Different Faces of Halloween

Halloween is a holiday that is observed in the United States, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom. October 31 is the designated date for this event, whose origin came from the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holiday All Saints Day.

Trick or Treating is one of the activities of this occasion where children dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for candies and other treats. Following this Western tradition, SM Malls have declared a Trick or Treat Day today. Children who dress up for the occasion can actually go to each of the tenants of the SM Malls and get them treated to an assortment of candies, lollipops, and chocolates!

Here are some of the different faces of Halloween taken at SM Fairview.

Astoria Boracay Resort: Convenience of Paradise

Looking at it by the beach front, Astoria Boracay looks like an unassuming white structure smack at the middle of Boracay’s Station 1. It kind of reminded me of the igloo house of Doc Savage---simple outside but elegant inside.

As soon as you step into the reception area, you can’t help but be at awe at the bright and open space. The place always looked newly scrubbed and very new.

The hotel boasts of 39 spacious and nicely decorated rooms in varying degrees of comfort. Ours was a Deluxe Premiere Room with two double beds, a 32” LCD TV, a mini refrigerator, and hot and cold shower with tub. Other amenities includes a telephone, a safety deposit box, and free wife internet access.

I availed of the Astoria Boracay package last May 2010 during the hotel’s pilot opening. At first, my wife and I was lured by the invite for a free buffet dinner but as we got the low down on what they have to offer I immediately signed on as a Club Astoria one year member which got me a 3 days two nights accommodation (with complementary buffet breakfast) at Astoria Boracay, an overnight stay at the Astoria Plaza (Ortigas), and a bunch of discount coupons. After our stay there last October 24-26, I’d say that it was money well spent!

Cebu Pacific FAs---Dancing No More

Ever since the Cebu Pacific flight attendant dance routine became a YouTube craze my wife and I have been looking forward to become witnesses to this ourselves. We were booked to go to Iloilo via Cebu Pacific and it was one of our trip's highlight. Unfortunately, no dance routine happened (much to the dismay of my wife who was already poised with her video cam). The flight did have its good points though---Cebu Pacific does have the best looking FAs to ferry us to our destination!

Autumn De Forrest: Child Prodigy

The color scheme would remind you of Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Dali, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol. The paintings encompass various styles of painting from abstract impressionism, surrealism, and pop art. To have amassed $250,000 worth of paintings in three years is nothing short of prolific. Such is the accomplishment of child painting prodigy Autumn De Forrest.

Autumn, who is turning 9 this month, started painting at age of 5. She is a fourth generation painter whose family tree includes such notable artists as Roy De Forest, Lockwood De Forest, and George De Forest Brush.

Her painting was first shown to the public in 2009 and has since garnered critical acclaim from the art community. Her paintings were visions on canvass beyond her age. Where normal 8 year olds are still drawing stick figures, Autumn is already using painting styles by Jasper Johns and Andy Warlhol.

Incredible is a description that understates her works---an 8 year old kid whose painting fetches $20,000 a pop is nothing short of incredible!

"Barbie Marilyn"

"Skulls" (2008) Oil on Canvas, 48"x72"

"Sunrise" (2008) Oil on Canvas, 48"x60"

"Red Road Home" (2009) Oil, Concrete on Canvas, 48"x72"

"Autumn Flower" (2009) Oil on Canvas, 36"x48"

Autumn during her a display of her art works.

Think Before you Send

Many would think that composing an email is easy like point and shoot. I beg to disagree because MAKING SENSE can be quite difficult to do. Expressing your thoughts on print is like trying to put on paper an image in your mind---if you don't know how to draw, then you're faced with a daunting task.

In composing an email, there are various things that you need to consider. First is WHO you're writing to. The decorum of your composition should fit the position of your reader. If you're writing your boss you must be extra careful what you say or else you might end up writing an application letter to a new company. Much that we want politics to stay in politics---companies are not spared from diplomatic relationships. Dealing with people carries such intricasies even in sending emails.

This leads us to our second point: PUT YOURSELF IN THE SHOES OF YOUR READER. When you're done, read what you just wrote and think of your reader's reaction. Did it attain the effect you wanted to relay? You see, aside from the message, it is also important to consider what kind of emotion you want to convey to your reader. Whether you want to be factual, soliticious, happy, remorseful, or sad is all a matter of how you use the punctuation marks. For instance, an exclamation mark can either connote admiration, excitement, surprise or anger. "What the ...?!" is phrase that exhibits the feeling of astonishment. It utilizes the use of the ellipsis (...) to intentionally hide an expletive (you know what that word is, right?) and added the exclamation mark in conjunction with the question mark to complete the desired effect. Basically, any written communication should mimic the same emotion as if you are talking to a person face to face. Easy huh?

Third point is GRAMMAR. I must admit that I'm not a master of this myself. I'm more a phonetical composer than a technical one. I think my lack of expertise in basic english grammar I compensated with my love for reading. So for me, if the sentence sounded right then that's it. What do you think? Do I sound coherant thus far? Anyway, one trick that I learned to compensate my writing deficiency is to utilize MS Word to check for grammatical inconsistencies. A red zigzag line under a word means you may have mispelled it. A green zigzag line under a word or a sentence (or what you thought to be a sentence) means that you may have gotten your grammar wrong or your sentence is not complete. Just right click on the marked word(s) and MS Word will provide you an option to correct; well, that is except if it does not understand the group of words you've put together to which it'll prompt you to consider revising it to make more sense. Neat eh?

Writing, like appearances, provide a lasting impression; a moment of truth that can be hard to negate. So make sure that before you click on that SEND button you've got your composition right. Sorry, re-calling a sent email does not always work.

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Globe Telepresence: Welcome to the Future of Global Communication

Last October 14, I had the unique experience of being in a “telepresence meeting” at the Globe office in Makati.

I’ve had my own share of video conferencing but the experience was passable based on the existing technology. Normally, it would be a set up of a 17” monitor with a VGA camera panned out to accommodate the group of people in attendance. Bandwidth limitation would cause some delay in the video transmission but voice quality, well, let me put it this way---we can understand each other (that’s the bottomline anyway, right?). Given my minimal expectations of what a video call might be---Globe’s Telepresence BLEW MY MIND!

The set up that I got the opportunity to witness was a six seater room equipped with 3 very large LCD displays (that delivers high resolution video) and three 1080p cameras that captures smooth, high definition videos with auto-focus and white balance to optimize realism. The room actually mimics a round table set up good for a total of 12 pax---the experience enables a life-size “in person” meeting across multiple locations around the world in real time.

With this solution, company executives who invest on international trips will surely benefit from the cost saving opportunities in utilizing telepresence as a means to meet with clients and business partners. Travel time and incidental cost will be put to a minimum. Aside from this, it will also give the environment a reprieve from the harmful by product of air travel.

With Globe’s 24x7 international connectivity, companies can rent out a telepresence room to set up business meetings. To facilitate this, a 24 hour concierge service was set up featuring an online booking facility to schedule the Globe Telepresence room in Makati City.

For companies with extra room in their budget to spare, having their own telepresence room facility will cost around… a 7 digit number to build.

For an “in person” meeting experience around the world, go to http://globe.com.ph/telepresence .

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Go and visit Boracay! Click the link below for the best packages---
http://www.boracay-packages.com/

Moniegold Chewy Tamarind Candy

I was introduced to this treat by my daughter. I was intrigued as to what the rock-like thingy she was snacking on one time and took one for taste. It was hard to the bite but becomes chewy after a couple of chomps. It's initially sweet and becomes spicy at the tail end with that distict tamarind taste. Surprisingly, taking one would lead you to take another and another and another...it's quite addicting really.

Anyway, I found it as a substitute to my garlic peanut addiction. Yeah, yeah, both addiction but I guess it's the lesser evil given my high uric acid result. Tamarind is a fruit and as such it's a better alternative. However, ever since I started eating it I noticed that my pooping became more frequent and...well...smelled kindda funny...TANGY actually. Then I remembered that tamarind, when consumed in large quantities, is a natural laxative.

Note to self: DON'T EAT TOO MUCH SPECIALLY DURING LONG TRAVELS. Ahh, to hell with it! I'll just always carry baby wipes to be safe!

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FrancisM Clothing Co. 4th Year Anniversary @ The Collective - October 8, 2010

Since I’ve started this day talking about influences, a notable Filipino personality popularly known as the “King of Pinoy Rap”, Francis Magalona, comes to mind.

Francis died more that a year ago but his legacy in both music and national pride lives on in the Filipino psyche. He is a rapper, song writer, producer, director, photographer, and entrepreneur. In all these endeavors Francis was able to put in his distinctive Filipino mark.

Yesterday, my wife and I went to the 4th year anniversary of the FrancisM Clothing Co. (FMCC) at The Collective in Makati. The FMCC provided Francis another avenue to showcase the Filipino. “Brown Like Wood, Filipino by Blood” is FMCC’s company creed. Their mission, “To create worthy products for the urban patriot, the balikbayans, and the local market. To mix “cool” with subliminal social commentary, and create awareness towards issues that the Filipino faces in this new millennium. To put it simply, our goal is to “FILIPINIZE THE WHOLE WORLD”.

The event showcased an exhibit of Francis Magalona memorabilia: his numerous movie posters, awards, photographs, concert costumes, comics collection, and his toys. GMA 7 and ABS-CBN covered the event and interviewed the personalities in attendance which included Francis’ siblings Maxene and Elmo Magalona and Francis’ rapper protégé Gloc9.

The event was capped off with a mini concert by Gloc9 and Francis’ son Elmo Magalona at the B Side bar. Unfortunately, the concert was too late in the night and since we still had our parental obligations to attend to me and my wife had to split early.

Rest in Peace, Brother! You remain in our hearts!

You tend to wonder why a grown man can have so many

toys! But I guess it only goes to show the young child in the

legend of Francis Magalona.

The many faces of the Master Rapper

Two of the rare Tagalog films I've watched in

my life time.

The master's various accomplishments in film, music, and photography.

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Go and visit Boracay! Click the link below for the best packages---

http://www.boracay-packages.com/