Friday, August 31, 2012

Stupid zoosk

                             
This is how my Grindr phone app looks like.  The very bottom of this screen is for advertiser.  When I saw this I was surprise why there are pictures of pretty women advertised in a gay social networking phone app.  Upon further investigation, I found out the advertiser is Zoosk.  Zoosk is an online dating website.  It also has gay members so it is very reasonable that they would advertise on a gay phone app.  What I find really stupid is for Zoosk to use photos of women.  They should use photos of handsome men to arouse more curiosity from their target audience of gay men.  Zoosk should fire somebody from their advertising department.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Bourne Legacy, the review

I have always been a fan of the Jason Bourne movies.  And this 4th installment, Bourne Legacy, proved itself not to disappoint again.  Edward Norton, Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz filled in quite nicely in this movie.

The movie was action packed but it did not overwhelm the story.  The story connected well with the last Jason Bourne movie and it was good to see the continuity.   Although Jason Bourne himself was not in the movie, this story relate itself to him quite fluidly.  Kudos to the story/script writers.   On the other hand, the movie could have stood alone well enough for those who have not seen the 3 previous Jason Bourne movies.

Bourne Legacy was shot on Alaska, east coast, Chicago and Manila.  A big portion of the movie was in Manila and it was a treat to see my old stumping ground.  There were places that was familiar to me.  The filipino extras and their dialogue in Filipino was amusing to me and my other filipino friends who saw it with me.  I do have some beef about some of the scenes shot in Manila.  First, the Filipino security supervisor who spoke with Rachel in English did not have enough of the Filipino accent.  I felt the production trained him to speak with an American accent.  Although filipino are educated in english early in life, they for the most part will speak with a filipino accent.  Another not so believable scenario was the car chase scene.  While Jeremy and Rachel were on a motorcycle zig zagging through Manila traffic, an assassin was chasing them in a car.  I did not believe that a car can effectively chase a motorcycle in Manila traffic.  It is just not so believable having known what Manila traffic is.

Beside those 2 scenarios that I have to mention, the movie was an absolute delight.  I would give it a 4 stars out of 5.  I will definitely get a copy with it is released.

Friday, August 24, 2012

More online profiles that are jokes.

Why is it that the ones without a face pic are the ones that are the most demanding about others having a face pic?  And he says he is no BS guy...  When this game of hiding his face from others while he can see the faces of others is exactly the BS that he plays that makes this site a bad car accident as he calls it.


If your only pic is a decapitated torso, it better be impressive.  If your only pic is a decapitated torso, keep moving!    



Why is he showing is ass and abs if he is only looking for friends?  Why even hide his face?  Why does he need to be discreet and secretive?  I say he would like to play on the side but does not want to fess up to it.


Oh I know what I am missing.   A face!


Who does he think would find this pic appealing at all?  Really???



Another demanding a face pic when he does not have one himself.  If I put a face pic of me and my dog, it is loads better than his headless torso.



Odds are if you have to hide your face, there is your answer.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Finally, did the hot air balloon.

After 11 cancellations, I was finally able to take the hot air balloon ride with my friend Pon. I had a non refundable tickets I originally bought for me and my mom last fall but was cancelled many times that I have to resort to having my friend go with me. Thank goodness he was interested and flexible so we were able to take the ride this evening. I was at the point that I just wanted to get the ride over with and have the experience I paid for. There was loads of anxiety about the ride being cancelled again that up until I was truly up in the air riding the balloon, I was not able to fully relax. The ride itself was uneventful. We took loads of photo from above. The sights was nothing spectacular. Just houses and trees that did not exude any particular wonderment. I was not so scared of heights as I thought I could be. It was not cold up several hundred of feet above. The heat from the fire used to heat the air in the balloon kept us toasty for the most part. The mild wind took us several miles NE from our original location slowly. It was the empty field beside a CVS pharmacy where the captain decided to land us. The landing process was a little exciting as we come close to the roof of the buildings and the trees and the electric wires but did not hit any of them. Many people from the ground saw us slowly descending and many waved and took pictures of the ballon. The actual touch down was a little bumpy as expected. The landing itself near the CVS caused some commotion with the people in the ground. Some perhaps thought we crash landed and they called 911. The police and ambulance and fire truck came. People gathered around the parking lot of CVS watching us and wondering what happened. The police spoke with our captain and found out that we were all OK and that the captain really intended to land us there. The ambulance and fire truck were sent away. Many more discussion with the captain and the police ensued. I saw the police issuing some kind of ticket to the captain and they took all our names and informations. Evidently there was a news reporter from one of the the local papers taking pictures and talking to witnesses also. It was hilarious how this landing was a big deal with the people of Joliet. I was wondering why cause they must have seen the balloon fly many times there before. All the bruhaha over the landing was resolved and we were all able to get home safely.

Even the excitement of the landing was not able to take away the vexation I had over the multiple cancellations.  So it is needless to say that I will NEVER take any hot air ballon ride again.   I have done it once and I am done with it.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

6 airlines of the Philippines



All this time I thought the Philippines has only 2 airlines. Namely Cebu Pacific and Philippine Airlines. Looks like there are now 6. The other 4 that I have only heard of now. Namely the Spirit of Manila, ZestAir, SEAir and AirPhil Express. This video has certainly taught me something new tonight.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Olivia Newton-John at Market Days 2012

For this past Market Days, I was fortunate to see Olivia Newton-John.  Although I was far away, I was still able to catch a good enough glimpse of her fabulosity.  She worked the crowd by playing songs that we all have loved and associated with her.  She sang 3 songs from Xanadu then the ever campy "let's get physical".  She also sang several songs from Grease.  A few of them were duets with one of her male back up singer.  It was loads of fun singing along with those songs.  The crowd was wild and so loving her.  Myself included.  There is one thing that I find fault in her show.  That is the fact that beyond those popular oldies songs, she had not really produced any other popular songs recently.  So after she sang those songs, the show got a little less interesting.  




Thursday, August 09, 2012

Beautiful externally and internally

Encountering somebody beautiful outside and inside in Grindr is a rarity. Often people will not bother responding if they are not interested. I am guilty of that too. Many would even not bother saying "thanks" to a wholesome compliment. This I am not guilty. I always say thanks to a compliment even if I am not interested.

So I am still pleasantly surprise that there are still people out there who are beautiful not just externally but also internally. This person is one of them. His profile already indicated that he likes beefy guys so I did not really expect any reply from him when I took the leap of faith and said hi. Not only did he reply but also engaged in some short pleasantries. And he also thanked me for complimenting him. Clearly he has manners even when by all accounts, I was not his type. Kudos to him.

Monday, August 06, 2012

Hot Air balloon problem

Last year, I bought 2 tickets for Hot Air Ballooning so I could take my mom for the experience.  As it turned out, our scheduled trip was cancelled so many time for multiple reasons (mostly bad weather condition).  Even earlier this summer, our trip was cancelled again multiple times.  Now my mom can't go with me anymore and I am stuck with 2 tickets that I already paid for.  The tickets can be transferred to another person but even with that, I was having a hard time finding a friend to go with me.  Sam and Richard are afraid of heights so they declined to join me.  Ron had hip problems that he can not step over the balloon basket so he can't join me either.   Tom was not really interested but since perhaps he did not want to refuse me, he dragged on his final answer for weeks which was eventually a no anyways.  I knew he was going to say no cause I have seen it before.  It would have been better if he just refused to begin with.  That would have saved me some waiting.  So I offered to take my cousin's kid Nicole instead.  I offered the ticket as a gift that she does not have to pay for.  My cousin is always so kind to my mom so giving this $175 ticket to Nicole for a cool experience was nothing really.  Initially Nicole agreed to do it.  I spoke with her mom (my cousin) and she was ok with Nicole going with me.  Later that evening, I got a text from Nicole saying that her dad won't let her go cause it is dangerous.  Ok...  whatever.  Now I am running out of people to go with.  Then I thought of my friend Pon.  Pon and I are not close friends but we are friends nonetheless.  So I asked him if he would be interested with Hot Air ballooning.  To my surprise, he was and we were able to schedule our trip that same day.   No fuss and all.   He is even paying for the price of his ticket.    I just hope our trip won't be cancelled this time.  I really want to get this over with.

My advice is this.  Unless you have the time and patience to be reschedule many times, do not bother buying this Hot Air Balloon tickets.  The tickets are only good for 18 months and chances are you will end up with no balloon ride and $175 less in your bank.  If I knew what I know now, I would not have bothered buying this ticket.

Saturday, August 04, 2012

TY Serena, Bob and Mike

I am happy to see Serena Williams win her Olympic Gold in the women's single match against that odious Maria Sharapova. In fact, Serena won convincingly with a 60 61 score putting Maria to shame. None of what Maria can offer was good enough, not even the screams. With this win, Serena completes the Golden Slam and is only the 2nd woman behind Steffi Graf to have such a distinction. Congratulation and thank you for making my day.

Bob and Mike Bryan also won their Olympic Gold against Tsonga and Llodra to complete their doubles Golden Slam. Good work guys. I am happy for you both and congratulations.

It is a good day for American Tennis. The only thing that can make this better is if the Williams sister win their Gold tomorrow at their doubles match; if Bob Bryan and Liezel Huber win their Bronze in the mix doubles; and if Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond win their Bronze in the women doubles.  That would make tomorrow another good day for American Tennis.

Thursday, August 02, 2012

Door closed, window opened.

I am not a spiritual or religious person. So I do not normally subscribe to sayings that involved God or Lord or Jesus. But there is one saying from the Sound of Music that I feel really hold some truth.

When the Lord closes the door, somehow He opens the window. 

For every adversity and challenge that one suffers, there is always some silver lining that somehow will make things a little better. Things happen for a reason and my friend Franny just have to remind me of that again.

Recently something bad happened at work. So now my pre-planned schedule is somewhat thrown out the window. This incident made me just decide to do one thing much sooner than planned. This certainly screwed my plans but at least one person very important to me is overjoyed by this change of plan. I am glad that I made someone dear to me very happy. That is the silver lining to the bad luck I just had. Indeed the Lord did open the window for me when He closed the door.  I shall not fret, all will work out in the end.