The Comfort Rooms

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Image coming from The Jakarta Post

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This is the answer that made a lot of flak...



"You know what, sir, in my 22 years of existence I can say that there's nothing major, major problem that I've done in my life because I'm very confident with my family, with the love that they are giving to me. So thank you so much that I'm here. Thank you, thank you so much!"

Funny how people shifted 180 degrees from being pro-Venus into a people who highly-criticized her being just the 4th runner-up. I find it rather stupid. Even Venus made light of her bad answer and said she felt nervous. We could only imagine being in front of a live worldwide audience that numbers to hundreds of millions and knowing that your answer has the potential to change your life forever.

If Venus will get the chance to read my blogpost, here's my word for her:
Forget the haters! Besides, it's you who got the 22-inch waistline and not them. Suck it up haters!

Maria Venus Raj is really major major. Don't ya think?

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Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Philippines

The latest craze to have hit the entire Philippines, the Manila Hostage Crisis 2010, the 10-plus hours drama is currently putting the entire country (or at least the metro) to a stand still. Kinda like an aftershock of some sorts. Millions of us Filipinos were glued on our television sets as media men televised every bit and piece of the drama that unfolded for 10+ hours.

It was dragging, it was tiring, it was adrenaline-pumping, it was a moment wherein you wished everything would have gone back to normal and pretend that this brouhaha was just a part of some sick Tagalog action film Filipinos have all learned to either enjoy or to hate.

After hours upon hours of watching, here are the top ten thoughts that entered my mind:

10. Wow, I didn't know Isko Moreno (vice-mayor of Manila) spoke decent English.

9. It's a great thing that some of the victims were placed on Manila Doctor's Hospital. I wish all of them were placed there actually. After all the bad publicity, at least placing the victims on a posh hospital would have lessened the pain (even by a fraction). Who wants to be miserable and be placed on a miserable-looking hospital?

8. The relatives of the hostage-taker were all making the most out of their media exposure. Comment all you want, but I thought all of them were drama kings and queens.

7. Jollibee received free international media exposure, thanks to the hostage-taker.

6. First time for me to hear live gun shots on television. It was history in the making for me.

5. The brother of the hostage-taker is a complete douche bag.

4. The usiseros were much worse douche bags.

3. The umbrellas of the usiseros were the biggest buggers of the night.

2. This is the last thing we needed for our international exposure.

1. Where was Manila mayor Fred Lim?

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During the late 90s, when I was still busy with my twice-monthly dermatologist check-ups (I had the oiliest skin), when an uncle of mine and a driver took turns picking me and a cousin up from school, when Nokia 5110 was still THE BlackBerry of today's phones, when the names Angel Locsin, Marian Rivera, and Charice Pempengco wouldn't even make one person interested, there was still FM radio show whom I followed day-in and day-out. They were on-air from 4-6pm from Mondays till Thursdays. It's the Early Returns (ER) Countdown with Mo and Miles on Magic 89.9.

The ER followed the top 7 songs daily and the ranking is based on requests via phone (no txting yet) and whatever-metrics-they've-got. Haha! Mo and Miles would make a daily round-up of those seven hit songs and before airing the number one song for that date, they will play whatever song ranked first a day before.

Mo and Miles were a hit tandem. They were energetic and youthful. I felt I was speaking to big cousins who molded my young mind back then. I wasn't the most enthusiastic when it comes to accomplishing my home works but when it came to listening to them, it was a habit. Like second skin, if you may (suggest).

Making this post about the two of them made me reminisce. I miss the good old 90s. Haha!

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The Manila Design Week Logo

First off, I never knew such a thing existed. I've always loved (contemporary) art. Urban art to be exact. When I first saw Team Manila's designs, I thought I creamed myself a little bit (uhm, yeah) and has fallen in love eversince with their type of art.

That's why when I saw on the paper about the Manila Design Week 2010, I felt like moving my fat bum from its couch placement and go straight to SMX Convention Center and participate on the event's activities for that day (yesterday).

It's a seven-day homage to Manila(?) Art and has cooked up activities on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and a culminating booze-up-and-down party on Friday at Cubao X.

If you wanna come because you wanna see celebs and be seen and show to the whole world that you're cool, uhm yeah. Sure. You can always do that. I mean, if that's your motivation then so be it. But if you're someone who really loves art, in any form or medium, feels gratified whenever seeing good art, would love to express himself on mediums considered as art, then yeah, go check out ManilaDesignWeek.com and see what's in store on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Bye!

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Delamar and Chico during their heyday

Undoubtedly, Chico and Delamar has lorded over the Manila FM radio scene from the mid 90s up until the early 2000s. I pretty much spent my pre-pubescence, adolescence, and late adolescent stages listening to them in the morning during the Manila rush hour traffic.

Their market has been very broad - that even both my Mom and Dad were listening to them as well.

They were Viva contract artists, they had their own CDs (I remember us buying their own CD), they pretty much molded the mind of the kids of my generation (well, to those who listened).

They were like the Teletubbies to the adolescent Manila. They were the Barney, that darn purple dinosaur to our high school and college students. They were the big brothers and sisters to my peers. They were the nice officemates to the yuppies back then (this was late 90s and early 2000s - mind you).

They had their endorsements back then. They even had their own tv show. People loved to imagine that they were a couple (though I would love to believe that Chico was gay). They even managed to be invited over to different shows, even Cristy Fermin's gossip shows! Haha!

However, like your previous decade's favorites, you eventually get tired of them.

I got tired of Chico and Delamar. Got tired of Delamar's laughs. Got tired of Chico's eyebrow piercing. I got tired of their talking. I got tired of their coming back to RX (becaise their previous station 93 9 KCFM returned to its pro-masa origin). Got tired of them having Brad Turvey as back-up.

Maybe blame it on the iPod. Blame it on the emergence of Nicole Hyala, Chris Tsuper, Mister Fu, and the rest of the pro-masa radio stations. Maybe blame it on DJ Mo's more interesting radio show. Maybe blame it on people like me who eventually got tired of them two.

Not everything lasts forever. You'll eventually grow tired of the people you're listening or watching on your screens. Maybe unless they were able to reinvent themselves (talk about Madonna, etc.), then the people will always deem them as relevant. Cos as far as I'm concerned, Chico and Del are a done deal.

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The Buggles has long declared that the video has killed the radio industry. True, it did took from radio some of its life the past four decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s), however, the radio is still very much alive here in the Philippines.

That's the reason why I thought I should be paying homage to the radio (FM, that is) this month of August. I don't know how many posts will I be making for this radio month. I'm not a go-to guy when it comes to anything radio, nor do I have an extensive library of anything radio-related (aside from Google).

I started listening to the radio eversince the driver and the yaya would send me and pick me up from school eversince my childhood. And car radio is really what comes closest to my mind when thinking about radios.

So yeah, I hope this Radio Month will be worth reading for you guys. Bye!