Here goes:

1. It seems that having a sex tape is tantamount to celebrity-hood. For guys, getting away with it is a precursor to just plain old douchebaggery.

2. David Brooks will change how you look at China:

You try to tell them that China isn’t a communist country anymore. It’s got a different system: meritocratic paternalism. You joke: Imagine the Ivy League taking over the shell of the Communist Party and deciding not to change the name. Imagine the Harvard Alumni Association with an army.

3. This stuff will work really well here in Manila.

4. The Stiletto 2 lets you listen to satellite radio on the go (with a player about the size of an ipod). Who needs an ipod?

5. Paypal moves to Linux:

It is currently processing $1,571 worth of transactions per second in 17 different currencies. In 2006, the online payments firm, which started out over a bakery in Palo Alto, processed a total of $37.6 billion in transactions. It's headed toward $50 billion this year.

6. Hillary Clinton can turn just about anyone on.

7. 25 skillz every bro must know. Including mix concrete and clean a bolt-action rifle.

8. Even dead people can go shopping at Costco. Don't forget to bring your ID!

9. Crickets can tell time. Not! Just the temperature.

10. 2007 Top Pinoy Probloggers.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 08:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

I get a lot of email from readers, mostly to sell viagra and pictures and stuff, but I do get the rare "need advice" letter.

Here's one:

Dear Bulletproofvest,

My girlfriend's been reading your blog lately. She says you're a funny writer. She says to me, "Why can't you be as funny as this guy?" You've given me problems now. I hate you.

Thanks,

[Name removed]

My answer:

Dear [name]

I apologize. I can't help being funny! It's really all I've got to impress the girls.

Thanks,

Bulletproofvest

P.S. Can you send me a pic of your girlfriend? Thanks, man!

Here's another one:

Dear Bulletpoint,

I really like your blog. I also think that you are nicer, kinder and handsomer in person. You should stop faking it.

XXX

My answer:

Dear [name]

Outstanding! I'm very flattered that you like my blog. How do you know me personally? Or are you just sensing that about me? I can't fake a good thing, but if you send me a picture, maybe we can talk about it.

Bulletproofvest

P.S. Please try not to refer to me as bulletpoint.
P.P.S. "Handsomer" is not a word, I think. But send me your pic, and we'll talk about it.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 08:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

I've been so busy lately that I don't even have time to browse, much more blog.

But a friend of mine sent me this article that I found really interesting. It describes the phenomenon of YouTube watching and, in a classic marketing move, labels these YouTube addicts as "streamies". Knowledge Networks/SRI calls this the "watershed moment".

People are morphing over to this medium and are beginning to use in a way that is becoming important for advertisers to understand as they look for new ways to reach consumers.

Blah, blah, blah. So, only now, months after Google bought YouTube for $15 gazillion, do you recognize it as a marketing opportunity? Exactly how?

The research, which tracks the way average consumers spend their day consuming media, found that the highest percentage of streamies - people who streamed video or audio content online at least once during the past week - are most likely to be younger demos.

Forty-three percent of boys ages 12 to 17, and 40% of girls the same age qualify as streamies vs. 36% of men 18 to 34 and 16% of women 18 to 34, and only 21% of men 35 to 64 and 11% of women 35 to 64.

"Qualify" meaning they streamed video or audio content online at least once during the past week. If you're telling me that 43% of boys and 40% of girls are streamies, then the next American Idol should be on YouTube, because I believe that we're not too far away from "at least once *a day*." (There's my own episode of clarity.)

Furthermore:

Teen streamies spend 28% more time, young adult streamies spend 41% more time and older adult streamies spend 67% more time online than their non-streamie counterparts, he says.

These are the same kids that use Wikipedia as a reference.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

Now that we know Richard Gomez isn't going to be a senator, we want to consider whether Cesar Montano should become one as well. I think he should, but for a different reason.

Montano, equally handsome and evidently much more talented than Gomez, is currently one-to-two strokes behind the 12-spot in the surveys, along with Mike Defensor, John Osmena and Prospero Pichay. These gentlemen are chasing Honasan, Pimentel, Noynoy, Zubiri and Roco, who all are poised, with one last push before election day, to sneak into the 12.

The reason why you must vote for Montano is that, along with Roco, they are the only "hill" candidates worth your vote. And, if you don't vote for them, it statistically increases the chances of crooks like Pichay and Defensor, trapos like Osmena, or old-rich scions like Zubiri (biodiesel = subsidies for sugar hacienderos) to sneak in -- a result that's a lot less palatable. In more simple words, Montano is a better vote than a non-vote that leads to a Senator Defensor.

Why not vote for, oh say, a Kapatiran candidate? Well, you're wasting your vote, because the surveys say they're miles away -- it's not worth "making the statement" in my opinion. You're better off trying to stop people like Pichay from getting into the Senate by voting for someone who has the same chances of sneaking into the 12 as much as he does, even if it means voting for an actor.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 02:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

1. No one's called them on this yet, but I dare put forth that a prophecy has come to pass: That a son, born of the stalwarts of two warring families, will unite this nation.

Forty eight years from now, James Yap, Jr., grandchild of two former presidents, offspring of a basketball player slash womanizer and, well, "Kris Aquino", and five time PBA MVP winner, will run for the highest office in the country and will deliver us to the promised land where the BIR is corruption-free and every Filipino can dunk. Before then, we shall suffer 48 more years of incompetency.

2. Spiderman 3 now on DVD in Beijing.

3. Amazon.com sales explode on membership product.

4. Eraser in My Head has the full transcript of Mikaela Fudolig's speech. Fudolig is the 16 year-old summa cum laude from UP who delivered last weekend's commencement address. Her GPA in Physics was 1.09 if I heard it right.

Continue reading "James Yap Jr. Leads the Roundup" »

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 09:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

Filed under the Ha! Department:

The Poynter Institute's recent eye-tracking study released a few weeks ago point to some really interesting findings among newspaper readers.

For one, online readers read 77% of what they chose to read, compared to 62% of broadsheet readers (that is, online readers read 77% of an article they choose to read).More useful: once an online reader chooses to read a particular item, 2/3rds of them read ALL of the text.

A more interesting note for page designers is that it seems people learn more from what they read when presented different ways of understanding one story.

Watch the video of the findings here.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 08:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

1. Four months after the Typhoon Durian left Bicol devastated -- leaving 1,300 people dead or missing -- Filipinos are still living in makeshift shelters and old school gyms. Only six percent of the estimated $46 million in aid needed have come in.

2. Agakhan Sharief has nicknamed himself Usama bin Laden to help voters remember his name.

3. Journalists in this country still dead men walking.

4. It was really hot Tuesday. It'll get hotter still.

5. Speaking of hot... now, I can't wait to watch those hanging leg raisers.

6. Internet radio is in trouble. If you're a Pandora or Last.fm user, you should read this.

7. Happiness is making a career out of helping others.

8. Twelve kinds of clients and how to work with them (freelancers must read).

9. The leading partylists, based on an April 16 Pulse Asia survey.

10. Froogle. R.I.P. 2002-2007 (now Google Product Search.).

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 07:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

I've been wondering about this, and this entry is only half-thought out.

Food safety woes in China are now coming to everyone's centerscreen, what with pet food tainted with melamine killing all those animals in the United States. Pet food, you ask, what does that have to do with me?

The list of Chinese food exports rejected at American ports reads like a chef's nightmare: pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella.

Just as with manufactured goods, exports of meat, produce, and processed foods from China have soared in recent years, prompting outcries from foreign farm sectors that are feeling pinched by low Chinese prices.

Worried about losing access to foreign markets and stung by tainted food products scandals at home, China has in recent years tried to improve inspections, with limited success.

The problems the government faces are legion. Pesticides and chemical fertilizers are used in excess to boost yields while harmful antibiotics are widely administered to control disease in seafood and livestock. Rampant industrial pollution risks introducing heavy metals into the food chain.

Continue reading "Chinese Takeout" »

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 07:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

Ride with me. If you don't have a bike, let me know, and I'll see what I can do.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

After being named the most corrupt economy in Asia, what new depths shall our government plumb? Being named the most corrupt economy, for sure, is one of the lowest possible.

In a grading system with zero as the best possible score and 10 the worst, the Philippines got 9.40, worsening sharply from its grade of 7.80 last year. Indonesia had been deemed Asia’s most corrupt country in 2006.

Until, of course, The Palace starts huffing like a toddler defending itself, with number like these:

Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez said the PERC survey failed to factor in inroads in the fight against corruption. She said that as a result of reforms being implemented in her office, Sandiganbayan conviction rate rose to 77 percent between January and March 2007 alone, from 33 percent in 2005.

The convicted officials include four municipal mayors, a metropolitan trial court judge, and a president of a state university.

In the SWS survey, Ermita said the percentage of companies that were asked to pay bribes for certain transactions significantly went down from 55 percent in 2000 to 36 percent in 2005.

Ermita said one of the anti-corruption initiatives of the government is the doubling of the budget of the Office of the Ombudsman to P960 million.

A P2-billion anti-graft fund has also been established to intensify the drive against tax cheats and smugglers as well as finance the hiring of more investigators for the Ombudsman, Ermita said.

Let's see, Imelda is at large, government's made peace with Erap (despite an unresolved case), Singson's running for Senator, the President herself was caught cheating during the last elections, I can't remember what happened to Atong Ang, I get it now: we get corrupted because we're just a bunch of pussies. And, being called a pussy is, to me, a new depth.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 06:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

Before I go any further, here's the roundup for hump day:

1. How much is YouTube worth? $1 billion in copyright infringements.

2. And what makes them guilty.

3. Is Clinton working his way to UN Secretary General?

4. 300 versus 10,000 of mine, and I get bitched-slapped? Sure, I'd be mad too. (Yet another reason to draw nuke plans.)

5. Kermit demonstrates 15 stretches.

6. Free project managment software at Unfuddle.

7. What would you and I start a wiki on? Any ideas?

8. Check in to 5-star amenities... in a giant concret pipe?

9. Fake or not, I wish I was at this wedding. (Warning, meanness about to ensue.)

10. How to beat anyone in Rock, Paper, Scissors. In summary, never lead with a Rock, rookies will tend to throw the same throw twice in a row.So, when you see two Scissors back to back, you know that the next one will either be Paper or Rock. (Okay, just read it here.)

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 06:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

A week ago, I was at a book launching in Los Banos and I sat through a talk by Emil Javier, former Chancellor of UPLB, former UP President, National Academician and former TAC Chair. He was campaigning for the Agham Partylist, whose website is here. (The site could use a little SEO maintenance.)

Continue reading "Science Project" »

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

Ah, made it to hump day. To celebrate, I bring the links:

1. The most awesome things you can make out of paper.

2. A free online FLV converter. What is that, you say? Grab the link from your favorite YouTube video, paste it here, and download the video in a format you can watch on your PC.

3. A free online mindmapper. What is that, you say? I really don't know, but I know people who do this all the time.(Still on private beta.)

4. Free timesheets and timetracking. A nice idea for those of you with small businesses (but I'm sure by now you've got a nice system going).

5. Izmi lets you serve all sorts of files straight from your PC (Windows) to anyone with a Web browser.

6. Call your IM buddies from your mobile phone (at local costs) with Nimbuzz. Yup, you heard me right.

7. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by... (here comes the hellfire).

8. A free PDF converter.

9. You should be tracking your comments in other blogs.

10. And if you're traveling to China, you might want to bring the Internet with you.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 06:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

I went away for the weekend -- riding in Batangas. Met a local rider and we went maybe 50 kilometers (just over 30 mils) around Batangas, from the beach out near the edge of Taal Lake, then back up north where the road forks to Tagaytay, then back out to Nasugbu and halfway down to Calatagan. A super ride, with some good climbs, made better with the sea waiting at the end.

So, here's the weekly link roundup of neat bits and pieces, flavored by the wild.

1. Chimpanzees making spears. With females leading the hunts. Looks like they will evolve to a better women-led civilization.

2. Suicide by jaguar?

3. I want a new drug

4. Manage your family.

5. Legislating poor taste (or, fake privates).

6. Really stupid online business ideas that made someone really rich.

7. Consumer angst empowered?

8. An upside to global warming (not that there is one)?

9. Best logos of 2006.

10. It's raining today.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

Here's the Weekend Roundup

1. I'm aware of the IE 6 bug (it doesn't read the div widths properly) that forces the main content to the bottom of the page. The problem is I can't get to fixing it because a. I don't have time b. I don't have IE 6 anywhere. I'll try the weekend.

2. I just started a consultancy in Makati, which has me driving about an hour a day to my client's office. I've had it, like many people living in the city, with traffic, and while I wait to get out of one clusterf*ck after another, I can just see the cost of transaction (and the effect on the GDP) count down like big dollar signs hovering over the city sky.

3. Catholics are the victims? Maybe after "The Da Vinci Code", they've gotten a bit over-sensitive? This really isn't an attack (NSFW) on Catholics is it? (Here's an article that deals with one that clearly is.) So, why this then?

4. The stuff of movies. Maybe, Pinoy movies. She makes friends with a younger person, and treats her like her own child. Her finding her own family makes for a sweeping bittersweet moment.

5. Get your grills on.

6. How to be a good Republican, or Democrat.

7. Kill some time with Flickr and this photo selector based on background colors.

8. Who's going to play Rob and Fabrice? Will they fake it as well?

9. Death by Alphabet.

10. Finally, for the bloggers: Performancing has found an owner.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 08:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

I had really tired of the old look, and had wanted to redesign the blog for the looooongest time. Never had the time though, but the weekend provided just the right number of hours to put something up.

Of course, there are bugs. So, I'm still fixing those. (Safari has one I could see, and so does the blockquote style.) But all in all I started with fixing a few things, ended spending about two days designing (changed my mind several times), markup, coding, testing, etc. etc.

Now, I can get back to blogging.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

1. The folks over at Microsoft have actually done the impossible: let a computer talk his way into suicide.

Microsoft has admitted that speech recognition features in Vista could be hijacked so that a PC tells itself to delete files or folders.

Vista can respond to vocal commands and concern has been raised about malicious audio on websites or sent via e-mail.

In one scenario outlined by users an MP3 file of voice instructions was used to tell the PC to delete documents.

2. SEO triumph: Bush no longer tops Google search for "miserable failure". Instead, it's about Google bombing, and the "miserable failure" links to Bush.

3. Bring back the size-0 models: Binge eating disorder more common than anorexia or bulimia combined.

4. Share your stories about mistakes you've made. No, this doesn't require a postcard.

5. Teach your kids about marijuana.The book is free until Valentine's Day.

6. Kevin Smith does his Top Films of 2006. He saw 85 movies, and Borat, The Departed and Perfume were on his list.

7. Love thy neighbor (who needs cash).

8. New Gmail feature: view and edit attachments (spreadsheets and docs) via Google Docs & Spreadsheets within Gmail. Bring the office anywhere!

9. Artist community Humble Voice.

10. And, I still want a Wii, dammit.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

CNet is reporting:

By proactively delisting auctions for property from virtual worlds and online games, eBay may be effectively forcing players who participate in such trades into the hands of giant third-party operations that buy and sell virtual goods.

The estimate of sales of virtual products, everything from virtual characters, to virtual currencies and clothes, is somewhere in the "multi-hundred-million-dollars". Too much fraud? Or the possibilty of these sales actually violating the terms of service between the game publishers and their users? Either way, whoever captures this market will make a nice pile of cash in the near-term.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 07:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

I like reading about happiness, and what makes people happy, justifying my idea that, if you come into this world with nothing, and leave with nothing, then you should have something cool while you're here.

Evidently, that's not the case. Affluenza, a term noted British psychologist Oliver James uses to refer to the worldwide compulsive pursuit of money and possessions which makes people richer, but sadder. He went around the world interviewing people from New York to Sydney.

Bigger houses, more cars, larger televisions, younger faces -- these goals are frenetically pursued by middle-class workaholics afflicted by "Affluenza."

"Studies in lots of different nations show that if you place high value on those things, you are more likely to suffer depression, anxiety, addictions and personality disorders," he said.

The biggest bombshell: People in English-speaking nations are twice as likely to be mentally ill as people living in mainland western Europe.

James freely admits that interviewing the affluent in Sydney was a depressing job, calling it "the Dolly Parton of cities in Australia, the most vacuous

Singapore, where he found shopping to be the national obsession, suffered from "sad, unplayful deadness."

Tama na muna yang Ingles, nakakabaliw pala talaga yan. Kaya pala ang gastos gastos nung mga Call Center agents.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 08:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

After months of speculation on these two seemingly redundant products, Google has just announced that Google Video will now return search results from YouTube -- and Google says inevitably everywhere and anywhere else.

More importantly, Google says that "Google Video will become even more comprehensive as it evolves into a service where users can search for the world's online video content, irrespective of where it may be hosted," according to a company statement.

All that's left is monetizing YouTube, which shouldn't be too hard now that Google can search it. Within the year, we will probably see entire episodes of Lost and The Biggest Loser available as pay-per-view videos on YouTube, supported by free promotional clips.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 07:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

The wait is over. Becks goes to Hollywood.

I'm a big enough sports fan to know that Posh Spice would like nothing better than to move to LA. And, $250 million sounds like a good start to her career.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 06:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

• Terapad.com - Beyond Blogging
  Free blogging, Paypal ready, event calendar, image gallery, even jobs board and forums -- these guys covered it all.
• Welcome To Truphone - Mobile VoIP has arrived
  VoIP comes to the cellphone. Only thing left is someone starts offering it for free.

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 03:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

• Gas-like odor spreads through NYC - Yahoo! News
  New York City stinks
  (tags: NYC)
• The DIY Guide to Roasting Your Own Coffee! on Squidoo
  Coffee! Mmmm!

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 03:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

• Ando was king of instant ramen | The Japan Times Online
  Founder of instant ramen dies.
• Open Culture: 50+ Free Courses from UC Berkeley for Your Ipod
  Free courses from UC Berkeley on your ipod.
• Filipino doc picks life as nurse in U.S. - Yahoo! News
  Before someone sticks a needle into you.
  (tags: Philippines)

Posted by Bulletproofvest at 03:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
del.icio.us Digg it Furl ma.gnolia Newsvine reddit Google StumbleUpon

If you think your boss is a jerk, you're not alone. A recent survey in the U.S. found that bosses jerk people around like it's their job.

Ne