28th July, 2008

Pluggage!

I promise to write a real entry this week — namely, my super belated Bohol trip entry, and my birthday last July 5. :D Work has just been crazy! For now, I gotta plug some of the recent fanlistings I adopted from Ryoko, Alison and Honey, respectively. I had all these babies up the past week:

DannyxSam of Danny Phantom (animation) -- thanks, Ryoko!

Savage Garden (Album) FL -- thanks, Alison!

Troy Bolton of High School Musical -- thanks, Honey!

All of them are wishlisters. *bounces excitedly* I feel so honored and proud. You don’t know how awesome it is to be approved for a subject you really, really like! (One of these days I must also write about why I am into fanlistings a whole lot — but for now, why not head on over to the headquarters?)

Plus, I made shiny new buttons for my affiliates! ♥ I realize their buttons are of different sizes, so I made them all 75×50px buttons, the ideal size for most fanlisting codes, and in my opinion, and linkback button. You just see more of the image code without being too huge. (To my wonderful affies, please feel free to use them for your own site!)

Also, Pepper has a contest up:

And big thanks to my host Ceege for the account upgrades on their anniversary just recently! ♥ Now I can host up to ten people! If interested, kindly go here. On that note, let me formally welcome to my first hostee, Rebecca! *glomps* Give her some love, everybody!

Some cool sites I randomly hopped on: TinyPic allows you to add special effects to your graphics; Spring Widgets has some cool countdown blog gadgets — browse through its enormous gallery; and lastly, while not a devotee of Twitter (I often forget to update, so my page is basically dead, lol), you’re free to follow me anyway — just make sure I know you! :)

That’s all for my plugging — if you want to plug yours, comment or head on to my plugboards!

Permalink | Posted at 3:12 pm | Comment (1)

16th July, 2008

Wordpress 2.6 now available

But is there any way to upgrade automatically? I have the link to the entire package for the first-time install. How I not do that? XD I really just want the upgrade package.

Permalink | Posted at 11:32 am | Comments (5)

7th July, 2008

Wimbledon 2008 Finals: Just unbelievable.

What a truly unbelievable Wimbledon Final. First, five-time champ Roger Federer (yes, that’s five titles in five straight years) LOST the chance to break tennis legend Bjorn Borg’s record wins — now they’re tied for five consecutive wins, the most for any gentleman’s tennis champion. But the fact that he lost it to his “nemesis on clay” (to quote Star Sports commentator and former tennis player Vijay Singh) Rafael Nadal just made things seem more surreal.

Yes, that handsome young Spaniard four years the Swiss’ junior, informally dubbed as the King of Clay, finally broke the curse against him and the grass surface. He’s been up against Roger before in Wimbledon matches, and predictably, lost. Federer’s the master of grass, but clay is Rafa’s turf. And people were happy to leave it at that.

That was precisely this is why Rafa’s victory wasn’t exactly an outcome I could find myself rejoicing over. Partly because I am a fan of both players, and when they’re up against each other it was so hard to choose a side to root for — but mostly because Nadal’s win just disrupted the entire balance of the long-accepted truth of tennisdom. Don’t get me wrong, I myself am a big fan of Rafael Nadal (and his bottomless source of energy; he’s just such a raging bull on the court!) — but why couldn’t he have won next year, so Roger could have at least broken Borg’s record? :P

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23rd June, 2008

Fruits of a long rainy weekend

Classes were suspended in all levels in the whole of Metro Manila due to the effects of what I would consider a one-day supertyphoon. Yesterday it was raining like the end of the world — I was half-expecting Evan Baxter’s ark to come bursting down our subdivision streets. Plus, there was a nationwide (?) blackout for about twelve hours; it would have been scary (or utterly boring), so I took it as a sign to get some sleep. I haven’t slept a full eight hours since the schoolyear opened, and I was more than happy to catch the fortysomething winks I’ve missed. :P

So yes, I feel quite blessed. I love it when it rains (as long as I’m inside the house; it’s such a b*tch if I were caught in the rain outside). There is a sense of peace I derive from the gray skies and the uncharacteristic cool (for Metro Manila weather, that is) the water brings. When I was younger I felt most creative when it’s raining. I pick up a book and finish it in a couple of hours; I wrote poetry; I indulged in arts and crafts.

But while I’m very fortunate to be sheltered by a strong, sturdy roof and concrete walls of our bungalow home, I do keep in mind the lot of families whose homes have been destroyed by the nonstop downpour, and so we pray for their safety and recovery from this disaster.

As for being creative, as soon as the lights were back on I put my webdesign skills to the limit — I managed to finish all the fanlistings I adopted from the previous owners Inge, Rosie, and Megan:

EDIT2: And the Malibu and Sway FLs have gotten makeovers — because I could no longer take the ugliness of the first layout (for Malibu) and I just felt like a change (for Sway). XD Colors are quite monochromatic, no doubt inspired by the rainy weather.

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Permalink | Posted at 6:20 pm | Comments (6)

15th June, 2008

Quickie for the week

Just got back from the weekend in Bohol and am still choosing from the pictures I wish to post here. It’s such a beautiful island, so I made sure I enjoyed every minute of it! Going out of Manila (where I live) really made me appreciate the Philippines more.

In other news, school has opened and am enjoying my students so far. It’s tiring to be handling 30 units, my graduate classes, AND accreditation junk, but my students all make the exhaustion worth it. I only hope they remain as nice and well-behaved as the semester progresses!

Oh, and Happy Father’s Day to all! :)

Permalink | Posted at 2:15 pm | Comments (5)

2nd June, 2008

More fanlistings + 1 hostee

More fanlistings finished this week:

I also just set up my first hostee’s account, Rebecca! :) I’m impressed with her work, so it really was an honor to be picked by her. ;) She hasn’t moved in yet, so I’m just going to link her here when she does (which will be in two weeks).
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Permalink | Posted at 10:09 pm | Comments (2)

29th May, 2008

A Brave and Startling Truth

A Brave and Startling Truth
Maya Angelou
American Poet, Author and Actress

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
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Permalink | Posted at 1:49 am | Comment (0)

25th May, 2008

And then Ai~ reappears :P

I’m alive, everyone! Had too much of a life, actually, lol. I haven’t been making an appearance in my domain (shame on me) because of two things: 1) I’ve actually been working (doing some pre-schoolyear opening work, like attending conferences and busy with accreditation committee); and 2) if I’m not doing THAT, I’m busy with the pile of fanlistings I’ve adopted. I have adopted four, so far, and two upcoming. These things are addicting, seriously!

I now realize they’re mostly songs! :P So to make up for that, I’m building two other FL’s I adopted from Dawn and Vera: The NUMB3RS: All Characters [+] FL (I have plans to turn in into a mini-shrine) and the Xtreme X-Men FL. I’m so psyched! :D

Thanks to everyone who’s been coming here to check on the site. ;) Especially to everybody who’s offered to help me out with the layout! I’ve been making so many layouts but I really just couldn’t seem to make it work. *rolls eyes* I will email you guys, I promise. I’m actually excited about making the “appreciation plaques!” :P
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18th May, 2008

IE has me at my wit’s end

I give up — I seriously need help! I haven’t gotten the hang of Wordpress AT ALL, and coding themes from HTML/PHP has been turning out to be nothing but disasters. I can’t get them to work in Internet explorer. *scowls*

Would anyone want to help me code the two layouts I made into themes? I would give you an award for your site in return, I’m serious. Or a link on my sidebar, or permaplugs on my plugboard. Or a free redirect URL, or another layout. Anything! Pretty pretty please? :)

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who replied! I didn’t expect that many people to be helpful, really. I completely appreciate it.
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Permalink | Posted at 4:06 am | Comments (10)

15th May, 2008

It’s a David VS David final. Surprise, surprise.

I wasn’t at all surprised when Seisha Mercado was deprived of the slot in American Idol’s final two. Not because advertisers (and the judges themselves) have been huffing about a “David-vs-David” final practically since the season started. (And perhaps, rightly so, because those two boys are the strongest contenders, vocally.) It ’s because — well, perhaps my dad (who’s an even bigger Idol fan that I am) summed it up best:

“Majority of Idol’s voting public is female. She’s no contest against these two handsome men.”

(Actually my English translation is horrible. He said it better in Filipino: (pointing at Seisha) “Eh hindi talaga makakalusot yan sa Finals. Mga babae ang bumoboto eh, ano’ng sinabi n’ya sa dalawang gwapo?”)

And at this stage of the competition, even getting in a million votes would not be good enough if the competition has a few hundred thousand votes ahead of you. So to get more votes, she needed more admirers. It’s really too bad she’s the only girl left.

I suppose the biggest problem she has is, her appeal is quite forgettable. Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s an incredibly beautiful woman. She’s got the moves, too; she can dance very well. And she sounds extraordinary. But there’s something about her that is quite too ordinary; she just doesn’t have that recall factor, you know? As much as I like her, she does have that aura that she’s someone you’ve seen before. For some reason, her uniqueness does not transfer onto television.

Having said that, I still think it’s a mistake to see her go.

I have nothing against David Archuleta at all; I think he’s a walking miracle and a living reminder of how wonderful life is, for to be given such a second chance is such a huge blessing. I mean, for a guy who’s lost his voice, he sure can sing! Not to mention he’s such a good-looking kid, too! :) And he definitely has that recall factor Seisha (most likely) lacks.