “h” in your keyboard. Maybe a pre-teen girl is chatting with her mid-teen crush one lazy afternoon when he cracked a lame joke, and she replied: “jejeje” instead of the usual “hehehe”. Maybe he found it cute. Maybe she kept doing it just to be thought of as…cute.

I don't know. However it started, no one can deny, the jejemon phenomenon is taking the Philippines by storm. And it’s just getting started.

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Top 10 bizarre life lessons you can learn from Philippine politics

And so it comes to a final close. The Philippine elections season will be ending soon and despite the doomsday scenario painted by many pundits, the recent and first ever computerized elections turned out to be quite peaceful, relatively credible and surprisingly successful. Philippines, welcome to the 21st century elections, finally!

But amidst all the mudslinging, grandstanding and political backbiting that happened over the last few months; no one can deny that Philippine politics doesn’t lack ‘color’ (yes, pun intended) and excitement, enough to feed the world with interesting stories that will rival that of the best movies Hollywood has ever produced. Heard about the Boxing champ who ran for a law-making position and sang ('Para sa ‘yo ang laban na ‘to') his way to victory? How about an 80-year old imeldific shoe collector who just refuses to retire? And this one is for the books, a CEO who wants to become a Clerk, only CEO actually means President and Clerk, Congressman. Certainly, there is nothing more ‘colorful’ than that.

Believe it or not, it’s not only fascinating stories that dominate Philippine politics. There are life lessons too! Bizarre as it is, you can’t help but wonder whether these things are the new rules to be successful in life. The list below smacks of dumb analysis. Or does it? Judge for yourself. Here are the Top 10 Bizarre Life Lessons You Can Learn From Philippine Politics:

10. Begin with a ‘color’ in mind. Old rules say: Begin with the END in mind. Not true in this elections. Everybody picked their ‘colors’ first. You would think that candidates will define and share their platforms first but you would be wrong. It’s colors first. Orange for Villar, Green for Gibo, Yellow for Noy. The rest just followed after that.

9. If at first you don’t succeed, find an easier challenge. We heard of a boxing champ who ran against a highly influential and political heavyweight in one province but lost. So he ran again, but this time choosing a different opponent. He’s now headed for victory. In life, there will be a lot of challenges; maybe the key to success is not to keep on trying but to keep on finding easy challenges. Hhmmm.

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