Earth Hour 2011 asks people from all countries to:
Switch off your lights for Earth Hour at 8.30pm, Saturday 26 March 2011 and celebrate your commitment to the planet with the people of the world.
Sign up and Share stories of your actions that benefit the planet on earthhour.org.
Sustain your actions beyond the hour.
This year’s theme differs from all previous observances by focusing on what citizens can do beyond the switch-off.
For me I’m still thinking of my solid commitments beyond the hour but for now I will commit to the lights off tonight at 8:30 PM. If you want to support Earth Hour 2011 too, kindly visit Earth Hour 2011 PH Site and vote too.
As part of sharing the story, here is a video of the theme song for Earth Hour courtesy of WWF Philippines and Reev Robledo.
If you like the song you can also download it from Reev’s site.
I visited Cupertino, California last month but I have not blogged about it yet here at menardconnect.com. I really enjoyed the food in Cupertino just like I enjoyed the food in San Francisco, and I remembered I made a promise here to blog about it so I will try to do another wannabe food blogger post 🙂
This is the Park Place Burger from Park Place of course. I love the cheddar cheese and fried egg with this burger.
The Grilled Beef and Fried Chicken from the Pho Mihn (a Vietnamese resto in Bandley Drive) is definitely a win!
A slice of the Pizza of the day from Pizza My Heart and my newly found fave pizza sauce the Shark Repellent.
On the healthier side I also tried Fatima Restaurant’s Pork and Vegetable. See, I am really a good boy and I eat my veggies too 🙂
I seem to miss San Francisco ClamChowder so I decided to munch on some Half-pizza and Clam Chowder from Le Boulanger. And to complete combo some Odwalla juice.
Last but definitely not the least is Willy’s Cowboy Sausage Sandwich from Armadillos Willys.
Hope you liked my free six Cupertino food photos and blog post.
NO! This Manny Pacquiao scandal is not with the sexy starlet-leading lady of Manny. This one is hotter than that… and it’s on Twitter 🙂
We all know that Congressman Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao is on Twitter. His account is @CongMP and he admitted owning this account in live TV (via GMA News sometime last month).
From then on I know that @CongMP account is legit so I was really surprised to learn that I cannot access it today around 3:45PM (GMT+8). So I did some research and some twit brigade check.
My twitter friends sent some replies related to this and behold, Manny Pacquiao twitter account DID send some nasty tweets to some pinoy tweeps last night (maybe during the heat of discussion regarding the impeachment case of the Ombudsman).
Even though @CongMP twitter account was deleted this afternoon, we all know that digital evidence stays in the Internet thanks to Google Cache and TwitPic, so let me present to you the Manny Pacquiao Twitter Scandal:
See screencapture of the @CongMP twitter account
This one is via google cache (Hat tip to Marhgil). Google Cache link below (kindly cut and paste)
http://bit.ly/f7a9WA
And this one is via Twitpic courtesy of @antonholmes and @momblogger
Full twitpic image link below (kindly cut and paste)
http://twitpic.com/4bui6a/full
One of the tweets from @CongMP reads
e di mag reklamo ka sa lolo mong panot hahahaha
And to the benefit of my non-Filipino readers, the tweet roughly translates to
Go complain to your bald grandfather, hahahaha
in Filipino.
It seems that Pacman can take the trash talk from Mayweather Jr and Sr and Margarito but he is pikon to some pinoy tweeps’ political tweets.
I am not a language expert but to my knowledge this “Lolo mong panot” reply is a childish one given by someone is really annoyed (or maybe pikon na). I’m not here to judge Manny, but my opinion is that even if Manny Pacquiao said it as a joke, I think it’s an inappropriate tweet from a respected public official with 27,000+ followers in Twitter.
There are a lot of scenario (of excuses and palusots) that we can play here. Maybe its not him tweeting or maybe his twitter account got hacked (haha conspiracy theory again?). The scenarios may be too many to mention but the bottomline is that I find the the decision to delete the @CongMP account an admission of “I messed up my twitter account badly” and “maybe if I delete this, we can all forget about this issue”. But the fact remains… digital evidence stays in the internet for a long long time.
At the end of the day, Pacman is still my idol on the boxing ring… but definitely he is not my favorite on Twitter.
ChurpChurp is a community for social media influencers and you can get rewarded by tweeting and posting messages in your Facebook wall and other social media sites.
As Churpchurp is from Nuffnang, my personal trust level is high and I’m open to try things with it as I got good results from Nuffnang.
We cannot find this Logitech G27 Wheel here in Manila; it’s been out of stock for several months already. And we wanted Logitech G27 for GT5 over other steering wheel controllers, as the reviews we have seen are promising
So we tried our luck in Taipei. We first tried looking at the Bade Rd. main building where we usually buy our PC Peripherals and other techie stuff, but we cannot find any store that has Logitech G27 for sale there. We tried looking at other shops outside Bade Rd. and luckily after hours of searching, we finally found a store offering the G27 steering wheel.
Logitech G27 is designed for Playstation 3 (PS3) and we personally like to blend it with our Gran Turismo 5 racing experience.
Logitech G27 works well with Playstation 2 (PS2)
And PC too
The 3 major contents of Logitech G27: Steering wheel, pedals and shifting gear set
The Logitech G27 steering wheel is an 11-inch wheel with hand-stitched leather and Dual-motor force feedback for real racing experience.
The gas, brake, and clutch pedals are made of steel and promises to give true-to-life and precise throttling, braking, and shifting control.
The gear is a six-speed shifter and promises to enable racers to quickly select exactly the right gear for the turns and straight stretches. Logitech G27 gear also features a pushdown reverse gear for backing up realistically.
With all of these neat features, we now understood why Logitech dubbed this cool gaming toy as: Real Leather, Real Metal, Real Racing.
The Logitech G27 package contains software CD-ROM, power supply and user documentation and manuals.
For Windows PC it needs at least a Pentium (or compatible) processor, Windows XP or Windows Vista or Windows 7, 256 MB RAM, 20 MB of available HD space, CD-ROM drive and USB port.
Hope you like my Logitech G27 unboxing pics and post.
Update 2011.08.16
Actually the G27 Wheel is owned by KBrother. Thanks Battlemaster for allowing me to post the pics here.
Today, we had dinner at Din Tai Fung Taipei Sogo. We usually go to the usual branch (the one near the Taipei San Want Hotel) but we decided to go to the other branch inside Sogo Mall in Zhongxiao East Road as it is more accessible to us. We just took the Taipei MRT and got off the busy Zhongxiao Fuxing Station.
The wait was long (around 45 minutes) but just like the previous years it was really worth it 🙂 .
Honestly, after the long wait, all of us were so hungry, so when the first set of order arrived, I just took out my phone camera and point, shoot and attack (the food of course).
We had Xiaolongbao as it is a must-have
…and some Pork Chop and Fried Rice too.
We also had the Hot and Sour soup, other dumplings, veggies, and last but not the least, Taro Mini Pao for dessert (which I will add to my personal Din Tai Fung favorite list).
Din Tai Fung dinners (in Taipei and in Hong Kong too) are always a memorable and enjoyable experience for me and my teammates.
Menardconnect.com supports the Bloggers Manifesto.
I agree with the majority of the items in the National Bloggers Association of the Philippines manifesto and I am willing to contribute and suggest for its improvement. I know it is not perfect manifesto now but I believe its a good start and I am giving the bloggers association a chance to come to fruition.
I understand that there have been a lot of buzz and concerns with the idea, the association and the manifesto itself and as an individual blogger I appreciate the constructive criticisms and non combative posts sharing the different views on this topic.
I am always trying to keep an open mind on issues like this and I admit that by reading different views (both the pro, the anti-, the maybe and the neutral stance posts) can help broaden my overall understanding of the real issues at hand.
I am quoting the manifesto below:
One country, one blogging community.
A Manifesto of Filipino bloggers and netizens (Draft)
March 7, 2011
We, Filipino bloggers coming from various places nationwide and those based overseas, coming from diverse backgrounds and specialties, using various new media outlets, hereby freely come together and call for the formation of a bloggers association of the Philippines that shall unite us around these common and beneficial objectives:
Promote and defend the right to free speech and to free expression;
Promote and develop blogging, vlogging, photoblogging, microblogging and other online creative and expressive forms in all their diverse categories, topics and types;
Gather and share Philippine blogging’s best practices that reflect our contributions to ourselves and our online communities, media, causes, organizations and businesses, government, the nation and the world;
Draft and adopt a code of ethics that underscore the members’ and organization’s sense of responsibility and maturity;
Discuss issues and concerns that confront our members; and
Campaign and work for more affordable, reliable and better internet access in the country
The association we aspire to form is voluntary in membership, national in scope, democratic in decision-making, progressive in outlook, and both non-partisan and non-profit in legal character.
We draw inspiration from and ask the participation of the city-wide, provincial, regional and island-wide associations, summits and conventions initiated by bloggers across the country. We also pay tribute to overseas Filipinos and their blogging organizations and events.
We want an association that makes decisions based on democratic processes, consensus-building and mutual benefit.
A long time has passed since the first blog posts and first blogging events. We are now a bigger, stronger and influential community. Businesses, causes and government have started to organize themselves to interact and engage with us. And we also face challenges within and outside our growing community.
The Philippines, our country and people are also expecting more from us, and we bravely and fearlessly say that we want to do more and achieve more In view of all these and more, we declare that we are joining as founding members of what we hope would be a most awesome bloggers association for our country.
I have my reservations on the naming (National Bloggers Association of the Philippines or Philippines Blogger Association) but for me its a minor concern. The more important thing here is that we move on and open up more consultative discussions on this issue.
At the end of the day, I just hope that we could agree to agree and agree to disagree, as Tonyo put it eloquently on one of his post.
To know more about the manifesto read the link/s below:
We want a national bloggers association of the Philippines
If you agree to the manifesto (or parts of it) I encourage you to sign up and support it.
INVOLVING GHANA. Having thoughts or doubts about who you are really talking or chatting with (whether he or she is a scammer or not) or you have never set physical eyes on that person(s) before. Internet scam has become very rampant in our today’s world now. Ghana Police Service is now at your door step and here to help you to be very sure about the following;
1. Who you are talking, or chatting to whether he or she exists, pertaining to internet dating and business.
2. Whether he or she is a scammer or not.
3. To help the Republic of Ghana to fight against internet fraud and scam, in other to maintain the good name of the country, Ghana.
4. Report in other to save other person(s) hard earned money from the scammers and fraudsters that is, not to fall a victim.
You can contact us by the following email addresses; [email protected]<blocked>.com
Looking forward to help you in all facet of internet involving a Ghanaian person(s).
I find it interesting that commenters are discussing sms scam in the Philippines (some of the comments are in Filipino) and this spammer try to add his thoughts on Ghana. Researching further it seems the comments are also present in some blogs discussing internet dating scams. And if this is really from Ghana Police and government authorities I hope they use official Ghana government domain in their email address (gov.gh).
Sorry Sgt. Ludacris you clearly violated my comment policy. Your intentions may be good but your methods are questionable so I am posting this here in my blog as a comment spam.
PhilHealth is the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, a government office in charge of the social health insurance coverage of the Filipinos. Simply put, when a PhilHealth member or their dependents get hospitalized, a certain part of the hospital bill is covered by this office, so for me PhilHealth is an important government entity.
My wife was recently admitted in the hospital and I need to make sure the PhilHealth forms are all in place. I believe that this interaction with a government office is a good experience so I am blogging my PhilHealth experience here as promised in my previous post.
So what did I do?
First, I asked our Human Resource (HR) Department about my Philhealth and what our the other PhilHealth Process that I need to know. HR checked their system and informed me that I still do not have the new PhilHealth ID number, but assured me that we are paying our PhilHealth. I believe PhilHealth deployed some new system recently so I need to go to PhilHealth office to apply for PhilHealth ID.
HR then provided me with a Certificate of PhilHealth Contribution (this list contains my PhilHealth Contribution to which bank/receipts number/ which branch/etc.). HR also gave me PMRF (PhilHealth Membership Record Form) and PhilHealth Form CF1 (Claim Form 1).
Next PhilHealth Process is that PhilHealth Membership Record Form (PMRF) together with the Certificate of PhilHealth Contribution need to be submitted to the PhilHealth office to get my PhilHealth and updated MDR (Member Data Record). Member Data Record contains critical information needed including your list of dependents that our entitled to PhilHealth services.
I am sharing the first of my PhilHealth Tips: Go to Philhealth Office as early as you can. I went to PhilHealth Pasig office the next day but it was a little late already (9:30AM) and the guard is dispensing waiting number. My number is 347 and the attendant is calling Number 150 🙁 so less than 200 numbers to go. I will just say that after some exciting X number of hours of waiting, I got my PhilHealth ID with the new ID number and updated MDR (Member Data Record). The Philhealth employee who attended to me was very accommodating.
Next in my Philhealth Process is to go the PhilHealth office in the Hospital to get PhilHealth Form CF2 (Claim Form 2). Together with PhilHealth Form Claim Form 1 that contains some information related to your employer
PhilHealth Form Claim Form 2 contains information about the Hospital. Complete PhilHealth Form CF1 and fill up PhilHealth Form CF2 especially parts assigned to your patient and let the attending Doctor fill up some parts of PhilHealth Form CF2.
The last of my Philhealth Tips is to make sure that as soon as PhilHealth Form CF1 and PhilHealth Form CF2 are ready, submit them withthe MDR (Member Data Record) to Hospital’s Philhealth office before the patient gets discharge ( or as early as possible).
Based from our recent experience, Philhealth deducted some 20% of our hospital bill and that is really helpful for us in this challenging times. Thanks to the PhilHealth and to all people involved in this good system and process.
Hope you find my PhilHealth Forms and PhilHealth tips helpful.
After some xx number of days roaming around RSA 2011, San Francisco and my beloved province, I’m finally back in Manila (and hopefully will be blogging more frequently from now on).
Honestly, I don’t know where to start so I’m thinking of doing it the free six way 🙂 .
