Lil Feather and YuriGligoric: A Week in the City

The previous week was one heaven of a hectic time of experience. If I would describe all the events that transpired with my Lil Feather here in the city, compressed it in one poetic phrase to catch all the euphoric and intense emotions to finally say that long due words of promises to be realized, it would be like a gem gleaming with myriad of hues spanning six long years of long distance digital love affair speckled with unadulterated romance and fights during short visits to each other.

And I’m really getting poetic here. :-)

Here’s what Lil Feather’s Olympus digital camera caught when we abandoned taking the MRT at Trinoma going to Makati and elbowed our way through the crowd to take a cab instead.

After paying a visit to my library Powerbooks at Greenbelt and spending the day at the mall here's some more pics taken after the long talks and walks.


And another one, with my 'aura' caught by the camera.

Then here's Lil Feather at the airport terminal II wanting a good massage after a busy day at NHA. Dang! What a nice shot. It looks like Frank Capa took this shot. Perfect shot and perfect subject.
What is celebration then without a visit to a restaurant. Here's Lil Feather with me, with her HP Pavilion on the table at Kenny Roger's MOA. Wow! Yaman ng hon ko... hehehe. Her mom took the pic and that caught me flat-footed since I just wore a t-shirt na arbor ko lang. She said I should wear something formal. Arg!
Since I've already mentioned her mom. Here are they with me taking the shot with Lil Feather's Olympus digital cam. (Pampalakas...hehe)
More pics in my next post... I'm getting the hang of this posting pics in my blog. Hon, padala mo by LBC ung cam mo... hehehe.

My Picks

If there is something most fulfilling from the tasks that I did today for my personal blog, this is it: to promote the books that I cherish most.

For those who are regular readers of this blog, probably you are wondering who is this Ignacio Padilla whom I love to say I would kill someday (I think he is still in Spain fulfilling his role as an ambassador for Mexico.) Well, he is the writer of Shadow without a Name – a book I read in one sitting in Powerbooks several years ago. The effect of his marvelous crafted short and succinct narrative still lingers in my mind. This writer writes more about countries he has read in books than his native country Mexico. Yet, it can not be doubted the writing skills he showed in his works deserves him to be the next in line after the likes of Carlos Fuentes and Gabo. (Just talking about him, envelopes me already with this urge to get a new page and start yakking like Kerouac and start my own novel.)

Talking about Gabo, a rather new selection of books are presented in my Picks. There is only one book among these three (or four?) that I still have to read: Marquez: Tales Beyond Solitude. I don’t know whether this is the second installment already of the trilogy of his autobiography. I have read already his Live to Tell the Tale – the supposed first installment. The rest that I’m promoting here are books that are part already of my collection and blueprint.

Of course, who would forget Carlos Castaneda? A favorite writer of mine, though I’m sad that he is more known as a promoter of drug use to achieve wisdom than what he actually prescribes. I still have to read these books. And probably, I would be one of the first who will purchase these books straight from my Picks.

I also picked Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements. This book, though short of going beyond why the four agreements that he states in the books are necessities to see the truth, it is still invaluable for common people who wish personal freedom and get the stance of a warrior in this so domesticated world we are in.

I cannot emphasize more that the books in my Picks are solid collection to speak of. I’m just happy and excited that these books graced my blog.

Drat!!! I forgot to include Kerouac's On the Road. Nevermind. As soon as My Picks is changed, his will be included. Oh, surely the Subterraneans will also be there.

Earn by Blogging

Since I’m in the mode of promoting everything that has something to do with blogging and webhosting, I recently found a good way on making bucks out of this hobby everybody is all agog with for the last several years now. The most common question that every individual involved in online activities is how can he squeeze money from what he does on the Internet.

There have been thousands of articles circulating on the World Wide Web trying to answer this question. I myself have stumbled on different remedies offered by those who have been for sometime working in the net.

There are of course big deals of making money online by selling products and services. There are too many writing opportunities that await those who are inclined to make bucks by being commissioned to write web copies and articles and even academic papers for some companies and students.

Now for those who simply enjoy making a post on their blogs, the answer to the question of money seems remote. Nevertheless, pure bloggers need not despair from this seemingly obvious reality.

There is a company who promises to solve this problem for you. This is payperpost. Bloggers now have the opportunity to be paid by merely posting something on their sites.

Check again the cut ads (the whole picture just wouldn’t fit in my sidebar window) and visit their site. Go ahead, there is no harm in trying to be financially-motivated every now and then.

Happy blogging.

Web Hosting for Bloggers and Traditional Companies Alike

I’m thinking that there are many professional bloggers out there who are entertaining the idea of setting up, finally, a site of their own. They most probably have able to create a niche for their thoughts in the blogosphere. They in all likelihood have built and are now enjoying a relative good traffic for their blogs. They are pondering that the next probable and feasible step to take now is to get a domain on the internet which they can truly say they own.

To address this need – and probably demand – I put up several enticing web host providers in this personal blog. From this array of web hosting firms they can choose the best that will suit their needs.

Take note also that there are web host providers here that are best for serious business companies taking the benefits and potential of having an online site for selling their products. These entities can also use the list to pick what web hosting provider suits their e-commerce needs.

Just look at the left side of this window and take a good look at the animated links to these web hosts companies. It does not hurt to shop around. So just try to get a glimpse of what they offer.

I myself will take this step anytime soon. Provided I know already how to transfer the money from my bank account (which is empty right now…lol) to Paypal to facilitate the payment to my chosen web host.

Revisited: Vigilante

They have been going on like this for several hours now. He in mad pursuit of the other man who leads him circling around, into the intricacies of rush-hour traffic along EDSA and the boulevard to the dreariness and filth along the road beneath the LRT tracks, to the maze-like streets of the Manila Metropolis. Blaring horns, shimmying motor cars, passengers sweating profusely waiting for the vehicles to move on with eyes fixed nowhere, with the heat of carbon monoxide fumes mixed in mélange under an overcast sky. Everything is a damned vicious cycle of frustrated pursuit. Whenever he would run at an accelerated speed good enough to collar the other man, the latter showing slowness in its pace, when opportunity stares at him in the face, when an outstretched hands could grab the other man by the shoulder, pull him to a stop, or thrust him, aikido style, the other man's momentum flinging himself to stumble, it is just then that there happens an automatic reversal in their speed, inversely proportionate; as his speed plummets the other man gains speed. It is as if everything were scripted, controlled, written and directed by an invisible hand, and the specter could be hiding somewhere behind the mass of gray clouds above. A couple of times he has lost sight of the other man, and each time he would dart, a great jump, onto corrugated iron roofs of houses and top decks of buildings, reconnoitering under the bleary, dim sky, always spotting the other man far ahead, towering a hundred feet over miniature houses and buildings. The moment he spots the other man, the moment all things around the other man start to swell centrifugally, hiding the latter from his view once more. But by then, he knows already where the other man is, and on again the damned pursuit. This time the other man has led him to a dimly lighted asphalted street, barren of cars and plying jeepneys, and sparse with people. Night and darkness has enveloped the city; the sky's hue pitch black. Along the side street, an old white-haired Chinese businessman stands behind his two sons pulling down the metal shutters of their cheap recording store. The old man turns around, and gives him a death-like stare, mocking and sarcastic. The other man has slipped into one of the narrow alleys. He follows and finds the path leads to a wet and dry market. He catches a glimpse of the other man, across the closed stalls, veering toward one the narrow aisles. With the time gap between him and the other man, the other man could have had managed to get away and escape his sight, totally leaving him, but why is the other man run like as if goosing him, as if the other man, though running away, were making sure he does not lose sight of him. With his service .45 caliber pistol cocked now, he sprints along the market aisles carpeted by mud to where the other man has run. He ends up at the back entrance of the market, opening to a cramped, crowded squatter residential area, where children, men and women squatted on the gutters, huddled in groups and giggling in a devilish grin. The other man is nowhere in sight. He scans the direction the other could have gone, but what attracted him is the wake in the middle of the narrow street, the brass-colored coffin lies at the center. The yellow-green canvas perched on top, covers it from a soft evening drizzle. He strides toward the coffin, as if magnetized by it, as if his questions could be answered with what lies in it. He peers cautiously at the coffin. His balls tightens, prostate aches in pain, as he sees himself, or what could be his clone, lying prostrate in it; blanched, mouth agape that shows a stiff tongue, and has the smell of --- Death.

Pacman's Punch that did it

This entry concerning the recent demolition job by Manny Pacquiao to defeat David Diaz seems late. It is also a late post to state the euphoria regarding the post-fight party by Pacman with KG and the rest of the 2008 NBA Champions Boston Celtics. The statistics on how many people watched Pacquiao and the Celtics celebrated on YouTube is enough to state the obvious.

What really concerns me is the reporting done on the fight which I read on several sites. I myself watched the fight so basically I can distinguish who has the real knowledge regarding boxing. What surprised me really is how several old sport writers named the punch that sent Diaz kissing the canvas. One said it was a left jab. Another a left straight. While most got it right when they write a left hook. I’m just wondering where on earth do these sports writers came from who said it was a left jab or a left straight.

Anyway for me, a more descriptive, literary description of the punch would be: a short left snap-hook punch. (Put a wide grin here, a la Farina.)