Best Christmas Song Ever - Christmas In Our Hearts | By Jose Mari Chan

Probably not ever but still I think this Jose Mari Chan favorite is in the top ten of my list of best Christmas songs, local or foreign.

I used to fancy myself singing this at one of those neighborhood Christmas parties when I was younger - I even practiced! - that panned out, of course. I always chicken out at these things - public stages, blah-blah.

And one more Christmas song that gives me the tinglies is ""Kumukutikutitap". I think that song = happiness. Truly.

Anyway, the best things about Christmas are the cold weather!, the food!, to an extent, the movies! (eww! not the effin MMFF!) and of course, the presents! (bonus!) - but most of all, the songs! They're free, they're fun and they hug you all over!

Maayong Pasko ya'll!

Days are happy to be in

I've been particularly fascinated with these philosophy video lectures over at our favorite video streaming site YouTube. I've been listening to them while working on a lot of back jobs like finalizing grades, liquidation for my little projects, thinking (just thinking) about completing my OU projects, that darn arts fest project, etc. They're quite calming, really. Quite surprisingly, so. 


You know I've been wishing I'd have time to again revisit some of the great thinkers I admire, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Socrates, Derrida, Foucault, etc. Listening to them or about them, isn't half bad. I think I'm gonna be searching more and more philosophy lectures in YouTube hereon. That is, in between What the Buck, Happy Slip, flash mobs, music videos, DIY's, film trailers and 


Anyhow, below is a poem I first learned from the YouTube video of Philosopher Robert Rowland Smith lecture "The Meaning of Life's Milestones" . It's by Philip Larkin, entitled "Days". Could be another memory-poem here:


What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.                                                                     

Just the films I need to get by. No really.

I've been trailerspotting in YouTube, found these feel-good jewels. These days, I'm so not in the mood for cerebral movies. Some of these are last year's or later, I think.


When did this kid Freddie get so hot?


With the muppets? This should be fun.


Anything with Paris, does it with me. Plus this is a Woody Allen.


Coming-of-age stories are always a darling.


Because Tom Stu is a hottie.


Wee, it's Romain Duris from the Spanish Apartment.


Because it's by Gus van Sant. And I like the kid's name, Enoch.


Ah this. There's just some things that are destined to occur.


Of course, la?

Remembering China

I was looking for a new picture for my Facebook profile, browsing through my pictures folders and always, always, I get pulled towards my China album.And unbelievable, how I could still vividly recall the details of that 2-month China exposure. Fun times, those times.

I definitely owe that experience a writing. Like what I've always planned to do. No, this short aside post wouldn't do.

Look at us, like a bunch of tweens gaga over Jonathan Taylor Thomas. But this dude is hot. And we chatted for quite a while with him, too, no?

Even the panda's, agree. Cheers! Gan bei!

One Day?

You tell me. >_<

Pass the RH Bill now!

I could really use a wish right now

This pretty much sums it up for me.

Source

This billboard absorbs air pollutants.

I was in Manila last weekend to attend a political management workshop. Flying in from Bohol and arriving at rush hour, I regretted having told the cab driver to pass thru EDSA going to Sikatuna Village in Quezon City. Half-dosing, I amused myself with the gigantic lit-billboards along the way, going: hot, not, hot, hot, HOT, not, not, NOT, not. 


But then came this nearly all-green billboard with: “This billboard absorbs air pollutants” – and by unlikely green advertiser, too, the ever red Coke and with an unlikely collaboration with WWF. The ad sure piqued my curiosity. It got me thinking. The cab moved quicker than I thought, I could barely inspect the foliage assembled around the Coke bottle shape, if they were real plants and if they, indeed, absorbed air pollutants. 


But I was truly impressed enough to Google the details of the ad and true enough, as per its press release, the plants are real plants that absorb real pollutants. Will this make me patronize Coke products more? No. But, for sure, Coca Cola Philippine get some respect. I like the ad, it’s full of oxymoron’s (a green billboard, Coca Cola and WWF, green Coke), but it’s a think piece. And if its claims deliver? – hot!

APM @ PHINMA

Malou Tiquia's (of Publicus Asia) bit -- at the 2nd cluster of the Academy for Political Management conducted by the  Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) for young political activists -- was super insightful. The lady could pack a punch. And literally, too. 

Three three-day training at the PHINMA Training Center in Tagaytay is only the second weekend of about 5 clusters (I missed the first one!), schedule monthly (with one or two skipped months here and there)

The food was alright, not great, but what's really disturbing is that we were all assign one room apiece, but rooms with freakin' twin beds! (The rates are the same, the say, so why not?) But what about saving energy and being green? Oh, well.

I'd walk a thousand miles for the passage of the RH Bill

I really would, if I could.

The Purple Ribbon Campaign will be launched in Bohol today. I'm unable to attend, as I'm still travelling, but I'm there, alright. I am. Aja!

Cama-cama-cama-camotes

Coming to Camotes, I had little expectations. It was after all a business trip, errr, rather, field work. What struck me really here's that it'g got zero public utility transport -- no tricycles, no jeepneys, no multicabs -- only the semi-legal single motorcycle taxi aka habal-habal whose tarrifs are absurdly expensive. How? Why? I kept asking myself. They got fairly good roads. It's a quaint small island group of four: Pacijan (San Francisco town), Poro (Poro and Tudela towns), Ponson (Pilar town) and Tulang (an island barangay of San Francisco). Everywhere should just be minutes away if there were at least PUJs plying about like, say, Camiguin. Oh well, it works for them. So why not? But then for visitors, this could especially be a hurdle. I mean, meyn, P150/person for a 30-minute habal-habal ride towards the beautiful white sand beach stretch of Barangay Santiago in San Francisco!

Santiago's beautiful, of course, white sand beach, beautiful azure waters, friendly people, but there's one more catch -- by the beach, there' zero to no mobile telecom signal.

Ah well, you can't have it all.

The San Francisco Town Hall Square is a free Wi-Fi zone.
Meanwhile, its most popular tourist barangays barely have telecom signal.