I have watched two MVPs carry their respective teams to victory today.
And both showed two different leadership styles.
I am talking about Lebron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers. Both came straight from high school before entering the NBA. Both are scoring leaders in their own right.
 Lebron James, the naillbiting phenom who is probably the best all-around two guard literally carried his team to 97-96 victory against the prolific scorer Gilbert Arenas-led Washington Wizards. He scored his 50th 30 plus game amidst the stingy and double teaming defense. His team was down by one point with 23.4 seconds to go when he struggled to put up a shot, first eluding his guard then pump faking an off the glass shot against the shot-blocking Michael Ruffin. This is after all the criticisms that Lebron was incapable of taking charge in late game and nerve wracking situations. The Cavaliers capped the win by withstanding a trifecta attempt by Gilbert Arenas that went pfft in the dying seconds. Now the Cavaliers are up 2-1 in the first round of the NBA playoffs.
 In another game, the oft-misunderstood Kobe Bryant helped eke out a win against the high octane offense Steve Nash-led Phoenix Suns. Bryant this year’s scoring leader who is perceived as a cocky, ballhog and selfish player, did what was unexpected of him- trust his teammates. This probably caught the opposing team off guard as they expected an 81 points scoring Bryant. Instead, they faced a Magic Johnson-like team leader who trusted his team and help will the team to wins. It wasn’t a usual scoring night but he did show his multi-faceted game of assists, rebounds and steals.
Lebron James and Kobe Bryant. Two MVPs in their own right. Two leaders. One for taking the responsibility and the strong will to win for the betterment of the team. The other for being a trusting and encouraging team leader who shunned one-upmanship and had no qualms doing the "dirty work" all in the name of the team and the win.
They may not emerge as NBA season MVPs or even win the NBA crown but both earned a lot of people’s respect (like mine) unlike the heckler who ruined a graduation ceremony.
Filed under Sports, Learning, Reactions, Training, Feature by Simon Francis Blaise.
This is something disturbing: A Mass Communication graduate in a commencement exercise in Cavite heckled Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. In the same graduation rites, protesters were positioned at the row of chairs meant for the parents and relatives of the graduating students.
There is no justification for such behavior. Even if GMA is Fake or not, that was conduct unbecoming of a supposedly learned person. That was plain disrespect not just to the guest speaker but also to the other graduates, parents and the educational institution.
The end does not justify the means. This is not meant to slight the agent/s of the action. It is the act that was wrong and should be shunned.
That was not activism. That was not idealism. That was plain rudeness (whether GMA deserved it or otherwise). And that was not a Filipino trait.
It is ok to disagree. It is ok to protest. It is one’s right. But one’s right is not absolute. And in any right is a corresponding responsibility.
There is a right place and a right time for such things. If we want change in our country, let us do something about it but PLEASE let us do it RIGHT.
We ALREADY have failing proficiency in English, Math, Science, and Filipino. And now even Values? Is this the path we would like the youth to take?
Was George Bernard Shaw right to quote that "Youth is Wasted on the Young?"
I still believe otherwise. I still hope.
Filed under Ethics, Society, Reactions, Personal by Simon Francis Blaise.
A post by My World about electric vehicles- environmentally friendly and power efficient vehicles roused me to write about a luxurious electric powered car. I caught a glimpse of George Clooney at the Entertainment Channel and how he raved about his new Tango. No, this is not his new dance routine.
 The Tango is an electric car no wider than a motorcycle, with a passenger or luggage space located tandem-style behind the driver. It is so narrow that four Tangos can fit in a normal-sized parking lot. Despite its precarious looks, it has a very low center of gravity and will stop faster, accelerate quicker and corner faster than anything else on the road. It may look vulnerable but it has a carbon fiber body shell and a race-approved roll cage structure which make it a very safe, capable and environmentally responsible vehicle.
The tango’s appeal is its sporting prowess and eco-friendly benefits. This tiny road-dwelling creature accelerates, handles and stops like a motorcycle but drives like a car.
Two small? It’s not a family car but it will suffice for two big persons. The rear passenger seat can be used as storage space, to carry a baby seat, or it can be removed to carry groceries or other goods. There's a lot more room back there than you'd imagine.
 The Tango is said to be a glimpse into the future of commuting. Lane doubling, lane splitting, and perpendicular parking is a cinch. No more traffic-induced headaches and parking woes. Safety? Safe as you're ballasted for flat-out cornering stability and protected by a racing-certified roll cage designed to protect you and your passenger. Emission-free and exciting, the electric Tango T600 is designed to beat most sports cars in the quarter mile with acceleration from 0 to 60 mph in just 4 seconds and a top speed of 150 mph!
Commuter Cars Corporation (the car’s maker) instead of using a fuel cell or internal combustion engine opted for conventional lead-acid batteries which offer a 130 kilometer range (four times the distance the average commuter travels per day) and the dense weight they need located low in the car for stability. With advancements in the price-performance of high-tech batteries not far away, the company expects the range of the vehicle could exceed 300 miles per charge before long.
 On top of that, with an off-board 200A charger the Tango can charge to 80% capacity in around 10 minutes on a 200 amp AC service which gives approximately 100 additional kilometres of range per quick-charge. That's not as quick as a stop at the petrol pumps but a lot cheaper, and there is an inevitability that the oil companies will offer these industrial strength outlets through the petrol station chains. A garage roof mounted, solar cell charging module is being developed so a Tango can be charged for no cost while it is parked. Typically, Commuter Cars Corporation expects one would just plug in each night at home and get a complete charge in less than three hours and be ready for work the next morning. Another more practical solution to refueling is to use the newly removable battery pack feature.
The price tag? The luxury Tango 600 is pegged at US$85,000. At that price you get a carbon fibre body, Connolly leather interior, Sparco seats, climate control (i.e. an airconditioner and a heater, a Momo steering wheel, a MoTeC dash and a 400-Watt sound system. Whoa!
The car will become viable for the public in its subsequent versions with lesser performance but all-wheel drive via four 50-kilowatt hub motors. The fiberglass-bodied Tango 200 will sell for a far more civilized AUS$40,000 and a subsequent Tango 100 model will sell for US$18,700 and lesser performance again. The Tango 200 and 100 production vehicles are expected to be available in 2008 and 2009, respectively.
Nice car! It indeed takes two to Tango. Environmentally sound yet powerful performance. A luxury? Yes but the advantage is for Mother Nature!
Filed under Technology, Reactions, Science by Simon Francis Blaise.
Who will win the Pinoy Big Brother Celebrity Edition? Yes, PBB is about to end. Will it be replaced by a more relevant show this time? Well, Wowowee (without any remorse) is back so it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to assume that it (being replaced by a more relevant show) would happen in this lifetime.
It could have been Rustom. But he is out. Literally.
Definitely not Zanjoe. (He was there for love team purposes only, yet that didn’t even really clicked). Someone even told me the advances and fondling was obvious since day one.
Definitely not Bianca. Looks yes, character I’m not sure (she allowed to be played around for the "love team" that fizzled) but what does she offer aside from looks?
John? The next Rustom? The youth’s example? Since when? Definitely not.
Oh yes, Keanna. She’s got drama, controversy, comedy and if she wins, horror for ABS CBN (her image problem). Would they allow that? For the millions, yes they would.
So don’t waste your cellphone load or money. It didn’t save a Budoy (who was there for uh, novelty) from being evicted, did it?
Because the Winner is… ABS CBN! Need I say more?
No Time and Tide, this will be the last post which is as showbiz as it could get.
Filed under Society, Reactions, Personal by Simon Francis Blaise.
It’s the summer season and to most of us, the stereotype is summer= beach, beach= white sand and white sand= Boracay.
Rob was right after all, there is such thing as a one peso fare going to Boracay. Well, just from Manila to Kalibo to be exact. What’s the catch? It excludes gas and tax. But it will still just amount to approximately Php 730 or $ 14 +. Cheap huh? This is offered by Cebu Pacific Airlines for the month of June though.
Domestic airlines are in the frantic rush to capitalize on the demand for travel to Boracay. Asian Spirit offers Php 2,719 or $ 53 +for a one way trip from Manila to Caticlan. Philippine Airlines offers Php 2,023 or $ 39 + this Holy Week (April 14 and 15) for a Manila to Kalibo one way trip. Cebu Pacific offers more than a thousand pesos less, Php 1,423 or almost $ 28 for the same one way trip.
This will definitely boost domestic tourism in the Philippines. And additional income for our fledging economy.
But for me, the nearest white sand beach would be Hundred Islands, Surip, or Bolinao in Pangasinan. It’s the same sunburn.
I could bring the Harry Potter book my friend bought from:
Or apply for a US VISA and go to the United States with this:
I guess, it must be too much sun…
Filed under After Class, Reactions, Personal by Simon Francis Blaise.
I made an earlier post regarding an ad sponsorship offer. I wanted to know if it was legit. But up to now, I have not received any advice. In my research about affiliate marketing, I read an article about phishing in the Affiliate Classroom e-zine. Could this be the answer?
Here is the article:
Does Phishing smell fishy?
I'm pretty sure I know spam when I smell it, but what is 'phishing'? Does it have a similar odor? Need to know – Suz Well, both those terms do have to do with 'spoiled' email in one way or another.
Spam, though definitions differ, is a form of unwanted email — usually an attempt by someone unknown to get you to buy something you're very unlikely to want, at least from them.
Phishing, by contrast, is an attempt to get something from you that you wouldn't want to give a stranger — your personal or financial information.
An email from a 'phisher' usually arrives disguised as being sent by a legitimate company — PayPal or your bank, for example. The return address, the subject line, and the message body have all been craftily crafted to make it look like it's from someone you trust.
The goal is to get you to provide your credit card number, online banking password, Social Security number, or other sensitive information. Once they have that, they can charge items, transfer cash, etc. In other words steal your money, by stealing your identity.
Read more
Filed under Business, Lessons, Reactions, Personal by Simon Francis Blaise.
You know what I think is the real universal language? English? Chinese? Wrong. Its motherese. Why? I believe everyone could speak this way since time immemorial.
What is motherese? It is the distinctive speech that human adults across the globe instinctively use when addressing babies. It is the Goo Goos and the Da Das that adults tend to speak when they see an infant. Vowels are lingered over, phrases are repeated in high-pitched voices, and questions carry exaggerated inflections. In short, it is Baby Talk.
Luke Simon Wilhelm, my almost 8 kilograms 5-month-old son chuckles a lot when being cooed. That is as if he understands and responds to the babbling of adults - with the goofy make face and all. I guess all infants do this.
According to a new theory as published in Scientific American. Com, motherese holds a key to the emergence of language. Read the article here.
Filed under Health, Reactions, Science by Simon Francis Blaise.
Maybe you are one of the many people like me who have forgotten that the World Poetry Day just passed. For the uninformed, the World Poetry Day was last March 21, 2006.
Ours is a verbose world yet it is ironic that we have not given accolades to poetry as much as we value gossip and tall tales. In the UNESCO website, I have found only two sites catalogued under Philippines. Sadly, one is just a directory of ads (it seemed that it was unscreened) and another (thank God), the work of a poet who has dedicated himself to the craft. This is worth reading.
Poetry to me is like the very breath of life. I have written a lot of poems over the last two decades but they have not seen the public light. Reluctantly, because I have employed my conjectures of rhythm and rhyme primarily for my personal ends. I have not chronicled them except for two notebooks- full of my idiosyncrasies. Besides, my style if any is unstructured (like my life?) so I can never be an authority in this.
My problem in writing poetry is that my “muse’ comes but in a blue moon. Rare. Like La Niňa in the desert. Oh to capture that fleeting moment is priceless! To me, its immortality is embodied in the person or the object to which it was written for. Like a flicker of light, the poem is consumed by the reader and transformed to an unwavering flame until it meets its purpose. But it will not die. It will always be there waiting for another breath of life, in another form or in another poet.
World Poetry Day is on March 21, and was declared by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 1999. The purpose of the day is to promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry throughout the world and, as the UNESCO session declaring the day says, to "give fresh recognition and impetus to national, regional and international poetry movements.
Filed under Reactions, Personal, Celebration by Simon Francis Blaise.
Last Sunday, my wife and I got together with my high school classmates for dinner. Anna, a manager from Delifrance hosted it. Ginny just came back from California for a 27-days vacation. Being glib and loquacious as she always was, she had all these stories to tell. She works in a health care facility that specializes in aesthetic care- reconstructive surgery, beauty enhancements, liposuction, botox and other procedures.
One anecdote was about a middle-aged woman who had an obsession with botox. "Is my face beautiful, dahling?" asked the woman, to which Ginny replied, "You look fabulous!" She charaded the client’s face to us (as one who had one botox too many).
To debunk the so called "American Dream", things are not that different there compared to the Philippines. According to her, the only difference is that there are more "Puti" in the U.S. Work is harder in the US, the cost of living is higher and so are the taxes. At least here in the Philippines, customers don’t yell at you and call you names.
She is thinking of a business to put up whether here or in Cali. I had an idea to which we all laughed: to put up a PX goods store in the U.S. She enthused that she missed the tasty Bonuan Bangus. All they have in abundance there is the bigger but more bland Saranggani or the Malaysian and Indonesian Bangus. Can’t Dagupan City (where the world’s tastiest Bangus can be found) keep up with demand? With all the PR and festival expenses, still no concrete results? What happened to the multi-million bangus processing plant? Well, that’s another story.
Three days of being here, she had dined at almost all the local restaurants (at least the ones that are good). She plans to go to Baguio with Anna and experience the "ukay-ukay". Or to Boracay. The beaches of California, Ginny compares, is colder but cleaner than our beaches here.
Rob, another classmate, told us there is this "one peso promo" airfare of Cebu Pacific going to Boracay. All you have to pay is the tax (approximately P1000+). So what’s the catch? We all asked. No catch, he was serious. I might check this out if its true- if time permits.
What I could not forget about that evening was how she revealed that because of her Chinese features, she has experienced being derogatorily called Jap, Chink, and Vietcong. With a bat of an (tattooed) eyelash she proudly exclaimed, "Honey, I am a Filipino!"
Filed under Society, Reactions, Personal, Culture by Simon Francis Blaise.
This is too much.
How I wish that we will see the end of this kind of entertainment. On surface these shows seem cutesy, harmless and for most of us, entertaining. But what is pleasurable in something that makes fun, ridicule and humiliate other people?
Life is tough. But it should not be degrading and debasing. That’s not reality.
American Inventor, an ABC show is another reality series that capitalizes on the promise of instant money and fame. It feeds on and exploits people’s hunger for a better life (like the insensitive and remorseless Wowowee disguised as charity). Money for self-respect?
The show is modeled after ''American Idol." No wonder because the new 10-part series is produced by the sarcastic smarty-pants and nasty ''American Idol" judge Simon Cowell. Putdowns are part of the appeal of "Idol," of course — that whole idea of feeling superior to the succession of poor shlubs who think they have talent (or, in this case, vision and resourcefulness). ABC's "Inventor," at its outset, isn't about the American dream so much as its nightmare equivalent: being painted on national television as a loon for crafting something so laughable it calls your very sanity into question.
According to another critic, the unfortunate part of ''American Inventor" is the hyped-up drama, which turns a simple ingenuity competition into something where, as the narrator tells us, ''futures will be decided." This isn't just a shot in the dark for a bunch of would-be inventors. The competitors are chasing the American Dream - ''dream" is definitely the most oft used word on the show - and they've given up their children's college funds, their marriages, and their homes in the process.
Would you be in favor of humiliating people with initiative? This reminds me of how our society treats people who dabble in science and technology- like loons and misfits. The successful ones are treated with skepticism or have their ideas stolen.
Enough of these shows already. It’s nauseating. An appalling amalgam of humiliating ridicule, primitive humor and heartbreaking pathos, we deserve other worthier shows.
Filed under Technology, Society, Reactions, Science, Television by Simon Francis Blaise.
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