Month: March 2007

Youtube Video Awards

Youtube recently held this Youtube Video Awards 2006, and they have announced the winners already.

2006 was a pioneering year for online video, user-created content and the YouTube community. You let us into your bedrooms, created new forms of entertainment, and radicalized popular culture. Now it’s time to reflect on what a tremendous year it was and recognize the best of the best during the first YouTube Video Awards.

These are actually for original videos by individuals. Awards were given to six videos in six categories. Obviously, ithey’re in youtube. So for the benefit of the readers whose only access to the internet is their office where youtube is blocked, I’ve included a short review of the winning videos below:

Most Creative

Entitled “Here it Goes Again,” a video of four people dancing to the beat of the song that I think is also entitled “Here it Goes Again”. What made this video so unique is that they were dancing to the flow of 8 tread mills running at like 5 kilometers per hour (?). You’ll be amazed by their movements, it must have took them quite some time to practice!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI]

Best Comedy

Smosh Short 2: Stranded – is a story of young man stranded in an island together with two of his friends, where they had nothing to eat, until they decided to just eat each other.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCd_i7wW87Q]

Best Commentary

Hotness Prevails – Well, just listen to this half-naked guy and what he can say and be entertained.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-rcjaBWvx0]

Best Series

Ask a Ninja – In this series, the ninja explains podcasting to people over the age of 12.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEmss2lg-ug]

Best Music Video

Say It’s Possble – It’s that girl with a guitar playing in front of a camera. It’s cool! She rockz!!!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARHyRI9_NB4]

Most Inspirational

Free Hug Campaign – The video claims to be a true story. He spread the free hug around, maybe for peace or something, I’m not exactly sure.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4]

Most Adorable

Kiwi! – is an animated video of a…well… Kiwi, just like that one you find in a brand of shoe polish…..whatever….the video can actually rival that of walt disney…:)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs]

These are actually the winners in their category. But you can still find the runner-ups just as amazing and entertaining. Head over to the Awards Home for more videos. For me, though, I think I’ll dig deeper into the Most Creative category because I discovered a lot more great videos in there just like the one below:

Hyperactive

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9698TqtY4A]

Venice at the Heart of the Desert

I guess it’s just time to showcase some of the photos I’ve taken in my photography career…LOL…

Now, who could have thought that Venice exists in the heart of a desert like Doha, Qatar?

Villagio

This is Villagio, a mall located near Hyatt Plaza and the Khalifa Sports City. The interior design is undoubtedly that of Venice as you can see in the movie Casanova, except of course for the modern business stores surrounding the small river.

Visit Deuts Gallery for more pictures. Hope you like my photos. Please leave comments there as well.

Villagio - Lamp - Closing Up

Only in Qatar 101

In this post, and maybe some more in the future (that’s why the 101, because there might still be 102, 103, and so on), I would like to point out some singularities of living in Qatar. Some of these may not be particularly unique only to Qatar, but as it is different compared to my beloved Pilipinas – anyway, I’ve only lived in these two countries so far.

  1. Camels – being a desert country, I thought I would see a lot of camels around. However, this is not the case. Instead, you only see camels as exhibits in certain places. As a matter of fact, camels were already replaced by Land Cruisers on the road.
  2. Roundabouts – this country is just simply full of roundabouts. You’ll see them almost all over Doha, the capital. Did it help ease out traffic? Well maybe before, but not now with the volume level of cars and trucks swarming the city.
  3. Drainage System – obviously because of the scarcity of rain in this country, government failed or maybe just simply ignored provision for drainage system.
  4. Street Names – from the looks of it, every street has a name. However, if you ask people about the street names or mentioning the name to a taxi driver, they wouldn’t know. They’ll just give you a blank look. Obviously, they don’t know the names. Even the major roads like the C-Ring, D-Ring, etc., they are not familiar with. You’ll have to rely on the use of landmarks if you want to go from one place to another. By the way, all offices and houses have PO Boxes. That’s where postal mail will reach you.
  5. Construction Everywhere – wherever you go in the city, you’ll encounter construction going on. What’s annoying, though, is that in some cases it seems like eternity before construction is through. Just take for example the construction at the side of the road of the Toyota Tower (Al Abdulghani Tower), at the corner of C-Ring and Airport Road, since we arrived here more than 6 months ago, the construction is already going on. Until now it’s not yet finished. A friend even suggested before that it should have been finished before the start of the Asian Games, but now Asian Games is long way over, and it’s not yet done.
  6. Foreigners outnumbering the locals – going around the city, it won’t take long for you to realize that indeed foreigners outnumber the locals.
  7. Qtel – apparently they are the only telco in the country, providing telephone, mobile phone and internet connectivity. I’m just glad we already have our ADSL connection (at last!), at least I had a break from waiting long minutes over the phone for the customer service representative to pick-up, while you don’t really have a ground at which you can voice out your feedback about their service.

Well, so far those are my collection. If you are also in Qatar or maybe have been here and you want to add on the list above, just leave a comment below. More pecularities to follow as I encounter (and take note of) them in the future.

Registered Voters’ List

Many bloggers are just whining about the list of registered voters in the National Capital Region being published in the internet. You can see the list here.

The issue is that the list contains the full names, registration numbers, birthdays, and complete addresses of the registrants. They claim that it’s a violation of the right to privacy.

What do I think about it? Well, I think so, but anyway, I’m not registered in NCR. But I did see the names of my aunts and cousins. What about you, did you see your names in there?

Update: It seems that they have already brought down the pdf files from the server, and as such it’s not accessible anymore.

Update: Yes, Comelec takes down online voters’ list. Read the news here.

When Philippines was Discovered by Magellan

You might have not noticed but we’re celebrating the 486th year of the discovery of the Philippines.

You wonder how I knew? Well, it’s in the song of Yoyoy Villame:

On March Sixteen Fifteen Hundred Twenty One
When Philippines was discovered by Magellan
They were sailing day and night
Across the big ocean
Until they saw a small Limasawa island.

Enjoy the youtube video:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhegdwwvpEk]

To continue with the song:

On March Sixteen Fifteen Hundred Twenty One
When Philippines was discovered by Magellan
They were sailing day and night
Across the big ocean
Until they saw a small Limasawa island.

Magellan landed in Limasawa at noon
The people met him very welcome on the shore
They did not understand
The speaking they have done
Because Kastila gid at Waray-Waray man

When Magellan landed in Cebu City
Rajah Humabon met him they were very happy
All people were baptized
And built the church of Christ
And that’s the beginning of our Catholic life

When Magellen visited in Mactan
To Christianize them everyone
But Lapu-Lapu met him on the shore
And drive Magellan to go back home

Then Magellan got so mad
Ordered his men to camouflage
“Mactan Island we could not grab
Cause Lapu-Lapu is very hard”

Then the battle began at dawn
Bolos and spears versus guns and cannons
When Magellan was hit on his neck
He stumble down and cried and cried

“Oh mother, mother, I am sick
Call the doctor very quick
Doctor, Doctor shall I die
Tell my Mama do not cry
Tell my Mama do not cry
Tell my Mama do not cry”

That’s the end of Magellan in the island of Mactan long time ago ladies and gentlemen

So, how do I say it, Happy 486th Discovery of the Philippines!? hehe

Fluorescent Lamp

I’m not exactly sure actually whether it’s true that indeed a Filipino invented the fluorescent. They say that it was written in textbooks in elementary and high school, but that I didn’t encounter.

Here’s what the wikipedia have to say:

Many believe that a Filipino named Agapito Flores was the original inventor of the fluroescent light. It is reported that that he received a French patent for his invention and sold it to General Electric, which made millions of dollars from his idea. Flores however presented his patent to General Electric after the company had already presented the fluorescent light to the public, and much after it was originally invented.

On the other hand, about.com detailed the timeline on the invention of the fluorescent.

So what now becomes of those textbooks, if there’s a claim like that indeed?

Tigbauan Church

The Tigbauan church was just featured in Explore Iloilo. This is not the first time that Tigbauan was featured in that site. But this time, the pictures are just simply awesome!

I wanted to repost some of the pictures here, and I hope the people from Explore Iloilo won’t mind. Anyway, it has watermarks on it.

Tigbauan Church

Tigbauan Church

Tigbauan Church

I really encourage everyone to visit the site and explore the beauty that is, Iloilo!

Zigzag Building

What’s the matter with this picture?

Fisheye

No, there’s no fisheye effect on this image. Looking closer:

Closer

They’re actually the Zigzag Buildings located near the West Bay area here in Qatar. The place is near the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where my client is also constructing another hotel. We went there for a site visit and inspection.

Site Visit

Spreading the Link

Just as I am overwhelmed by our ADSL wireless connection, I would like to spread some links that you may find useful.

An old news of former FIDE president, a Filipino for that matter, Florencio Campomanes, had a car accident. Here’s the news on how he celebrated his 80th birthday at the hospital, and also a lookback at his legacy to world chess. (read article). Truly a pride for Filipinos.

For those who are fortunate to have access to youtube, just wanna share this superman comedy, starring Hugh Jackman and Will Ferrell. The video would serve interesting for superman fans as well as smallville fans.

One can learn photography by describing what are brilliant photos. Here’s a collection of them.

Warren Buffet, the second richest man in the world (next to Bill Gates), was interviewed by CNBC. A summary of which you can read here. Quite inspirational, huh.

More to come in the future.

Wireless Internet At Last

At long last, we now have our wireless internet connection. After 6 months and 7 days stay here in Qatar, we have our wireless internet from Qtel up and running. That is, after waiting for 1 month till we found a place to live in, another month for our residence permit to be issued (residence permit is the primary requirement to transact with Qtel), 3 months till we get our landline installed (also by Qtel), one more month till we have our internet connection installed, and 3 days till we get our wireless router into running.

Creative BroadbandWhew! It’s a Creative Broadband Blaster Wireless ADSL 8426.

And now we can connect ten of our notebooks in the house: 5 Dell Latitude, 4 Acer Aspire, and 1 HP Pavilion, and enjoy unlimited wireless internet browsing (well, actually, unlimited up to the extent of what Qtel permits, no bloody x-rated and violence-related websites, of course!)

Thanks to Sandro for the help! It was very generous of you!