Thoughts In Binary

Billiards tournament

Antonio Gabica wins, Marlon Manalo, a Mandaluyong native, places second. $10,000 of the $30,000 prize money goes to Gabica after finishing the 10-ball match with a very convincing 13-8 score. Apart from Gabica and Manalo, other big names who participated in the tournament include Jeffrey de Luna, Leonardo Andam, Leonardo Didal, and of course the foreigners - Johnny Archer, Thorsten Hohmann and Satoshi Kawabata. The tournament was organized by Raya Sports and BSCP in cooperation with Mandaluyong Mayor Benhur Abalos.

About the tournament, etc.

I proceeded directly to Mandaluyong after enjoying an early afternoon of knockout stages in Starmall, Alabang on May 8. Like I said in my previous post, the set-up of the Mandaluyong Mayor’s Cup is nothing compared to the Manny Villar Cup. Mandaluyong City Hall is a one-of-a-kind city hall. The place is well lit and ventilated (cool), and organizers seem well-prepared, with big-sreen (projector) scoreboards and audience etiquette banners. It is said that this tournament has been planned months ago and the other, just 2 weeks prior. Mandaluyong Mayor’s Cup however, got better nationwide coverage with Studio 23, compared to Manny Villar Cup’s Solar Sports. If not for Manny Villar Cup’s player-hoarding, this tournament would have been perfect.

Billiards Tournament, 1st Senate President Manny Villar Cup

Warren Kiamco wins, Efren Reyes places second - with a finals score of 11-7. After that of course, they held the so-called “dream match” between Efren Reyes and Ronnie Alcano - a race to 4 exhibition match of rotation. Ronnie Alcano wins 4-1. Because of that, Efren lost twice in a row in one night, but, it’s good to see Efren back in top form. He played great during the knockout stages, impressing the crowd with magician-like prowess. I have some videos and pictures.

About the tournament, etc.

The tournament was held at Starmall (a.k.a. Metropolis) in Alabang, in their “sports section” - old movie houses turned indoor basketball courts. The place was hot as there was no air conditioning, except for a bunch of industrial air circulators. The floor was covered with tarpaulin-like flooring which was loose. Scoreboards were basically useless, some were even facing away from the crowd. The tournament obviously lacked preparation; I went straight to the Mandaluyong Mayor’s Cup and felt like entering a 5-star hotel after checking out from a cheap bed & breakfast. There are two major tournaments being held simultaneously, because politics has blackened the world of Philippine Billiards. However, Manny Villar Cup wins in professional player-support, granted they sided with this tournament in their own free will; and Maureen Larazabal singing the anthem in the finals is definitely a plus.

So, my mom bought a new car - a very practical one; a 2008 Toyota Vios, G model. “G” is Toyota’s way of saying the car is in the top of it’s class - all the amenities, mag wheels, higher displacement engine, the works. Only thing we didn’t get is the insane 40+ thousand upgrade for leather seats. Ours is an automatic with a 1.5L engine, so basically, it’s the 2nd most expensive Vios (Php 765,000.00) around.

In this review, I will not bore you with numbers and 0-100 km/h statistics. I took pictures of the car from all angles, and added captions and commentaries for each picture. I took into account the average small and young family looking for a daily driver for “pops” and a weekend ride for mom, pops, and the yet-to-go-to-school bulinggits. In my opinion, the Toyota Vios does not serve any purpose better than this.

Of course, there are choices. Basically, the Vios is a level lower than compact cars. Compact means Honda Civic, Toyota Altis, Nissan Sentra. Of course, in the Philippines, smaller is better - easier to maneuver through traffic and parking spaces, and better gas consumption - which reminds me to include here the 15 km/l it gets on average. 15 km/l - that’s nearly twice what we used to get from the 90’s Civics, Corollas, etc., and a Php 50 costing trip from Alabang-Nichols. Technology is getting better in producing more kilometers per liter, but gas prices are getting higher. Ergo, everything stays the same.

Back to the choices. The only other sub-compact in my list is the Honda City. Of course there is the Honda Jazz, but it became more of a “porma” car than a family car. The Honda City has a 1.3 engine. In Toyota’s defense, a 1.3 liter engine consumes more gas because it’s hirap. I say, Honda has VTEC and other advanced engine technologies so basically they consume the same amount of gas and produce nearly equivalent power outputs. Brands-wise they’re both Japanese. But to put it in a more apt perspective, a Toyota will surpass at least twice it’s life expectancy and a Honda, is well, a Honda.

This is slowly becoming the most boring Toyota Vios review ever, so let’s proceed to the more exciting life in color. Click on the picture below to view the review and do share your knowledge and opinions about sub-compacts for comparison.

Confirmed

Great, great stuff. Thursday, the band, responsible for that very moving and powerful song “Understanding In A Car Crash,” is coming over. Just a small event though, but for two nights. First on May 30, 2008 at A-Venue in Makati - tickets priced at Php 1,000 but not yet selling. Then the second night on May 31, 2008 in Camarines Sur. Yup, Camarines Sur - for the 2008 Kaogma Festival, which is of course free. There will also be performances by Chicosci, Typecast, Angulo and April Morning Skies. The whole shindig is brought to us by PULP.

Of course Thursday, for me, is reason enough to be stoked, but when I heard about the Cam Sur gig, I couldn’t believe how the timing could get this perfect. I’ve been itching to go to Cam Sur and always knew it would be my “huling hirit” for this summer. Now I have a reason, and an excuse. Perfect. Thanks to chubby cheeks for the Typecast-friendster commenced rumor, and to teenayski for confirming it via Facebook.

One sleek 12.1″

Is this the hottest, cheapest 12.1″ branded laptop in the market today? I think so. At Php 35,950, it’s closest rival would be Acer’s Aspire 2920Z which costs Php 39,900. It’s already ahead in the price category, so let’s see what else this sleek machine has to offer. And to think I bought a slower Php 39,900 worth 14.1″ Acer exactly a year ago.

The shopping spree

I recently crashed my company-given blue laptop, so while I was out shopping for a new memory module (the culprit), I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful Compaq Presario B1200 - the one I always wanted - in a cheaper, downgraded version. It tickled the impulse buyer in me. Bank was already closed, plus I needed a day’s worth of research, so to quote Douglas McArthur - “I shall return.”

Truth is, there wasn’t really much stuff in the internet about the B1256TU (fairly new), so the next day I shop-hopped Town Center to find out the best deal for the B1256TU. No luck, prices were exactly the same (as expected). All except 1 shop had it in stock. I couldn’t base my shop of choice on anything, so I tried to base it on store aesthetics. I landed on PC Live, the newest, most organized computer store in ATC. I was just about ready to cough up plastic when I heard the salesman say something about a free memory upgrade. Wait a minute, so stores sold it for the same price, but what about freebies?

Halt. I had to check what the other stores offered. PC Live was willing to upgrade my memory to 1GB and give me a 1GB flash drive. I told exactly that to Electroworld but they couldn’t top PC Live’s offer. They were however, willing to give a Php 2,000-worth printer. One last, most cluttered shop left - Silicon Valley. They had the same RAM upgrade, with a 2GB flash drive. They came out on top, but I told them PC Live offered the same thing and asked if they could give me a 4GB flash drive. So 40,050 pesos and 0 centavos later, I went home with a new laptop, a new copy of Windows XP, a 4GB flash drive and was happy. But would I be satisfied?

Specifications and a comparison

In the spirit of competition, I’ll consider both laptops - my Compaq Presario B1256TU and the Acer Aspire 2920Z - in it’s base form. No free upgrades or add-ons. The B1256TU has a Core Duo T2370 1.73 Ghz, 1MB L2 Cache, 533Mhz. FSB processor - same as the Acer 2920Z. They both have 512MB RAM, 1.3 MP webcam, 8X DVD±RW, 80 GB hard drive, Bluetooth, card readers, the works, and all that jazz. So what else is left?

Aside from being cheaper by Php 3,950, the Compaq is a lot more gorgeous. Don’t get me wrong, I love Acer and I love their new Gemstone design as well, I just feel that they didn’t quite get it on the 12.1″ version. In my opinion, it looks a little bulky and feels like a toy. The Compaq is just plain sexy and sleek with it’s black theme and carbon fiber-looking design. By the way, both units don’t come stock with operating systems.

Insignificant rants

You already know how much I adore this laptop so I’ll just do a short summary of what could have been made better - borderline unimportant. For starters, the touchpad feels sticky. It has this certain gloss to it so my finger sticks instead of slides. The whole design is “takaw-gasgas” like a Mac, especially the shiny black plastic surrounding the screen. Being an OC, it bothers me knowing that scratching is inevitable. However, it’s what makes it sleek-looking.

Two USB slots on the left side are too closely situated with the power adapter slot. This makes inserting USB stuff like flash drives difficult. The unit does not come with drivers. Drivers are to be downloaded from HP’s site. It’s slow as hell and it took me 6 hours to download a 6mb file (no exaggeration). The laptop was obviously designed for Windows Vista, so I encountered some problems installing Windows XP, especially with the SATA hard drive.

Final thoughts

What else… It came with a free microfiber-type cloth which won’t scratch the finish. The laptop bag is nice, but is quite big. The sound from the headphone jack is quite ok (important to me), but Acer’s is better. The quick launch buttons are like the ones from an elevator’s - touch sensitive. I’m not seeing any firewire but I don’t really care. So all in all, I’m really, really satisfied and happy with this purchase. After all, in line with Robert Kiyosaki’s philosophy, I don’t shy away from buying stuff that will help make me money.

I’m quite surprised though how Compaq suddenly offered budget laptops. If at all, we should probably be thanking Acer for starting the budget class slash barebones category of laptops. But Compaq beat Acer in the 12.1 category this time. I wonder if Acer will start slashing prices once again. I also wonder what’s in store for next year’s laptops. At the rate I’m going, I spend the same amount of money (circa 40k) every year, and just see what upgrades I get. To sum up this year from last year, I got an additional core (processor), 512 more RAM, Bluetooth, a smaller screen, a 1.3mp webcam and a dvd writer. All for the same amount. Cool huh?

Commercial muna

Paging all caffeine addicts. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, that Starbucks-like (har, har) coffee house chain, has a promo for all bloggers and netizens. Submit an essay, a photo or a video that depicts a memorable experience related to Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and you just might win a trip with accommodations and pocket money for 4 days, 3 nights to Hollywood, Los Angeles, USA.

I don’t drink coffee, I rarely go to coffee houses and I’m least likely to submit one, but I was finessed by my chubby sister - their marketing guru - to blog about this in exchange for some freebies. My soul is now for sale. So people, what are you waiting for?

What’s your Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf story?

Help

As said in my previous post, I crashed my laptop real bad last weekend. Who cares right? I’m just puzzled because I haven’t crashed this bad, ever. I’m a computer dude, plus I studied computer science in college, so I must know a thing or two about computers. I only have two suspects - one, a virus from leaving uTorrent overnight, and two, the latest Firefox update. After that, Firefox and IE started shutting down and all sorts of bad image errors and corrupted file warning popped up. Anyone?

Anyway, what’s with The Picture Company?

So because of my stupid crash, I went to this place called Compuserve in Town Center. I had them back-up my files as I don’t have an extra desktop or hard drive. The Picture Company is right beside Compuserve. Thanks to me spending half a day at Compuserve, I was able to “spot” the hot bebots working over at The Picture Company. Mind you, they were not just chicky-hot, they were artistahin-hot! All of them! Whoa, what’s up with that? I happen to know someone who works there (she is hot) but she was not there at that time; plus, I think the manager is a batchmate of ours in high school. I know they have branches at the Power Plant and MOA, just wondering if the bebots are hot as well. I should do a feature on them.

Y Speak, Studio 23, 7:30 p.m.

Or is it 7:00 pm? Anyway, I’ll be on tonight’s episode - an episode about blogs, blogging, censorship, Brian Gorrell, etc. Nope it’s not live, the episode was taped last April 9 over at ABS-CBN, but they’ve been bugging me since the first week of April. In fact, we already did a short interview/feature at my house last April 3 (?), when all of a sudden they decided to ditch that for a studio guesting. I was with two other student bloggers - Janica and Randel - Multiply bloggers.

I have pictures - during taping, with Janica and Randel, me with host Pat Evangelista, etc. but my stupid laptop just crashed. I can’t access my files and my OS won’t boot up. Just had to make this short announcement so here you go. Will clean up this post when I’m back in my laptop.

15th anniversary, Metallica live in Manila, Philippines

April 17, 1993, a day I will never forget. My first concert, my favorite band. Indeed one of the best days of my life.

It was then only a year after Metallica released the “black album.” Enter Sandman, the carrier single, was huge - open low E string, 7th fret 5th string, 5th fret 4th string, then 6th and 5th fret low E string - if you’re still with me, this is probably one of the first few riffs you learned on the guitar. And, because of songs like Enter Sandman, and bands like Metallica, I played guitar obsessively. I played guitar while I crapped, and I wanted nothing else but to be a guitarist in a band.

I could only imagine and try to remember the look on my face when I saw the ad in the papers for their concert. I would not miss it for the world. It was not a question of whether I’d be allowed to go or not because I knew I will, even if it meant going alone or being hassled by my parents. But, my parents knew about Metallica, they see the cds I buy (with their money), the Guitar World magazines, their concert videos (in vhs or laser disc). I had asked my mom to go to the place where they sold tickets, I asked her to buy the most expensive, the frontmost, the best tickets available.

Luckily, my soon-to-be-first-bandmate was a Metallica freak as well. He had an older bassist brother who covered Metallica songs with his band. I went with my soon-to-be-first-bandmate, my soon-to-be-first-bandmate’s brother and his bandmates. My ticket was in the third row (imagine that), theirs was in the fourth row, but directly behind me, so it was all good.

April 17 finally came. I remember we had some “transpo” problems early that day, so I, the desperate fucker that I was, asked my mom to bring us to Ultra. My friend and his brother hitched with us. I still remember the worried look on my mom’s face when she saw heaps of metalheads in black, tattooed, long-haired, surrounding Ultra. “Anak, mag-ingat kayo ha.”

We were already in line early even if we didn’t have to. We were early. This was about the same time I learned it was totally fine to wear another band’s shirt in one band’s concert. I don’t know why I remember that clearly. Another thing I remembered vividly - while we were in line, a loud distorted guitar suddenly played the intro to Enter Sandman’s riff. People went wild. All the hairs on my body stood up.

Finally inside the venue we arrived at our numbered seats. Old school rattan chairs (think “Trip To Jerusalem” in birthday parties). ‘Di pa uso monobloc nun. Razorback and a then Karl Roy-fronted Advent Call were the opening acts. I could picture Metallica hanging out with them backstage. Metallica was cool like that. Lucky, lucky bastards. After the two bands fronted, it was already dark. I was excited as hell, but I didn’t want time to fly fast because I knew I wanted to stay in the moment. Part of me did not want the concert start.

Their rock star-looking roadies started sound-checking their guitars. Hammet and Hetfield’s ESPs. Damn. The crowd, as if they didn’t lose enough energy from the front acts, suddenly felt a new surge of power and excitement within. Metallica was about to go up stage. What happened after was probably the loudest BOOM I’ve ever felt in my life. After the smoke cleared, I finally saw my idols - James Hetfield, Kirk Hammet, Lars Ulrich and classic Jason Newsted (unfortunately, his undercut was already cut), harmoniously playing that intro to Enter Sandman. It was surreal, it was loud, it was fucking LOUD. Wish I never woke up from that dream…

I heart Sarah Christophers

Remember Sarah Christophers? Berks fame? She’s back. Sarah is UNO Magazine’s April 2008 cover girl. I know, I know… I already have a spin-off blog about the ladies, but this is an exception. I’ve always envisioned writing about the girls I interviewed for Bembang! - the experience, first hand impression of their personalities, etc. So far I have none on Sarah.

Remembering Sarah

For the uninformed, the interview archive is still here. That was almost four years ago. It was during Karel Marquez’ interview when we first spotted Sarah - Karel had a gig in Dish, Quezon City; Sarah watched. I believe it was my friend Singapore Clear who approached her and asked permission for a future feature. “So, number ba ito ng manager mo?” Asked Singapore Clear. “Ah no, personal number ko yan.” Whoa. How trusting is Sarah?

It was obvious even back then that she was not caught up in the trappings of celebrity life. During the interview, she was as simple as can be, but insanely, stunningly, silently, gorgeous. She answered questions without hesitation. She laughed, she laughed… She made us feel like we were just what we looked like from other people’s eyes - close friends having casual coffee.

Me and my Bembang! crew probably ran into Sarah 2-3 times after that interview. She’d say hi. She’d remember our names. She’d ask for whoever it was who wasn’t there but was in the interview. She introduced us to Ketchup Eusebio. She’d say she remembered every detail of the interview clearly in her head. It felt like Bembang!, my pride and joy back then, was already “malakas” with Sarah Christophers.

News spread that she was back in hometown Australia one day. Maybe for good, maybe for school, I don’t know. Her fans (count me in) felt a certain sayang compassion because she had not reached her full potential locally. However, she stayed connected (with fans) via her already-closed blog and her Multiply.

Thoughts In Binary

In person, you’d easily get the notion that she is deep - a thinker. And she is just that. I can also probably accurately attest that she is a bookworm. As far as looks is concerned, well, do you like tisay? If not, I honestly feel that if you see her, she can make you think twice about your taste. I remember her hair, her brows and lashes were jet black. They were gorgeous. She was and still is, gorgeous.

Truth is, I can rave about her all day and you still would probably not care. If it weren’t for UNO, most people would probably still have no clue who Sarah Christopers is. She went cold. And although her “comeback” method is sizzling hot and sexy - add “sexy” to her arsenal, she lost weight; only time can tell if she is really officially back.