Glorietta Explosion

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"People thrown like dolls by blast".
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Road to Kalinga

This road links northern Isabela province and Kalinga.

The valley is known as Mallig Plains, a vast agricultural region benefiting from the spills of chico river in Kalinga. Click on the picture for more.

Taken with Canon 30D and17-40mm lens.

Exact Fare Act

Its in the news. Senator Ramon Revilla Jr. has filed a measure seeking to penalize taxi drivers who don’t give exact change to passengers.

Do we need this law? Yes, definitely. Most taxi drivers in Manila has lost morals just to earn extra peso. They are abusive most of the time and have no idea of customer service.

Our culture on giving tips and gratuities is one of the things i dislike. We are all striving in this forsaken third world country. We are all poor. Poverty should not be an excuse to compromise what is good or right. People should just work hard, be fair and succeed on their own (of course that's ideal, and no one is perfect hehe).

I wish this law will come with efficient and effective implementing rules and not just for the sake of having a law (or publicity). There are similar laws for sure but only LTO/LTFRB knows and nobody cares to implement.

I know execution of law is just another one big problem. I tried once to fill-in an electronic complaint form in the LTFRB website hoping for a miracle reply. Months passed and i received not even a read receipt of my complaint. Those "Contact Us" pages on government websites are useless most of the times. Well thats another story.

Canon 50mm f1.8

I got Canon 50mm as a kit lens of my 30D camera. At first, knowing nothing about lenses and SLRs, i had few complaints with this lens. It has no zoom. To get a group picture you need to move far from the group so you can fit everyone into the frame. It is very hard to get everything in the frame to focus (i don't know the technical term for it hehe).

So I read about lenses and learned about wide angle lenses. And one of the best selling canon wide angle lenses is the 17-40mm f40. I bought one at a discounted price expecting so much from it. To my frustration, I should have bought high end digital camera with wide angle lens instead. Well, i believe this can be a good lens depending on the subject of interest, only its not useful to me at this time.

Suddenly I like my Canon 50mm, it can do nice portraits easily and is much sharper than 17-40mm.

Elegant ferns-- using Canon 50mm. Composition is not good but its fine, i am satisfied.

Under Construction

By 2008, on going developments in Glorrietta and Greenbelt area will be opened. And some more constructions will start.

1. Greenbelt 5 - almost done, connects G1 and G3.

2. Landmark Parking - almost done, Park Square 2 will be decommissioned and this will replace. Below fountain is of Ayala Museum with the parking construction at the background.

Planned structures: Twin tower Raffles Hotel which will cover the current area of Park Square 2 and elevated walkway connecting Shangri-la car park,G4, G3 and Landmark. The Ayala terminal will be moved to the parking area near MRT Ayala and beside Park Square 1.

Keep the Worm Warm

It was a cold winter day. An old man walked out onto a frozen lake, cut a hole in the ice and dropped in his fishing line. He was there for almost an hour, without even a nibble, when a young boy walked out onto the ice, cut a hole in the ice not far from him. The young boy dropped his fishing line and minutes later he hooked a Largemouth Bass.

The old man couldn't believe his eyes but chalked it up to plain luck. But, shortly thereafter, the young boy pulled in another large catch.

The young boy kept catching fish after fish. Finally, the old man couldn't take it any longer. "Son, I've been here for over an hour without even a nibble. You've been here only a few minutes and have caught a half dozen fish! How do you do it?"

The boy responded, "Roo raf roo reep ra rums rrarm." "What was that?" the old man asked. Again the boy responded, "Roo raf roo reep ra rums rarrm."

"Look," said the old man, "I can't understand a word you're saying." The boy spit the bait into his hand and said, "You have to keep the worms warm!"

Dear Dr. Ruth

A Bus Incident

A woman got on a bus holding a baby. The bus driver looked at the child and blurted out, "That`s the ugliest baby I've ever seen!" Infuriated, the woman slammed her fare into the fare box and took an aisle seat near the rear of the bus. The man seated next to her sensed that she was agitated and asked her what was wrong.

"The bus driver insulted me," she fumed.

The man sympathized and said, "Why, he shouldn't say things to insult passengers. He could be fired for that."

"You're right," she said. "I think I'll go back up there and give him a piece of my mind!"

"That's a good idea," the man said. "Here, let me hold your monkey."

Update on my Unit Investment Trust Fund

Only last month my investment was Php30,000 deficit. But the net asset value started going up since thursday last week and now I only have Php934 deficit. Thats 29k gain!

I guess this is still a Greespan effect hehe... i said "guess" since i really don't know much about Greenspan, all i know is that he once served the U.S. Federal Reserve.. and when he talk, people listen then the world markets move. That's how powerful the U.S. economy is. Perhaps people should stop thinking the economy is getting better or the peso is getting stronger much because of the President. And the President should stop claiming. Being a capitalist and open market, the Philippines most of the time just follows global and regional trends. Well i am not an economist... but i trust my opinion.