2008 uaap cheerdance: chalk one up for creativity

the uaap cheerdance competition is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, event in the uaap calendar. each year, the araneta coliseum is packed to the rafters as students and alumni for all eight universities come in throves to shout, cheer and support their respective cheering squads. i didn’t know this was such a big event until i have already graduated (ang lousy no? 😆) and got an opportunity to watch the event live. the energy was so dense throughout the competition. sobrang nakaka-pump ng adrenalin especially when your alma matter is performing. i have yet to watch the event live since then but i still remember how it felt and it still gives me an adrenalin surge every time i think about it.

this past weekend, up once again won the competition and successfully defended their championship. always known for their creativity and innovativeness, up wowed the judges and the crowd with their ethnic inspired performance. sure it wasn’t a clean performance as some detractors point out but the level of difficulty and creativity more than made up for the minor slipups. i especially liked the peek-a-boo, magic effect they introduced this year with the maroon and green banners. 🙂



congratulations, guys. lupit talaga ng up. 🙂

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cars, steaks, cheesecakes and friends

hanging out with friends used to be soooo easy that we used to do it on a regular basis. but as we grew older, responsibilities grew and finding a common free time to hang out has turned into a difficult task. so when an opportunity to spend time with friends comes along, we grab it. when we can find an excuse to bring guys together, we let our friends know… and that’s what exactly happened during the 2nd philippine international motor show. 😉

using the event and our “plan” to buy a car (kahit parehas kaming d pa maalam mag-drive 😆) as an excuse, we, friends, managed to open up our busy schedules to spend some time together.

and together we went to the world trade center and was collectively surprised by the huge turnout. sobrang daming tao that we had to park outside of wtc. this was our first time (kami ni selle) to attend a car show so we really didn’t know what to expect. gusto lang naman namin mag-“window shopping”, if that term applies to cars. 🙂

as we entered the hall, we went straight to the honda section (stopping only briefly at the new toyota corolla altis) to look at the brand new 2008 honda jazz, a car we’ve been wanting and a car vena and neriz have been pushing us to buy. 😀 we were not disappointed. the new jazz didn’t only look good, if felt good too. sabi nga nina vena at neriz, “parang hina-hug ka ng upuan.” how’s that for comfort? 🙂 add to that the tons of features (everybody loved those cup holders 😆) and the highly efficient machine (published fuel consumption rates of 20 km/liter), we gave the jazz two thumbs up. now, time to save up… 😉



after the jazz fascination, we then hopped from section to section, car to car. we all oogled about the cr-v (eto talaga ang maganda) while francis checked out the executive class accord right beside it. vena and francis gave the swift a failing mark (pangit daw ang loob) while neriz totally ignored the carens (i wonder why? 😆). we were shocked about the price of the i30, drooled over the c30, intrigued by the aveo hatch (at least kami, sina vena eh ayaw nito 😀), wondered where the getz was located… all the while, kathleen was keeping tab where everyone was (nanay na nanay 😀).





vena and neriz checking out the jazz, swift and i10 amongst others. we’re sure mauna pa sila magka-sasakyan kaysa sa amin. 😉


my stylish wife with the stylish c30.


selle’s baby phat sweater came in handy especially in the less crowded areas of the hall. ang ginaw… brrr…

after going through all the cars, we decided to eat a very late lunch (d pa pala sila nag-lu-lunch) at blue wave and ended up eating steaks. since, alanganin yung oras nang pagpunta namin, we had the place all to ourselves. 🙂



with kathleen, neriz and selle around, we gotta have dessert so we then transferred to cheesecake etc… for, what else, cheesecake. 🙂

here we spent another hour or so of catching up, exchanging stories and having massive amounts of laughs. 😀



in between the conversations, i snapped off a few shots using our d40 focusing on patterns, shapes and anything visually interesting.





we joked about having coffee after but it was getting late so we decided to do it on another date… and whenever that would be, we’re sure it would be as fun as it was this day. 😀

thanks guys… san na nga ang break-in? 😉

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last day

after 8 years and 8 months of employment, we, as husband and wife, decided that it would be better if selle resigned from work. it was not an easy decision due to the ties and relationships that have been forged throughout her stay in samsung but whenever work eats up majority of one’s time (6-7 day work week is just too much) and the delight brought about by work is no longer there, it made the decision a little bit easier.

with the goal of letting her feel that she have touched a number of lives, she’s greatly appreciated and that she will be sorely missed, i decided to make an avp for my wife. i set the plan in motion almost a month ago, aiming to create the best avp i have ever made. sadly, editing-wise, it wasn’t the best i’ve made… not even close. 😦

first, i didn’t have the luxury of directing the interviews. for some vague reason, people didn’t want me present during their interviews. nahihiya daw kasi sila. 😀 so i ended up with a lot of interviews (from co-workers and former co-workers) which didn’t have a clear thought flow. that was the first problem.

second, since the quantity and length of the video messages were immense, i ate a lot of time just going through them… thereby reducing my time to edit. also, this meant that the avp will be extremely long.

third, i didn’t have enough pictures to fill-in the gaps of the video messages.

fourth, i had to edit secretly because this was supposed to be a surprise for my wife. so nag-e-edit lang ako pag tulog si selle… further reducing my time to edit. unfortunately, selle caught me editing a couple of days before her last day. bummer. 😦

sum these all up and i ended up with a 20-minute, 5 chapter/song audio-visual presentation which really didn’t have a clear story nor flow. i personally called the avp “chopseuy” or “halo-halo” kasi parang pinag-sama-sama ko na lang talaga ang mga video messages. *sigh* naiinis talaga ako sa sarili ko nun… but i had no more time to edit it more kasi nga a night before her last day ko lang natapos yung avp. 😦

on selle’s last day, i connived with her department-mates and organized a simple farewell party for my wife. this will also be the avenue for me to show the avp. good thing that the party was kept as a surprise and selle was indeed surprised… 😀

it was a simple pizza party with lots of stories… lots of laughter. 🙂



afterwards, i showed the lengthy avp… still a bit disgusted with myself for not producing a better one. but as the avp was being shown, i could see my wife’s reaction…

and based on her reaction alone, nawala bigla yung inis ko sa sarili ko. i was focusing too much on the technicality of the avp, the bells-and-whistles, when what was essential was the substance and impact to the recipient. i guess, i succeeded in my initial goal why i made the avp in the first place. 🙂

here’s the farewell avp cut into 5 chapters. use of earphones are recommended since the audio is not that good.
(note: something went wrong during conversion to mp4 file to upload to youtube. transitions are no longer smooth and the 16:9 aspect ratio disappeared in majority of the scenes.) (update: we changed the video from youtube to vimeo for better video quality. since this is a single file, it would take a while to buffer the whole video so please do exercise patience. 😉)

to those who contributed video messages, a gazillion thanks to you all. pasensya na kung kinulit-kulit ko kayo ha. mahal ko lang talaga asawa ko… at alam kong mahal nyo din sya. 😉 nga pala, don’t worry, we have your complete video messages at napanood na ni selle ang mga yun… including all the non-sense. 😆

to those who helped in planning and executing the surprise party, a gazillion thanks to you as well… kahit na hindi perfect yung “surprise” natin. 😀

to my wife, better things await. sabi nga ni God, He will bring us from strength to strength, faith to faith, GLORY to GLORY. i love you. 🙂

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delayed post no. 2: our first paid project

i’ve been doing digital projects for quite some time now. mostly to add to our personal digital art collection while some as wedding gifts to our friends (yet another delayed blog post topic 😛). a month ago, wengi, our dear friend, approached us asking if i could make an avp which she and her officemates would in turn give as a birthday gift. knowing that it ain’t that easy to make one, wengi offered to pay for the project (yes! 😀). yun nga lang, she didn’t know how much… neither did we. 😆

anyway, we delayed the how-much-for-the-project part decision to a later time (which later on she just decided on a certain rate by herself 😛) and instead just gave wengi a deadline on when to submit the materials needed (video + photo files). i also gave wengi some tips on how to do interviews and what questions to ask (although she didn’t follow some of those tips. 😛)

not only did the materials arrived late (tsk tsk tsk 😆), it came at a time i was rushing to finish the new corporate avp project. when i finally had time to check out the materials, there were only a few set of photos plus they didn’t match any of the stories the interviewees were talking about. wengi naman… 😛

anyway, i had to make to do with what was given… tutal eh bayad eto. 😆 since the video interviews were not that serious, i decided to give the avp a light & bubbly feel to it. here’s how it turned out (the first part was omitted to fit the 10-minute youtube limit):



what do you think?

wengi loved it… both the avp and the dvd label design. her roommate loved it too. unfortunately, i have no feedback yet if the celebrant loved it also. sayang kasi dahil they were not able to organize a viewing party of some sort. that would’ve been the most ideal way to give this avp as a gift.

just this week, i shared this avp with our friend/videographer, bob nicolas, to ask kung magkano ba dapat singil for this kind of a project. i knew that i was “lugi” with the payment i was getting but i didn’t expect i was sobrang “lugi” when bob told us how much we should’ve been paid. at least now, we know better. 😉

wengi, you owe us big time. 😛

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delayed post no. 1: the pgma experience

a couple of weeks ago, the philippine president paid our company a visit. you read that right, that’s president gloria macapagal-arroyo. and like all notable visitors that we have had, samsung was ready to give her the vip treatment. the problem was, we only had a few weeks to pull it off.

as expected, i was tasked to make a brand new corporate avp to present to pgma. i was really hesitant to agree because:
1) we had an upcoming machine management audit from hq to attend to
2) i would be editing the avp at home hence, i would practically be working both at the office and at home

but how could i resist if our company president himself insisted in me making the avp? 😕

since i had limited time, i didn’t make an all-new-footages avp. a third of the new avp was extracted from an hq-made avp (redubbed, re-arranged and replaced soundtrack). another third was from an avp i recently made for all managers’ workshop we just had. the final third was all new. this way, i saved time in completing the project.

buti na lang at ganun ginawa ko kasi muntik ko ng hindi matapos yung project on time (at buti na lang na-postpone ng ilang days ang pagpunta ni pgma due to the typhoon frank incident). but i was able to finish it and our president viewed it and he was impressed. 😀

but my pgma visit role did not end there. i was tasked to be the techie support at the meeting/presentation with pgma. ewan ko nga bat ako pinili eh because we have IT guys assigned for that. anyway, since ganun na nga, it meant i would be at the same room with her excellency during her visit. la lang… 😉

the morning of the visit, it was raining but members of the psg were all over our company. grabe, ang dami nila. i was actually both impressed and amused by their security measures. the stuff we see in movies are actually true. ganun sila ka-strict… and understandably so. for us who will be at the conference room with pgma, we were given small stickers by the psg to identify that we’re the only ones allowed inside the room.



the department of energy advance party arrived. then doe undersecretary angelo reyes. then peza director de lima. then finally pgma herself. yes, she is small. 🙂

after a brief company and product introduction just outside of the conference room, we soon entered the room and the meeting/presentation began. everything went smoothly without a glitch and the meeting ended in less than 30 minutes. unfortunately, pgma skipped the line tour (although she really wanted to… and so did the employees who were anxiously awaiting for her) because she was running late for another appointment. blame the peza director for being late that’s why we did not start on time. tsk tsk.

anyway, an hour or so after pgma left, apparently, she called and asked for a copy of our corporate avp. apparently, she liked it. 🙂



unfortunately, i could not share that avp here. i guess you’re just gonna have to visit our plant to see it. 😉

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3 weeks and counting

it’s been that long since our last blog post and it will continue on for a while since we’re just too busy lately. 😦 but do expect a sudden barrage of posts in the coming weeks though 😀 since we have three posts in our drafts page talking about:

• pgma’s visit to our company
• our first paid digital project
• selle’s college friend’s wedding

in addition to those, we expect to blog about at least 3-4 more things in the next couple of weeks.

as you can see, this blog is just taking a nap for now. it will be up and running again soon… 😉

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now that’s fast…

we saw this game on tv just the other night and was amazed to learn that the best player in the world for sport stacking happens to be a filipino! intrigued, we immediately searched the net and was even more amazed on what we found.



talk about eye-hand coordination. that is ridiculously fast! steven purugganan is so fast he currently holds all the world records for individual events. we’ve shown you the cycle (video above), here are the other two records (3-3-3 and 3-6-3):




steven even set a new record for the 3-6-3 when he guested on the early show.



iba talaga ang pinoy. 🙂

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we have a new toy

from a samsung cellphone to our trusty compact panasonic point-and-shoot… we have now upgraded to our very first dslr! woohooOoO! 😀

many thanks to bob for trekking the jungles of hidalgo just to get us our nikon d40. bait mo talaga, bob. 🙂

the first question we’ll probably get is why get a d40? why not a d40x? well, the answer is simple. the extra 5k it would need to get a d40x is not justifiable for us if the only thing we’ll get is extra 4 megapixels. we’d rather keep the cash and get accessories instead. another thing, the d40x is a discontinued model and has been replaced by the d60.

ok, so why not get a d60 instead? for the same reason we chose not to get the d40x. lamang nga lang ang d60 because of the vr kit lens. but still, the price difference vs the added features is still not reasonable for us.

the d80 would’ve been the wiser choice but we’re not as rich as some of our friends (dba nga, vhlad? 😉) so we stuck with d40… and we’re happy with it. 🙂

so expect better photos in the future… in the meantime, basa muna kami ng manual. 😀

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we were supposed to get a light bulb…

…but ended up getting these…



with a smile like that, who needs a light bulb? 🙂

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back at bella vista

we blogged about this a couple of weeks ago and, as planned, we, along with our dear friend, cel, dropped by the siytangco’s to say hi, visit and support their event. 🙂

as expected, we were greeted with the same warmth we’ve always experienced from the siytangco’s. actually, at first, we were kinda hesitant to approach either deedee or sandee as they were both busy entertaining guests. but, sandee approached us and maybe feeling our hesitation, flashed a smile and simply said, “of course i remember you…” that easily broke the ice and again, they made us feel like family. 🙂

soon after, we were in the living room, exchanging stories and enjoying k by cunanan’s sumptuous food. 🙂

speaking of kaye, we just missed her when we arrived at bella vista. sayang nga, eh. it’s been a while since we last spent time with our favorite caterer. we did get to spend a few moments with ann (hope we get her name right) while we were going around the garden. like kaye, she’s a nice girl too. 🙂



it was a highly relaxing afternoon and a time well spent at bella vista. as if the warmth and hospitality was not enough, sandee and deedee even gave us a gift for our visit… our very own bella vista bird house. 🙂



thanks to sandee and deedee, bella vista is really more than just our wedding venue to us. it will remain to have a special place in our hearts. 🙂



afterwards, we decided to stay in tagaytay to relax some more. we went to cliffhouse to check out the restaurants there. but before dining, we marveled first at the view tagaytay is famous for.




and we’re not the only ones enjoying the view. 😉



after checking out the resto’s, we decided to eat at platito simply because it offered a breakfast menu at this late in the day. 🙂



it’s here we spent a couple of hours chatting away. ganyan talaga pag matagal nang hindi nakakasama ang kaibigan… especially one as talkative and bubbly as cel. 😆 we would go on to other stops after this (domicillo home gallery, razon’s, all flip-flops). kung wala lang pasok kinabukasan, we could go on much later into the night.



warm hospitality of hosts. cool tagaytay climate. relaxing view. chatting with friends. overall, we say it was a great day spent. 😀

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