The Friendly Mail from Nigeria

When I first got one of these sort of letters in my inbox, I must admit to you that I felt a little bit of elation. It may seem embarrassing to admit that now but how could you blame me when a certain guy named Mbusu or Mbuku says he have $35,000,000.00 in his hands and that he needs my assistance in order to transfer such amount from a bank in South Africa; with a promise of a handsome payback for me to boot.

I could not believe how easy it was for me to believe in such foolishness.

But luckily for me, I had a cautious mind. The first time I read thoroughly thru this sort of letter, I have decided that if the letter sender were indeed true to form, he or she should have known my first and last name in the first place. The money was that huge and certainly not a laughing matter. If Mr. Mbusu had really needed the help of an individual online, he could have been more careful to whom he would be dealing with and not someone he merely addresses with ‘DEAR SIR or MADAM:’….in capital letters at that.

I know something about robots in the net. Emails and comments are produced in mass proportion by computer programs that can send a single mail item to hundreds of email addresses by just one click of a button. So I thought, any of such mails could be most possibly produced by bots (another name for robots in the net) and should be a scamming stinking piece of….you know what.

Once in a while, I still fell and open one of those mails that say that I was a lucky winner of a certain lottery and in faraway Canada for that matter. Maybe I have forgotten that I had not bought any lottery ticket for a very long time now, and most especially not in Canada that I still open these sort of mails every now and then. If all those mails were true and verifiable, I could have been richer than Bill Gates now.

All these mails are just a waste of time I must say, and waste of Yahoo! Mail storage space that I wonder if Yahoo! could one day offer an instant manner to erase all those spamming, stinking pieces of…you know what.

If you asked me, I’d rather open up spammingly stinking mails that offers (of all things) penis enlargement or big discounts on (of all meds) Viagra. At least, now I know that ‘it’ could actually be enlarged.

Anyway, these thoughts on those spammingly stinking emails came to mind upon reading this Yahoo! News article titled “The Top 25 Web Hoaxes and Pranks” and it’s good reading. At least now I know how these friendly Nigerians operate. And it’s amazing to note that this kind of scam phisses about a billion dollar each year and that’s amazingly huge. I wonder why some entities could be so gullible.

I feel lucky I am not that gullible.

To find out more how these friendly mails from Africa actually operates and effected, you could try visiting this page and read through it carefully. I assure its very interesting and has a funny ending to boot.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers in the world and I want to especially greet my wife Evelyn for being such a wonderful mother to our kids and you could say, me and the children could not ask for anything more. With the chicken barbecues she got with that special secret spices, there’d always be smiles and laughters in our home.

Of course, my greetings also goes to my Mom Darwisa who becomes stronger as each day comes (and goes), after my father had passed last year and remains a strength behind me and to all her children. To my mother-in-law Nanay who at 89 is the strongest mom that my wife could ever had, and probably the best she could ever have.

To my sister Rimaisa who had a grand wedding last January and would soon be a mom in the coming months (we hope) and to my cousins Rose and Fharrah who are great mothers to their kids also, as well as to their mom Auntie Nene, who is always there for her children.

To my aunt Naifiesa who remains a guiding light to her husband who is now running for mayor in our hometown down south in Tawi-Tawi. I hope she could be the driving and winning force this coming Monday and win it all.

To our helper and good neighbor Manang Mercy, who cooked the best so far among all helpers we ever had. And to our good neighbor Auntie Rose who has two beauteous and wonderful daughters.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of them.

Of course, I would not dare forget to greet all the wonderful moms online like Bing, Toe, Ipanema, Bambit, Teacher Sol, Ayesha, Nicehaert, Nao, Liza, Ms. Luchie, Ladybug, Ms. B., Evi, BokBok, Rhodora, and Jayred.

I hope I am not forgetting anyone. Happy Mother’s Day na rin to the wonderful single girls like Atticus,Curacha, Verns and Daphne.

What would this world be without the good mothers we all had? And how could we men imagine a world without the women in our lives.

It must be unthinkable.

I remember that in my college days in Ateneo de Zamboanga, I once had joined this exteporanoues speaking contest with the the subject of women as the main discussion point. I remember that when in the first stages of my speech, the crowd roared in approval and I had gotten the most rambuncticous audience response for my startling exposition of how women deserves to have equal rights as that with men. I forgot how exactly I had spoken in that speech, or the words I had uttered but the crowd did applauded me so well that even my English subject moderator was so up in toe watching me from the back of the hall.

But what I forgot to remember is that there is a major rule in that speech contest, where there was a time limit for every contestant and I was a bit unkindly to have wanted to go on and on with my dialogue and had wanted to tell the crowd about the story of Joan of Arc, about how she was merely a young women who had pretended to be a male indivdual, to lead the French soldiers towards a deafening victory against the invading English marauders.

When I started saying “Let me tell you a story….”, the bell suddenly rang and I was startled and so surprised that I could not believe my ears that very moment and the crowd went “aahhhhhh’, like they were very disappointed too. And I was there standing so shaken and couldn’t move, like a frozen cavemen, suddenly realizing that I had just disqualified myself. So I lost that contest.

But I think, I should have gone on telling the Joan of Arc story despite that I knew already then that there was no more possibility for me of winning.

The story of Joan of Arc is just too good and I believe in the story so well.

MyJournal Wordpress Theme For Blogsome

Hans of Blogsquare—-the sharp guy who invented this theme—-stated that at one time, it had been downloaded 60 times a day. Now that’s pretty superflous and yet that’s true. Quite amazing feat for a wordpress theme that is not much talked about, unlike some other more popular ones.

Considering how neat (as a blogger friend had once described it) and so fluid it is, it would not be so surprising that this MyJournal-Ethereal theme is briskly downloaded.

See this screenshot:

Fluidity is the most apt term for it. And simplicity too. And it might simply be the one of the best, if not the best white minimalist theme available on the open source market. See the DEMO site here.

For Blogsome users—-DOWNLOAD the files here.

For pure Wordpress codes, visit this site.

Frogs

It’s both startling and astonishing how the weather behaves strangely nowadays. In the initial days of March, when summer was supposed to be ushered in gradually, the rains came pouring in, like an unexpected visitor whom one does not know exactly how to receive—-had it came for a bountiful afternoon chatter over bristling cups of coffee or had just got to stop by due to a vital intent?

And now while May slowly loses its days to another month, the rains are hard to come by and the temperature rises even when night falls so deep into midnight, when it is supposed to be cool and breezy outside, and of course in the living room.

Strange weather, really.

So the ground are so dry nowadays that some afternoons ago I decided to weed out the backyard with unwanted growths, having no troubles whatsoever with muddy soil that get stuck in the slippers I wear. I had once popped the idea of landscaping the whole area with Bermuda grasses to my wife—-about a week ago—- but even I had scoffed when she mentioned to me that it would cost nearly ten thousand bucks to have it done by gardeners from the plant store across the highway. What do you actually call these establishments that sells plants and flowers in pots. I actually have no idea as of this moment.

So for now, the bermudas or carabao grasses would have to wait and I’ve got to contend myself of laboring towards manually eliminating the weeds for now (which can actually grow towards knee level when left unattended for so long) and my oh my, it was so painstaking an activity that my muscles ache all night long after that, and when I woke up the next morning, I could barely walk.

When I was scything the weeds, I had discovered that frogs were ensconced tightly in some nooks and corners of the waterless ground. I noticed this sight immediately for it was certainly a bit of an aberration to see frogs while water is so absent in an area. Frogs means water or rain. And rain means tadpoles and croaking reverberations in the night.

I then wonder how these amphibians can keep up with the arid surroundings even when I know that usually they soak themselves in cool water almost all the time. To be sure, it must have meant that frogs have developed adaptation schemes to combat queer weather situation and atypical habitats. Now perhaps there comes the answer to the momentary query of where do frogs goes when the rains haven’t come for a long, long time. They hide themselves in darkened nooks and crevices in the ground, behind and under mossy stones and shady plants, over misty soil where sunrays could not dry up thoroughly.

This reminds me of an episode of one of my favorite television show when I was a kid, Life On Earth. One unforgettable discussion there was this very strange looking fresh-water fish who can survive for months and months to come even when the ground become so dry that the soil is caked all throughout, like in a span of desert that is so cruel to any shrubbery.

I remember how the host Mr. David Attenborough—-he with the effervently musky voice—had dug about a couple of feet into the dry ground and grabbed a morsel of mud formation which he then dropped into a huge basin full of water. And then lo and behold, the pack of solidified mud started to move and slowly a funny looking fish swam away like it was just another day in the river.

It was so amazing how a water creature could survive for so long without water, breathing dry air and being stuck in cakes of mud like a frozen caveman; in order to wait for the rain to finally come and when the water rises again, the strange fish wiggles away into the world where it usually thrive on, and start another cycle in its life span.

Could you imagine a fish surviving out of the water for far too long, like half a year at a time? I couldn’t. But I remember that there was one fish that could actually do that. Therefore presenting an exception to that famous euphemism of being a “fish out of a water”, like I am so miserable now that I am like a fish out of the water.

Amazing survivability this fish has. And also those frogs in our backyard.

How To Save A Life

I rarely blog about music nowadays even though I am a very avid music lover. But one day about a month ago, I was browsing BillBoard’s Top 100 to find new music that I may add up to my listening menu. I had been revolving mostly around regular faves like U2’s unforgettable Rattle and Hum double album, Bob Dylan’s old masterpieces, Bruce Springsteen “best of” album (listening to The River over and over again), and about a couple of nights ago, I thought of putting on Billy Holiday on the DVD player slash VCD player slash CD player slash karaoke system ( most entertainment electronic device nowadays are such) after renoticing an old CD of hers I kept from view inside a dusty rectangular box where I usually store cassetes and cd’s not within my regular listening list.

And high on the list of the charts is a band named The Fray which I thought has a very cool and nifty name for a musical group and wondered why nobody thought of that before. I immediately listened to the sample audio clip of it’s hit “How To Live A Life” and was easily endeared by it although not in a big way, like I did for example upon hearing for the first time U2’s “Where The Streets Have No Name” or Gun’s N Roses’ “Welcome To The Jungle” —-songs that had somehow became landmarks of my early adulthood.

But….but I have downloaded a full copy of The Fray’s “How To Live A Life”, including some of the band’s other songs and played them over and over again on lazy afternoons and that beginning part of that song (How To Save A Life) that goes “Step one you say we need to talk…” keeps ringing over and over again in my head, even until the moment of sleep, that I find myself humming its melodies often.
It must be that I liked the song so thoroughly that’s why I kept thinking about it and I suddenly realize that It has been for a long time now that I had last became so excited about a song or a band. The last time perhaps was when I first got to hear about Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Scar Tissue” and that was really a very long, long time ago—-like 5 years ago.

“How To Save A Life” is such a good modern rock song—-so good in fact that I kept humming it while I am driving along spalted downtown streets. This is one exciting band that knows its music and knows what radio-friendly means while being lyrically relevant. Rarely you see this in a band nowadays. They can be huge like Gin Blossoms when they were at the top of their years. Mystical like Stone Roses with very original melodies. Or possibly become legendary like REM for their meaningful messages.

The song ask a question and we wonder what answer does it demand. How does one really save a life? Within its lyrics is deep emotions. The songs laments on how to “…lose a friend last night” and then on “…how to save a life”; it’s a song about longing and lost, that despite it’s ear-candy melodies, it is a lonely song that spoke of lament and endearment—-of discovery and then of separation. It’s one of the featured song in the hit medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” that it is so apt to a show that presents characters in scenes where lives are either lost or saved, destroyed or rebuilt, found or lost.

Listen to “How To SAve A Life” here.

See full lyrics here.

Liverpool Versus AC Milan: A Dream Match Up For Europe's Top Soccer Price

Definitely it’s Europe’s answer to America’s Superbowl. This morning’s UEFA Champion’s League Final between England’s Liverpool and Italy side AC Milan is highly anticipated that with almost the whole world watching—-from Bangkok to Buenos Aires—-it could just become even bigger than the Superbowl and nearly the Olympics.

I was bookmarking this match in my mind for more than a week now but forgot entirely about it, my thought being filled with myriads of everyday concerns. Luckily for me, I tuned in to BBC this afternoon and got informed of the match in the best timing ever, as 40,000 Liverpool fans was seen trooping to Greece’s capital city Athens in bright red get-ups (the Liverpool color) and it was reported that a major problem was looming where all of those English fans can’t possibly enter the stadium where the game is to be played (probably tickets must have been sold out earlier in the week).

This situation had apparently caused massive ticket scalping where prices have allegedly gone up to as high as 3000 US Dollar per entrance. Now that’s superfluous. 150,000 Pesos for a ticket is certainly unheard of in this part of town. That just tells us how important this sporting event had become since its inception 52 years ago.

So I’ll be up until dawn tonight, errr, I mean this morning (it’s about 12:30 am as of this writing) and hope that the couple of mugs of coffee I had drink a while ago could effectively stave off sleepiness as far as possible.

If you’re wondering what team I am supporting, I must say that I must be rooting for Liverpool since I have been more inclined to watch England’s Premier League on cable television in recent days than the highly irregular Serie A of Italy or Primera Liga of Spain (irregular means sports channel carry them in a certain year but not every year).

Liverpool’s Stephen Gerrard is one of Europe’s hottest players nowadays and with Peter Crouch on the striking front, the men in red could just do a repeat of their 2005’s victorious campaign of Europe’s most coveted title, beating the same AC Milan after being down 3-0 at halftime. Although this time the law on averages could just catch up with Liverpool since they have already won this title a couple of years ago and so maybe now, it’s payback time for AC Milan. You know in sports, they always say that you can’t win all the time for the law on averages would soon catch up on you, and you can’t always have a good shooting night, for the averages would always be there to correct the statistics. Unless of course you are Michael Jordan; to whom the law on averages seems to be inapplicable—-especially during his superlative playing days for Chicago in the mid-90’s.

Gerrard and Crouch were main anchors in the English national team that got haplessly booted out by the surprising Portugal team in the quarterfinals of last year’s World Cup event; that this upcoming UEFA Champion’s Cup match feels like a dream World Cup encounter between England and Italy (the current Cup holder) since Gennaro Gattuso, the elemental factor in last year’s successful World Cup run for Italy, is also on the AC Milan side.

If I imagine perhaps a World Cup finals between Italy and England, which is a dream match-up for me, then this must be how it would feel like—-Liverpool versus AC Milan.

Arcade Fire: A Neophyte Band With Veteran Moves

Arcade Fire—-seems to me like the safest name for a band, especially for a new-wave rock group. It is so gothic sounding even while gothic music is not anymore in vogue these days.

And yet Arcade Fire is making waves in the music scene like a comet on a clear evening sky; that despite of it being merely an upstart band, it had already garnered for itself a Grammy award nomination. That’s an achievement that is hard to follow for any new indie rock band. This ethereal group was formed in the middle of 2003 in Montreal, Quebec and had a debut album titled Funeral which went to become a sleeper hit and was in fact considered an internet phenomenon after getting sold sizably online, following an excellent 9.7 critic rating from Pitchfork.

The first time I had encountered the music of Arcade Fire, I had felt intense familiarity with it as if I had already known them for so long. But the truth is, Arcade Fire is just a new band even though they are playing like refined veterans—-with unparalleled intensity and attitude, and a steady no-care-what-the-critics-say rocker gait.

Their music is quite familiar in a sense that it can easily be taken in without any hint of protest from the listening side. Yet the melodies in their songs are so innovative that they are completely original. I do not know exactly if such circumstance could be possible or such combination be reasonably realistic but that’s just how I feel about them. Perhaps, this is the main reason why I had adored Arcade Fire in an instant, where aside from The Fray’s hit singles (How To Save A Life, Over My Head), it is their latest album Neon Bible that is so heavy on my rotation, especially on afternoons in the backyard, sipping smoldering coffee and reading a fresh book or tuning in to the early evening news.

I could well remember the days when the Psychedelic Furs were riding up so high, that listening to Arcade Fire has that same experience I have gotten then; as Richard Butler filled my college years with his heavenly groans singing Pretty In Pink and Ghost In You. This may just altogether be a sign that there is still hope for new wave resurrection, even if many thought that new wave is completely dead. This may also be a hint that the rock music scene could still afford to do some backward steps, to the days when music was an entirely effective form of social expression (of angst and rebellion sometimes); in order to forward whole opinions and forceful digressions; as music then was such a significant means to important aims or objectives.

Arcade Fire’s lyrics are strong and unrelenting; clearly uncompromising and that’s why listening to them for the first time is akin to meeting a long lost friend after a very long and ardous journey from afar, traveling back to the days when bands like U2 and The Smiths was still as outspoken as a dead poet or to that momentous year when a seemingly roguish upstart band from Seattle named Pearl Jam released the very strong and heavy Ten album—-a musical work that was filled with stark realism that it resembles what Fyodor Dostoyevsky would have made if he was a modern rock superstar.

In Windowsill, “Don’t wanna live in my father’s house no more
Don’t wanna fight in a holy war
Don’t want the salesmen knocking at my door
I don’t wanna live in America no more…Don’t wanna sit in the windowsill no more…; that’s how strong their opinions can become and so ultimately frank and honest.

And in Crown of Love, the band’s lead-singer and songwriter Win Butler sings, “They say it fades if you let it, love was made to forget it. I carved
your name across my eyelids, you pray for rain i pray for blindness.
if you still want me, please forgive me, the crown of love is not upon me…” . The emotions gets so high towards the end of this song that in the background, one can hear a cruel violin, feint but insisting, to pursue a lost emotion.

This band has such powerful music, and so affecting lyrics.

Musically, Arcade Fire blows the listener away with crisp instrumentality; combining ethereal digital sounds with the tender sounds of classical instruments like the violin and cello. Half the time—-in their livelier pieces—-an upbeat bass sound reverberates like a war chant and puts liveliness into the air only the likes of Bruce Springsteen and the Rollingstones could provide previously.

And I could not help but be reminded of the excellent Australian band Midnight Oil , the group that had the historic Diesel And Dust album released in 1989. Win Butler vocals sounds so much like Pete Garrett of Midnight Oil and that’s a good thing since the Aussie band’s distinctive vocal have been often imitated by many bands in the 90’s but clearly never equaled. Perhaps Win Butler is Garrett’s worthy heir apparent.

Arcade Fire should by all sense be the next big thing in the rock music scene.
This Canadian band is riding high on the crest of its initial success—-both critically and financially—-and they only have their superb brand of music to thank for. They have been to the David Letterman show, they have been interviewed by BBC, and they have already appeared on Time Magazine’s front cover. Success is printed all over them in bold capital letters.

Listen to samples of Arcade Fire’s music on Last FM.

Listen now to the single “Crown of Love” from their 1994 Funeral album:

Frogs v.2

I have some thoughts that I haven’t had elaborated in my earlier post entitled “Frogs” and I can’t seem to get still without scratching this itch, these questions left in my mind. In that previous post, I have pondered on how frogs and other water-loving creatures survived when rains does not fall for a lengthy period of time; this upon observing that frogs actually deposit themselves in shady areas like spongy crevices underneath fairly size stones and behind leafy plants located in areas where the sun could not penetrate that much.

I see them frogs laying still and unmoving even if I make some hushing noise, apparently determined to hibernate as they read the climate so well—-no rains, therefore we stand still. Amazing tenacity they have for to stand still is to perish where to us humans, we need to move to survive, we could not stand still or else we fail to survive. But frogs could stand still and still survive. In this manner, they could be a better specie—-than we humans.

Now I kept thinking that the frogs I see on our backyard while the rains haven’t come are exactly of no use to me that despite the fact that they aren’t what we could consider as pest—-like locusts ravaging the ricefields or mosquitoes rummaging on our blood—-I had thought of getting rid of them completely, hauling them one by one from the shady places they hide themselves and throw them out of the fence.

Yet I felt that I could be completely unfair to them since they aren’t really a pest in the purest sense except that I do not like them leaping and creeping around the pathways when I am navigating the areas in the backyard. Their dark and slimy skin seems to be an odd sight to me.

I had pondered if in fact frogs are really of use to us human beings. They couldn’t be foodstuff except for some specie plying cleaner locations like ricefields and natural ponds. They can’t also be pets for only stranger individuals had kept frogs as pets; like the ones I saw on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!

Although I know for a fact that they eat or lick mosquitoes in through their all-too-lengthy tongues and one can say they could help control or regulate widespread mosquito infestations in our environment. But why do we need them when we can just hie off to the nearby grocery store and buy Baygon insect spray or we can just light up a mosquito repellent that we can buy in the sari-sari store across the street. Maybe in the ancient days when the Germans hadn’t yet invented Baygon, that could have been the time that we needed lots of frogs in our surroundings.

But now, I wonder why they are here, croaking at rainy nights and serenading songs that we ain’t really pond of.

In our elementary days, we are given basic scientific lessons on the web of life. I remember that so well including those charts that exhibits different food groups that we need to consume in order to live a healthy and well-rounded lives; you know those rhythmic annotations that says “ang itlog ay pampabilog ng mukha”, “and gulay ay pampakinis ng kutis”, such and such thing.

And in the web of life, we are taught that every creature is of importance to nature and to earth’s existence, that trees could help strengthen the soil and thus prevent erosion, snakes could help minimize rat infestations in the fields, plants spew much-needed oxygen into the air, birds and butterflies can spread seeds for them to grow in a more widespread manner, anteaters help plow the ground in order that seeds could easily grow, fishes give food and nutrients to mankind, and mankind….and mankind….oh by the way, I forgot how mankind could be beneficial to nature; I hope someone could remind me.

And so that’s how the web of life goes; and intermingling process of creatures that could be helpful to each other and to nature in general; that could be conceptualized also in that lesson we are taught as “food chains”—-frogs eating mosquitoes, snakes eating frogs, eagles eating snakes, man eating eagles…such and such thing. I wonder how eagles really taste. Must have been just like chicken.

Now let’s go back to frogs—despite that they could help minimize mosquito infestations, we all know by now that Baygon could be better regulators. Have frogs lost their importance in this world? Are they the vestiges of an old and obsolete web of life, that now we have a new form or web?

Snglguy had once stated that frogs are good barometers of our environment. But what if man could one day invent highly-advanced equipment that could monitor our environment with razor-sharp accuracy, like missile guided Tomahawks that George Bush have? Then, frogs would simply lose every bit of reason to be croaking ugly night songs when the rain comes. Maybe modernity have started to creep into the web of life as we know it, that machines and equipments is starting to dictate another form of system in this world we call Earth that just like in the movies we see, machines could one day rule the world.

It is a scary thought sometimes. But it is just a thought.

Microsoft Unveils Surface Computing

Domino-tagging, Surface Computing technology, real-life object——these are the terms that shall be new right now (this day in fact) but would be the idioms of the future
in the computer world. Just five hours ago, Bill Gates and Microsoft had unveiled the Surface Screen computing to a wide media coverage with Gates himself demonstrating the computer-of-the-future where the keypad and the mouse shall take a backseat and would be doomed to obselescence, as he(Gates) showed and wowed worldwide audience on the amazing capability and innovation of a computer system that both beguiles and amazes the mind.

In surface screen computing system, operations can be done thru the simple use of the hands or fingers. The conduct becomes simpler yet the technology behind it challenges the boundaries of thought. I myself could not believe that this day would come, when reality meets fiction and fiction rattles reality. And through all that, my mind is reminded of a very futuristic movie in Tom Cruise’s and Steven Speilberg’s “Minority Report” where the huge computing system could be efficiently controlled by bare hands or fingers; as images zooms in or zooms out, enters or escapes, with merely the wave of the hand. This is the future, now.

And the package is so neat with the use of giant screens for multiple users at any one time. And the images are sharper and clearer and definitely—-as I have said earlier—-operations would be simpler and more efficient.

There is some hitch to this “new thing” however for it costs a whopping ten thousand dollars to have it in your living room at this time, about half a million pesos. Or simply said, it is equal to having a brand new car in the Philippines.

But Bill Gates committed prominently that prices would sharply dive down in three or five years, as sales gradually increase (exponentially I hope). So for now, we have to wait and be patient.

Soon surface computing would be available on the nearby second hand store. Or on Ebay for that matter. At a much affordable price—-I hope.

Most Comprehensive Listing Of Wordpress Themes And Some Helpful Tips

Bloggers with exclusively hosted domains mostly use Wordpress as the platform for its designs as well as content management. Rarely other modules—like Serepindity or Movable Type—get utilized. Aside from being an open source package, Wordpress secures to its users a wide array of design choices, far more varied and numerous than the others.

And often, bloggers resort almost automatically to Wordpress whenever they find the need to change their look and feel. I have observe that most bloggers modify or revise their themes every now and then, fascinating their viewers with fresh new sights and views, sometime coming to us like a radiant and full blooming of a beauteous flower, suddenly opening up before our eyes and then be awed by it. This is perhaps why I get excited whenever I see new designs being exhibited by some bloggers I often visit. It’s pure entertainment, I must say. Even I—-despite that my website is not hosted exclusively—-often resorts to Wordpress for my design needs, tweaking original codes to fit into the Blogsome module I am now using.

On the one hand, I feel that somehow, remodeling or redesigning weblogs—-especially too often for comfort, like I do somehow—-could unnecessarily turn-off readers away as the site’s look and feel get revised all the time, and somehow this would negatively affect frequent readers, for being taken out of sort—-having been used so much to older designs and then to be suddenly be staring at a new set of structures and figures on the screen and quip silently in mind, “This seems to be not anymore the blog that I had become fond of yesterday..” and then decide not to visit it as often as possible. This is what I think the downside of redesigning.

But other than that, experimenting with other looks and theme becomes a positive activity to me, like creating is such an addictive activity—-just like power as that famous adage states.

Now I have gone over to Blogosquare and read about this very informative and helpful post that offers tips in choosing or selecting the kind of Wordpress designs for you. Hans over there discusses quite effectively on the factors that one must consider when deciding to change themes. I know that most of us are already aware of the common issues like IE and Mozilla compatibility, fast or slow loading designs, easy-to-decipher codings but I feel that it is still necessary to be reminded by these elements of web designs. And for newbies, these tips would absolutely come in handy.

And besides, Hans had enumerated there a list of sites where some of the best Wordpress themes could be found—-those that are not even in the theme viewer—-and I found most especially robust is the list from Writerspace, where the gallery includes designs by local bloggers Derek Punzalan and Bryan Veloso, both having gained sharp reputation for their web designs not only here in our country, but also elsewhere. Also included in that list is a modified Simpla design by Jorge Cosgayon whose blog Far From Neutral Notions has just won the Best Blog Design award in the recently concluded Philippine Blog Award.

If you are browsing for that new Wordpress look you have in mind, this Blogsquare post is the opne for you—-ultimately helpful and very comprehensive list of very good designs.

Get the comprehensive Wordpress Themes listing HERE

Pretend

I was just watching the opening segment of the The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and I couldn’t help but let out a rather loud chuckle when he had quipped about the subject of “pretending to be a student”. He had opened the joke by plaintively stating how this famous guy (the rockstar Tommy Lee I think) had complained about how tough or disagreeable it was for him to be pretending to study for eight months—-referring perhaps to the television reality show “Tommy Lee Goes To School” that he starred in.

And then Mr. Leno said that Tommy Lee was just complaining too much and being a sissy for he (Leno) himself did not pretend to attend school for only eight months, BUT for four disagreeable years. And then I laugh so hard inside me and bented out that loud chortle.

Who really says school is fun? If there is anyone out there who think it is, please raise your right hand.

I am not saying that attending 5 to 8 classes everyday (as it is in college) is such a disagreeable activity. I know some of us here are educators and wouldn’t take it quite so well if somebody else says they hate it to be within your area of practice or occupation. For the record, I didn’t hate attending college. But at the same time——just like most of the population—-I was not exactly very fond of it either. Maybe just somewhere in between; liking to be at school half the time and being lazy at some other time. Maybe this was the reason why I haven’t got “A” grades in my college years—-unlike in my elementary and highschool years.

Education is really mostly of motivation. What drives the student to thrive harder in school? What’s their incentives other than still a mostly mythical success in the future?

I have seen some of them excelling almost all the time and I thought I should have reasonably equal intelligence quotient with most of them, maybe even higher at that, but somehow I was just not so industrious to be a wunderkind in the classroom.

There were many times back then that I had daydreamed about the day when finally I would be free from classrooms and all those mushy blackboards that was in front of me almost on a daily basis. At that time, it was nearly a utopic idea for I was still planning to take up law after my accounting degree.

I had wished then that I should be like a bird (with wings of course) and fly away from all the lazy afternoons that I got myself stuck in classrooms that could be so eerily silent—-especially when the respective teacher was a known terror—-when all I wanna do then was take a nap. But one could not just say to oneself “I shall take a nap” when one is in a classroom with a bespectacled teacher holding a long wooden rod, ready to whack one’s butt if one make the slightest mistake. I know that there aren’t no more whacking in college; but I just felt that some of my college teachers were so much inclined to harm us physically—-especially when almost everyone had blank stares, not being able to fully absorb the lessons she or he had blabber-mouthed all afternoon.

So there I was, trying to hold off sleep in some lazy afternoons while attending accounting classes full of “income statements” and “journal entries”. There were times that I just could not listen to the lessons being given for my mind was so windy and fragile, like I wanted to be somewhere else rather than inside the four corners of an electricfannized room. I believe that I had passed all my accounting subjects by mostly self-studying at home, not really listening to the lectures in classes I have attended but merely cramping up in my solitary room when the night comes and read the lessons taken for the day all by myself or read future lesssons in advance. I like it that way. I was more comfortable with that self-imposed learning system and luckily, I passed all my accounting subjects—-the hardest subjects for me—-and did not repeat any of them. That was some feat I realized by now.

So mostly when the lazy bug had hit me then and I found myself stuck inside a classroom and the class is often more than an hour—-like one and a half hour or sometimes for straight three hours—-I just sit at the back of the room oh so quietly and open up a thick textbook (or maybe some other book) and pretend to read and then giving stares at the teacher blabbering in front once in a while, and pretend to listen.

You know if anyone thinks that studying hard is so difficult, then he or she hasn’t tried “pretending to study hard”. It was just so bad and thorny, like being held by a Gestapo officer and tied to a wooden chair.

Now I ain’t downgrading here the value of education or boost up the crazy comfort of laziness. Education is so important for all of us and I do realize now that If I weren’t so lazy then, I would have had a better occupation by now, and have more money in my pocket. So kids, if ever any of you happen to read this, remember to study hard and don’t imitate Major Tom on this aspect. And also, always remember that smoking is always dangerous to your health.

Gaining that accounting degree in the end wasn’t so easy for me. It was tough and rigorous especially when at times I got too bored with numbers and statistics, having nightmares. I think numbers was just not for me. But there was I, by some circumstances, studying how to count other people’s money.

And it was not easy counting at all. You could count bills from one to a million and that’s easy. But in accountancy, we got to learn to count the monies by using hordes of yellow-colored and very wide worksheets and must know how to balance some balance sheets (they ain’t balanced all the time especially if one didn’t study too hard) and got to reconcile bank statements almost often that at one time, when I got so freaking out tired of all the numbers, I had wanted to ask my accounting teacher why the bank statements won’t better decide to patch up their differences and stop fighting with each other, and be reconciled? Why the hell did we have to reconcile these bank statements by ourselves? But apparently that was a very brainless question, so I didn’t ask anymore.

Oh, I had meant this initially to be fully a humorous post. Now I think it had gotten a little too serious and stern.

But honesty is a virtue. It was hard for me to study. But it was even more difficult to pretend to study. That I have learned before and Mr. Jay Leno could joke about this for all I care.

This post by the way reminds me of this REM song“World Leader Pretend” which is to me the most politically sarcastic song and comically brings and raise up the tragical state of our present global politcs……This is my world… Michael Stipe sings, “…And I am world leader pretend..I sit at my table,
And wage war on myself. It seems like it’s all for nothing…. Listen to it, maybe you’ll like it. Like I did and made it one of my all-time fave rock song. See complete lyrics here.

Mr. Jack Ryan Is A Comedian

What’s with Mr. Alec Baldwin? I have been seeing him for a number of times now in the weekend show “Saturday Night Live” and I thought it was merely a passing thing for him for afterall he is (or was) a serious actor first and foremost—-or even an action movie starrer as Jack Ryan in Tom Clancy’s superthriller “Hunt For Red October” (who could forget that).

Yet now he seems to be a regular already in the abovementioned show together with Steve Martin and Martin Short. Not that it is entirely unthinkable for Mr. Baldwin to be funny sometimes and be in a comedy show but it is just that I could not seem to well-absorb the idea of him being a television comedian in the likes of Jerry Seinfeld or Ray Romano. But there he was there making funny antics on that weekend comedy show and you know what, he seems to be so good at it that I wonder if I would ever be able to see him in any other light except for a very good and very funny comedian—-like he is now. He used to be a drama actor, ain’t he? The guy in “Nuremberg” and “Beetle Juice” ?

So by the way, I got so cracked up laughing at tonight’s episode of “Saturday Night Live” where Mr. Baldwin did a very good imitation of the singing super idol Tony Bennett and my oh my, he was so good at it that he could even closely imitate Mr. Bennet’s inimitable and entirely original voice—-that loud husky voice that is like no other.

I am a huge Frank Sinatra follower but whenever I hear the very unique singing prowess of Tony Bennett, I become of double-mind; who is better of the two? Who is better than whom? Although the man they call the Old Blue Eye is still best for me among male crooners.

I first got to hear about Tony Bennett about the time when I was still so fresh out of college from Ateneo de Zamboanga and got hired as a TV reporter for the ABC 5 channel affiliate here. One day, while loitering around the TV station’s premises, I got to meet a couple of very young lady DJ’s and the two had asked me (out of nowhere it had seem) where I was going or what was I up to at that time. In my mind I had thought then that they were overly friendly when I had not even been formally introduced to them previously and I was feeling so uncomfortable.

But being so gentlemanly that I was supposed to be, I smiled back at them and told them perfunctorily that I was planning to hie-off to a nearby record store and buy some music. What album (we don’t call it CD back then) am I planning to score they asked me. I told them that I have nothing particular in mind at that moment but I just see when I get there. Both ladies said that they could come with me and advise me on what to buy (being DJ’s that they were, they should know better ika nga). Not wanting to disappoint them and be misunderstood, I said why not. But in my mind I thought “geezzzz, I ain’t really comfortable with this, buying records with two people I barely know”. It used to be that buying records is some sort of a personal ritual for me, scouring around the stacks of records so slowly and being able to examine the music available in a time of my own, and not be hurried and be able to think for myself.

So to make the story short, they had egged me (more like trapped me) into buying a Tony Bennett album, an MTV unplugged record of the old crooner if I remember correctly. Back then, I was more into rock and roll or new wave kind of music that when I got home, I was feeling a little disgusted that I had to be so polite and had to buy some music of some old famous guy.

But after listening to Tony Bennett for some time, I felt that his voice was just magical and now as I remember that day when two virtual unknowns came to me and offered to become music advisers, I could perhaps thank those two young DJ’s for introducing me to the oh so wonderful sound and voice of Tony Bennet.

I know you’ll like him and his music—-it is just wonderful and sublime.

See Mr. Tony Bennett sing the song he is so famous for, “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” here.

What’s In A Fish?

I’ve just caught my eye on this headlined article about the recent plan of the European Union to curtail or even impede the fishing of bluefin tuna in the european side of the Atlantic and towards the Mediterranean seas where most of them actually thrive.

This move is apparently the result of environmentalists’ reports that stocks of the highly-priced tuna specie is fast dwindling and would soon be extinct if fishing for such would not be drastically brought down to unprecedented (low) levels.

Tsk..tsk…we used to worry solely of dolphins and whales disappearing from our seas, (along with for-rich-only sturgeons in the Black Sea) but now, the luscious tuna would soon be on our list. Statistics shows that bluefin may not be the only tuna specie that would be at risk of extinction but also the more prevalent ones like the yellowfin and skipjack, two species that the Philippines is a major exporter of—-about half-a-billion dollars worth of shipment to the United States and Japan.

In a year, the entire catch of tuna reaches nearly 3 Million tons and with such gargantuan magnitude, environmentalists from the WWF sees intense overfishing and cries out the need for a general limit to fishing quotas across the globe.

I wonder if this present tuna debacle would soon affect the rack prices of my favorite Century Tuna’s over at my favorite grocery store just a block away. Over the years, I have seen the steady rice of canned tuna to nearly double of what it had cost some five years ago. It used to be around somewhere 17 bucks per pop but now, it can go as high as 30 pesos. I often squirm seeing those ever-changing white sticker price tags pasted on them tuna cans.

I could say that I am a tuna fanatic and I want to eat it uncooked, with chunks and chunks of it dipped in savory oil or brine, and steamy rice on the side. Forget about chickenjoys or mcburgers, but when I feel the need for real hearty meal, I’d just be hiking off to that grocery store I had mentioned above and eat to my heart’s delight.

An uncle once told me that in America, tunas are merely consumed as cat food. I wonder if this is true. Do you think that American cats are so privileged kind that them mewwing lots had made Uncle Sam as this nation’s number one importer of tuna products? I don’t think so.

Apparently, the ever-growing demand for Japanese concoctions called sushi and sashimi are behind the present overfishing issue of tunas from the world’s ocean. Japan consumes nearly a quarter of the world’s tuna catch.

Japanese appetite for raw fish now not only becomes responsible for the whale extinction scare, but also of the present threat to tuna’s dwindling stock in the seas.

Tsk..tsk..all I can say is that “God save the tuna in our seas”.

Five Songs When I Was Eighteen

Ipanema has answered this entirely original tag over there at Under The Canopy and had read through it, reminding me as a result of how the song Endless Love by Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross was so melancholic and affecting that even I had admitted (in my comments there) that I too was one who hadn’t had escaped it’s very sentimental tune.

So now it’s my turn to list down Five Famous Songs When I Was 18 and say something about them. I have scoured through the net and found this timely site listing the hits of the year 1990 (the year when I was about 18—-when I was still never been that and never been this). I realized that in that year, there were so many memorable songs that I could have listed even to as high as twenty but I just got to name five. So now perhaps, I may just list the five songs that I may not necessarily be most fond of (since there were lots of songs that were so popular that year) but those that I think I can say something most of. So now, let’s do this.

In no particular order:

1. It Must Have Been Love by Roxette—-Who could forget this very sentimental lament of a brokenhearted individual. This is one love song has a very famous movie that goes with it (Pretty Woman remember?). Before I saw Richard Gere riding virtually on top of his limousine, with roses in hand, I have already heard this song played—-either on the radio or on a record I had bought then. The first few lines of this song told everything about it, “Lay a whisper, on my shoulder”, of how melodramatic it was and was in fact so sad and lonely; where a love had apparently gone awry when in the first place “It should have been love, but it’s over now. It’s all that I wanted but I am living without.” How tragic can love and affection become? This song’s lyrics remind the listener that love or relationship could really be gone like whispers in the wind—-very fragile and fleeting; like feeling so near and yet so far; like a free ride when you already paid. Or rain in your wedding day.








2. All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You by Heart—-This one got me thinking if at all, reasonable censorship do occur in our country, or in America (where the song emanated from) for that matter. Aside from its very catchy hooks, the one that had really occupied my mind whenever I was listening to this song that fateful year was it’s unusual lyrics.
   
   

   I had thought then that it was not really normal that one should hear on a very public manner about “ all I wanna do is to make love to you”. We all know what that means. It means that the singer merely wants to have carnal knowledge (as we law students refer to it back then) with some guy with handsome blue eyes. I don’t mean to be so tight-assed here but at that time, I just found this music’s message to be so unusual and blatant for comfort that I thought the government should have kept it away from the kids, or else they would gain some dangerous ideas you know. Of course, I am aware that Air Supply had been singing about “making love” previously in a so very popular way yet I just could not help but think when Heart’s song went on to say “please, please understand I am in love with another man. And all that he couldn’t give, is the one thing that you have.” What the hell did that line mean? It escapes me.









3. Don’t Know Much by Linda Rondstadt and Aaron Neville—-This is one song that I thought had came from the 70’s when I got to hear it initially back then, and even just hours ago if not for this tag that had gotten me researching about music. It has that very old-fashion feel and sound and I mean this in a very good way. It is so simple and relax as Neville’s icy voice floats into the ears like a popular eucalyptus candy, so soothing and calming. The song says, “I don’t know much, but I know I love you. Let me be all you need to love”. If love and loving could be so simple and uncomplicated like this love song, then I believe the world would be a better place by now.








4. I Don’t Have The Heart by James Ingram—-Mr. Ingram is one of my most favoritest singer of the modern times (as aside from the era of Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennet), along with Peabo Bryson and Lionel Ritchie. And when he had this unexpected hit in 1990(he recorded this when his popularity had already been waning from his peak in the 80’s), you could say I was pleasantly surprised and felt so good that James Ingram has still something good going on with him.
   
   

   Yet, despite the breezy voice of Mr. Ingram and the beautifully unique melodies of this song, the message it got was of despair and tragedy in love where he sang “I don’t have the heart to love you; but I don’t have the heart to hurt you; It’s the last thing I wanna do.” Gee, I wonder to whom downtrodden woman did he sang or made this song for. It just breaks my heart. Sigh.







5. Another Day In Paradise by Phil Collins—-I should not be forgetting about this one because it has very distinctive and catchy intro—-beating drums with killer keyboards. This song had been so captivating that during that time, and even through years ahead, I just couldn’t seem to pull it out of my system. The tune was so very fresh and excitable that it felt like Phil Collins was a genius scientist who had invented a new way of making music. It was really one good tune. A classic, I dare say.
   
   

   Although later on, I had a discussion about the song with a friend and he had informed me that the song was about poverty and hunger among the street people in America, that it was in fact a very socially-relevant tune from the former drummer and singer of the legendary British band Genesis. As I read through the lyrics (albums mostly already had inserts of lyrics at that time), I did realize that it was really a song about the hardships felt by the marginalized sector in America. It had taken me aback a little upon knowing what the song really had meant and wondered how an ultimately radio-friendly song—-one with so very catchy melodies—-can be about a very serious social problem.

So there goes the five songs that got so popular in the year that I was 18. In return, I’d be naming five other bloggers to list five songs when they were that young and say something about each one of them.

1. Snglguy—-I am so well-aware how he loves music that I am so anticipating his kind of list.








2. Eric of Wish You Were Here—-He was once a music industry executive and I am so certain he knows his list all too well.








3. Buffwings—-I would be so curious about the songs in his lists.








4. Myepinoy—-He is also music savvy and I am sure we’d enjoy his retelling of five memorable songs when he was young.








5. Abaniko—-He has done lots of cool tags before except a musically-inclined one. It’s time that he must let the world know the music of his younger days.

A Good Conversation

I wonder if some of you have already read this book I am holding right now while of course most of us have already came to know about it’s publication through the buzz it had created in the Internet. Consider this, “Conversations With God” had been in the New York Times bestseller list for 137 weeks or about two-and-a-half years straight. Now that’s an amazing feat for a religion-centered work. And accordingly, it had been considered as a “publishing phenomenon” (see this Wikipedia article).

I myself have already learned about CwG (Conversations With God) some years back from great acclaims it had garnered from several local blogs that I have been reading during that time. The praises it had gotten then were so astounding that now, as I leaf through it’s pages, I am not anymore surprised.

I was not initially sold out by its popularity I must admit and thought that despite it’s astronomical volume of sales, it might just be yet another religious book with a unique irresistable trait, but just another individual’s thought about God and religion. For all the while, who is really interested in religion nowadays? Perhaps, none except those that are extremely pious in spirit.

But now—-by some good fate—-I have this wonderful book in hand. Thanks mostly to my bestfriend Major Victor Loon for sending me a copy all the way from Manila and all my greatest gratitude goes to him. He reads this blog once in a while and I hope the message goes to him. He is a real police major mind you and not merely a major wanna-be like “Major Tom” and at the very young age of 35, he heads now the formidable Eastern Police District in Metro Manila. Success is in his hands and to be sure, more would come in the future.

CwG is certainly one amazing book with some phenomenal things going on within it. According to its author Neale Donald Walsch, all the conversation that had been written in this book—-and on succeeding eight other installments of it—-had started when one day he had decided to write a letter to God and let out many of his resentments in life. And suddenly, a voice coming from his left shoulder spoke to him, and after that, a book had seen its birth.

Mr. Walsch had averred that in writing the “conversations”, he had felt feel his hands moving on its own as he was writing the first pages of this book; as if it had a life by itself. If he is to be believed, then God must have really spoken to him. Of course, I wouldn’t take this claim hook, line and sinker but in this often-strange world that we live in—-that might just be possible.

I often wonder if I myself could speak with God like Mr. Walsch did and then God talking straight back at me like a “burning bush” of the Old Testament. To be sure, I would have lots of questions to field. I wonder if the Lord can have time to spare for a wandering soul such as I am, always questioning, always inquiring.

Once when we were so much younger, Major Loon had presented this question to me asking, “Do you want to meet Satan?” I answered that he was just being ridiculous. I wouldn’t want to meet the demon I said because to be sure, I would just be drown by enormous fear, imagining how fearsome his façade would be—-horns on his head, fangs on his teeth, fiery red eyes, with a huge dark cape heavy on his back.

Then Major Loon asked me once more if in fact I believed in the person of Satan. I said that I could not be so sure—-since no one could be so sure about a guy that we only could see in our mind—-but I told him that mostly, I felt that if God exists, then Satan must be possibly an existent being; that the existence of the demon would in fact become a venerable proof that God exists. That if there is light, then there must be darkness, for how does one know the fact of light when there is no darkness that could be compared it from? How do we know righteousness if there is no such thing as wrongfulness; or good deeds from sin; right conduct from misbehavior; dry from wet; red from blue; sky from earth.

I had a thought then that in order to see Light in the mightiest of splendor, one must at least have a certain awareness of Darkness.

All in all, I have enjoyed “Conversations With God” even though I might not say I believe entirely that the author had really spoken with God. It is a well-written work and so filled with original and mind-opening insights. I bet that if Mr. Walsch was a fiction writer, he would for certain be an exciting storyteller.

Be warned that the idea of speaking with God might be mostly a blasphemous claim. But take it with enough grain of salt and read beyond the facts and see its wisdom in general terms. You would enjoy it I am sure.

Butterflies

Last Sunday was Father’s Day and I was thinking of a particular father’s day post I had in my mind that time but was so busy I couldn’t put thoughts into words so fluidly. It’s two days later now but I thought what the heck, despite that it might be delayed, it would still feel right to write about these thoughts.

On Sunday morning, a huge brown butterfly hovered into our front door and settled on the door’s reddish cortina. The kids had noticed the flowingly elegant butterfly coming in and went to approach it. Perhaps disturbed by the sudden surge of movements and sound, the brown butterfly quickly went of and flew by our window outside, as I watched it’s low flight, so full and grand.

Eric of Wish You Were here had once written about the mystery of dark butterflies and what they had meant, and what folk belief speak about it. I too was so mystified by this and the very coincidence of it. I am here in far southernmost city of Zamboanga and Eric is in bustling Manila and yet, the notions about huge butterflies suddenly appearing become so uniform and general to my own (pleasant) surprise. Eric had proffered then the idea that these sudden and unexpected butterfly appearances do have supernatural connotations where those butterflies personified or even carried the spirits of dead loved ones who for some reason, came to visit the living.

On that morning two days ago—-on Father’s Day—-the huge brown butterfly came hovering oh so suddenly when in fact I haven’t seen any butterfly in our area for quite a long time now, like in several years. There ain’t really no butterflies here I must assure you (at least not within our immediate area); for reason perhaps that our location in the city had become so dull of nature, what with all the gregarious human activity that surround us, with industrial fumes conquering the vicinity, making nature less abundant and therefore the absence of natural occurrences like often pernicious butterflies and dragonflies drifting through weeds and flowerings.

This butterfly incident in fact had starkly reminded me of one very unforgettable day when I was a young lad. Just days after my beloved grandfather Unih died, a huge dark butterfly came into the sala of my Aunt Nene’s sparkling bungalow and stayed there even when we kids had tried to drive it away. An older cousin—-perhaps Ka Bebot or Ka Boyet—-uttered that we should not disturb it for it might be the spirit of a dead relative who came visiting. That’s the first time I heard about this butterfly notion.

In this ultra-modern world we live in—-the so-called post-space age or computer age—-it would be so trite for me to patronize such butterfly notion, purely supernatural and simple-minded. Yet I felt that the butterfly who came hovering on Father’s Day might just be a supernatural visitor from another elemental space and existence. Who could that elemental visitor be and whose spirit? Maybe that of my own father who died suddenly on that one fateful August morning last year. Or maybe that of my father-in-law’s who passed away eight years ago. Or perhaps that of my beloved grandfather who had once visited me in a very memorable dream when I was still so young.

I could never tell. Just like I could not tell exactly why the sun revolves around the Earth in approximately twenty-four hours; why the moon appears so full on some nights and disappears in some others. What forces of nature could be so exact in one way and at some other time could be so unrhymed?

Such perhaps, is just the ways of the world.

Blue Zinfander Wordpress Theme For Blogsome

This is the ultra-neat “>3-Column Blue Zinfander Theme by the prolific designer/blogger Brian Garner. It is especially created for magazine type blogsites and may as well be so suitable for a personal site. This theme synergizes the newspaper-look and the very personal feel some bloggers look for. It’s simplicity is matchless and minimalism is its one great virtue.

It’s grand and huge header font declares easily and elegantly the blog title and first-time readers won’t waste precious time in recognizing such.

For Blogsome users, download the files here.

For the complete Wordpress files, please visit this site.

See demo site and find out for yourself how it really look and feel like.

The Jackal

After the Hardy Boys, Carlos The Jackal is the first character that I have met and become so familiar with in the book world. I am not so sure now if I met him first at Frederick Forsythe’s nuclear bomb thriller “The Fourth Protocol” or in the assassination plot “The Day Of The Jackal”. Of course, we’ve got to put exception to Snow White and Cinderella since you know, they are purely kidstuff.

Carlos The Jackal is one cunning hitman that goes with ultimately sneaky disguises that myths have gone on to tell how once he had put up a female persona and was so good at it that some men actually fell in love with him.

His person is merely fictional at most—-that’s the general drift. Yet there were incessant murmurs in the international police world—-most especially now that we are within the encompassing grasp of the World Wide Web—-that Carlos is in fact not merely a fictional character overused and milked-out by several American thriller-meister out to make good bucks writing convincing political-thriller plots—-such as Mr. Forsythe and Mr. Robert Ludlum—-but is and was in fact based on a real person. Some say he was a Brazilian and had lived towards the 80’s and looked as handsome as Marlon Brando. While some others say he was actually of Italian descent. But one general acceptation about him is that he was of Caucasian built and of latin roots; thus the Spanish-sounding moniker.

His myth had become so persevering that towards this day, literature and Hollywood continue to immortalize him; like in the movie simply titled “The Jackal” and that one where Val Kilmer (The Saint) had tried so vainly to put up disguises that weren’t disguises at all (because the wigs he wore were so fake that in every pony face he had suited, even the blind could tell he was still Val Kilmer).

In the 70’s, a young Venezuelan named Ilich Ramírez Sánchez had among his belongings a copy of “The Day Of The Jackal” and when this was found by authorities, they began to designate a code-name for him, that of “The Jackal”, a title that had since became an international phenomena in the police world. Sanchez had been a known militant, long before the word “terrorist” had become so widespread. He is a mercenary. A true-blue international playboy. And he kills for money. It had reached the point where a question was raised of whether Sanchez was merely mimicking the fictional “Carlos” in Forsythe’s thrillers, or the fictional “Carlos” mimicking Ilich Ramirez Sanchez? Who’s personifying who?

BBC has an incisive story on him.

Such is the myth and legend of one known character in the fictional world. A very rare case where reality meets fiction and fiction enters the threshold of reality in the most palpable manner. There is nothing like this. One good recent example is the work “Primary Colors” where despite the repeated denial by “Mr. Anonymous” (later on to be revealed as Newsweek’s Joe Klein), the sharp and trendy presidential candidate in his book unmistakably resembles a real president of America—-the one named Bill Clinton. One prime example of reality becomes fiction and fiction becomes reality.

Carlos The Jackal is one such memorable character for me. They say he was really a real person, and he was the Venezuelan Ilich Ramirez Sanchez. But I’d like to remember him as that persona written in Mr. Forsythe’s books. At least in the fictional world, he is not as insensitive and senseless, at least not in any way like the real person, who despite the nearly romantic legend, Sanchez had resolved to ultimately destructive violence and had clearly benefited financially from his “undertakings”—-a bloody mercenary as an Englishman would say.

Now you might ask why I am writing about this mythical assassin from a time long gone. The person and idea of Carlos The Jackal had just suddenly came to my mind the moment I read this article about “hitman scams” going around emails with real and fearful threats used as money-baits. I hope you’d be aware of this and not be duped. Might as well read this CNN article and find out for yourself about the latest shenanigan happening in the cyberworld.

Subtle Theme For Wordpress

This is one most recent Wordpress theme release from Christopher Frazier of Glued Ideas and I find it so alarmingly admirable that I could not help but blog about it. It is called simply as Subtle. This design is probably so high on my list of fine-looking Wordpress themes—-and it is actually too gorgeous to be merely referred to as fine-looking. Blogging Pro simply describe it as beautiful and one theme that “makes authors look good”.

It’s general look approximates what the latest trend in web design demands and it is so inculcated in it the main characteristic of Web 2.0—-big candy-colored fonts, elegantly shaded backgrounds and is fully-widgetted.

This design probably wasn’t intended for public released when it was created by its designer and would have been one of those included in sites that collect great CSS designs like CSS Remix and CSS Beauty and copyrighted and not available for reproduction. But surprisingly so, it is made publicly available.

Mickeymotoc of Stepping On Poop had most recently suited-up this Subtle theme for his site and it looks so fine on him. It shows how this template could easily be customizable.

See here the demo site.

Download the Zip files here.

I’d be porting the Blogsome codes for Subtle a bit later on.

Dreams

Tonight I felt very tired. My body is in a state of general malaise. Maybe I was exerting too much effort in the past days—-driving the kids to and fro from school and then blogging vehemently when nighttime falls, staying so late in the process, and then attending to other family concerns. Yesterday, an uncle died and I was in the funeral along with my mom. The weather was scorching at that time and so while we laid our uncle to the ground—to where he would be bound—-I was sweating profusely that a cousin could not help but notice how sweat had embodied me so well that afternoon. May his (my uncle’s) soul rest in eternal peace.

So instead of watching television till past midnight tonight, I just put on some music and tried to relax. I put on Sting’s The Soul Cages and felt so relaxed and my mood was efficiently smoothened by the sublimity of the music, especially the melancholy of this particular record—-allegedly made as a requiem for his dead father and judging from all The Police and Sting records I have acquired over the years, it is to me the best ever recording made by Sting; either as a member of a band or as a solo artist; and could be one of rock music’s all-time best.

In one song (When The Angels Fall), Sting was singing about dreams that he said “perhaps the dream was dreaming us”. I was wondering if actually a dream could ever dream by its own—dreaming a dream while it is a dream in the first place. Could that be possible and logical? Does it make sense at all? Yet I know that in lyrical songwriting and as well as in poetry, there is no rule to language, there is no restriction to language or composition. One poet or songwriter can say what he want and write what he intends. He could even say, “perhaps the dream was dreaming us” and no one could complain and say that it is of no cause or propriety. That’s why every poet is a free spirit and this is possibly be the freedom of language that we wish to be similar with human conduct; freedom from limitations and from every inhibitions.

I am a guy who always dream of dreams. Some of them I have narrated here—-quite starkly. Some believe that dreams foretell of the future. Some said they explain what had happened in the past. But there is just no telling.

I do believe in dreams. In dreams, we live another life, living within another elemental existence and despite the complications and surrealism they present, dreams could mean so much to us. It is a manner of communicating into our inner self, and even towards another level or dimension of existence. Dreams alone are supernatural by themselves. To this day, not even the brightest scientist could explain fully the nature of dreams and what they all mean to us. But we—-as ordinary individuals—-know that they do happen and occur, and recognizes it’s existence as a way of life.

In dreams, we are introduced to another form of existence and another world and in dreams we become not merely ordinary occurrences but also supernatural beings. And therefore dreams are so significant to our lives that Sting should be excused and was probably right when he wrote that “perhaps the dream was dreaming us”.

So dream a little and do not complain.

Aliens

I was scouring the net for some information and this one current news had just caught my fancy. In an area within the state of New Mexico in America, a sizable number of people gathered there to mark the 60th anniversary of the event that is so-called as “The Roswell Incident” . It must be known that sometime early in July of the year 1947, an individual named Mack Brazel went out to check on his ranch, monitoring the situation of the sheep he was herding at that time, especially after storms have spread toward that particular part of the area. In a while, after reconnoitering thoroughly though his ranch, he found metal apparatus that according to him, he had never seen before and one he describes to be not-of-this-world, whose solidity and strength was remarkably beyond what could be produced here.

The tale about that particular incident easily had spread throughout Roswell and a week after, the local daily headlined that an alien ship had been found in Roswell—-and then everything from that day became now part of history—-global history even—- and became well-known all over as “The Roswell Incident” (see this wikipedia article).

Now, there is this saying which held that if one would keep on saying that “I am a God” over and over again, sooner or later, someone will finally believe that, and then more and more would follow suit. This is actually what happened to the incident in Roswell after that fateful day in July of 1947, when the buzz of alien ship and alien capture was so insisting that the story had become so widespread that even to this day, it had become romanticized in many pop-culture endeavors. In the 1990’s, Hollywood had made a very famous TV series out of it.

And this goes true to alien beliefs and alien sightings. To this day, no one has ever proven hypothetically the fact of alien lifeform, in concrete and material means. Yet, the presentiment about aliens intruding into earth’s space keep on occuring, time and time again, that in a while, we could not help but keep a closer eye on it and examine it’s veracity.

Like ghost stories and the fact of ghosts by themeselves, tales about alien sightings had become such a very general notion among the population everywhere around the world; that storytellers and raconteurs from all corners of the world keep on relaying them even if they are that hard to believe. The nature of ghosts and spirits had become so inculcated into the human psyche that somehow, we could not help but affirm their factual existence, one way or another. And even if often we are inclined to disregard them, we as consumers of such stories longed for it, we pay hard-earned money to watch ghosts or spirit movies, just because we enjoy such form of narrations or exhibitions, and therefore we like to believe in them and make them all come true.

At night, when the kids become too unruly, we say sometimes that the ghosts is somewhere in our vicinity that they better be at home and sleep so early…or else. Or else the ghost would be coming after them. And such scheme actually work.

Aliens stories are like ghosts stories. We kept on telling about them even if we haven’t seen any of them and even if we do not actually believe in them.

I have read in this Philippine government forum that the probability of aliens occurring has about (1×10^-58)2 = 1×10^-116 chances of occurring. Sadly I could not actually comprehend such statistical probability but they say at that amount, it is nearly nil.

And then another forum commenter said that it would be of such “arrogance” for any human being to believe that we are the only intelligent lifeform existing in this universe, considering the vastness of the universe. And to me it does make sense. The universe is so wide beyond human comprehension that it wouldn’t be too surprising to realize that in fact, “they are out there” and probably “had been here’ once or twice on earth; just came visiting as one would say. They could be out there. And possibly, they could have been here.

For alien thoughts, many belief that the Nazca lines in Peru could have only been conceived by some alien lifeform since in ancient times, human beings could not be as intelligent and as complicated to be able to do such gigantic images. Unless overhead telescopes—-or some form of top camera—had already been invented by that time in order to be able to calculate and execute the gigantic drawings. Even the pyramids, with all the mathematical exactions it had, are sometimes believed to have been of alien creation or inspiration, where in an ancient time humans minds were supposedly still unripe and uncomplicated.

So, do you believe in aliens? If you ask me, pointing to the “arrogance” theory, I may say that in this vast universe, as ever expanding and as ever mythical it is, I could probably be inclined towards believing that aliens do actually exist.

I remember some years ago that once that I was watching this cable television special (on Star World channel, I believe) where it was shown a collection of various videos exhibiting aliens caught on camera. There was one video there (despite that the others were clearly faked and doubtful) that really had amazed me. This particular video had shown how a white luminescent being with nearly human form (but with an unusually square-shaped face was somehow held off by a number of individuals clad in medical robes and the supposedly hidden camera was somewhere from above. I saw that the white human-like figure had got his hands tied behind his back, and then brought face down to a rectangular table, and he exerted to lift his head and his face was facing the camera, as if he knew where the camera was, and then he was coughing and coughing to no end. And he was looking at the camera so hard that I felt he was really looking at me, his face moving as if diagonally—to and fro—-pleading and trying to communicate, trying to really imply some idea to me. It felt so eerily strange watching that video.

I then had a thought that if some naughty individuals had intended to manufacture this video of a luminescent human-like being—-just in order to fool viewers—-how come he or she could be so inventive to ever thought of having a coughing fake alien being dragged by individuals clad on medical robes into a hard metal table? Have you ever thought of a coughing alien? Coughing and heaving from seemingly lack of oxygen?

I thought the video images might really have been caught as it was happening and that it could possibly be the only video of a real alien. And that perhaps aliens would somehow coughed and should be heaving for air since the Earth’s atmosphere might not be too tolerable for them.

It just amazes me, these alien stories. How about you? Do you believe in aliens?