This post will soon give a full listing of goods and services that will be affected by RVAT. Meanwhile, brace yourselves, people. We will definitely be in for a rough ride…

One group of friends that I met again this year was my barkada in UST’s Arts and Letters College, where I attended AB General in June 1985 up to August 1986 (I dropped out before the preliminary exams for a reason). We were actually an extended number of barkada but the original gang numbered to around 8, all classmates in our first year (four guys and four girls). Our photos here were taken at the UST Coop canteen in April 1986 when most of the group were taking summer classes by day and partying by night.

Sometime in August this year, as I was leaving A-Veneto Restaurant in Visayas Avenue, I literally bumped into Catherine Kipping, one of the girls in the gang. She was the one who recognized me immediately and wasted no time in getting my mobile number.

That chance encounter led to a first ever gathering last November 10, a Thursday at Chili’s Greenhills. Little did I know that Catherine or Kips, as we all used to call her, was busy cooking a reunion schedule of sorts for all of us since she has been bumping into everyone of us.

And so on the second week of November Kips texted me to free up Nov. 10 for dinner which I did.

As the dinner date kept getting closer, I was getting anxious though excited as well and thought how did everybody turn out all these years? Would we recognize each other as easily as Kips and I did? Will it be awkward to face each other after this time or will we hit it off just as easliy as old friends do? Questions like these hounded me the more I thought about the reunion.

All my worries were swept away though the moment I stepped into Chili’s Greenhills and saw the gang. As usual, the girls came early – Kips who organized it and Jinky and Maricris. Next to arrive after me was Bobby and lastly Rommel. Ferdie was not around as he had to nurse his child while Rosanna was the only one who cannot be contacted.

Needless to say, it was a wonderful night to share good memories that the group had. They were the group that made my life in first year college bearable and fun. But we all lost contact with each other when we got scattered especially in second year college.

The reunion triggered a host of memories for me – mostly good though. We each recounted the moment when we lost touch with each other and how they are now with their respective families and careers.

I lost contact with Jinky the most – give or take 20 years in fact. I remember her as very popular and talented and who was always in the limelight (a natural for a Leo like me hehe; Jinky’s bday is a day before mine on August 16). She was always active in participating in Eat Bulaga’s contests, often with successful results (she and her Mom won in a contest in the show which earned for her a brand new Suzuki Fronte, which she always used when we go to gimmicks). I remember escorting her in another contest in Eat Bulaga too… It didn’t suprise me when she told me she became Ms. Arts & Letters in second year college in UST (she also married her partner, Mr. Arts & Letters and they have two kids now). Jinky has been working as a stewardess for Saudia Airlines for 14 years.

Rommel was the group’s “bad boy” and loverboy. He also continued studying in UST and like Jinky graduated in Communication Arts in the Arts & Letters College. I was also surprised to learn he has been married for 15 or 14 years to his college sweetheart (nope not Janet whom I knew; binasted siya noon nung nandun pa ako kaya naglasing itong si Rommel hehe). The name of Rommel’s company escapes me for the moment (hmm, sorry may memory gap na di ako nakapag-centrum kanina hehe) but judging from our reunion he has been pretty enterprising with a personal business and a lovely family to boot.

Out of the 8 in the group only Jinky and Rommel stuck it out in UST all the way until graduation. Bobby and I both ended up in Letran where I saw the guy whom the group considered as the bunso (turns out si Maricris pala ang pinaka-bunso sa lahat). Bobby was probably the closest to me among the guys, probably because we were both Bisaya (he comes from General Santos City while I come from Dumaguete City). I saw how Bobby blossomed into a student leader in Letran (I knew he eventually became Student Council President there) but we also drifted apart when I went fulltime to work in Wendy’s. I was happy to note that Bobby is still with his college sweetheart, Jenny; they now have 3 kids and are based in Marikina. Bobby is a big shot now at Johnson & Johnson with travelling abroad a usual pasttime (wow, you really came a long way bro.)

Maricris still looked the same and is now a single mom to a young boy. Maricris’ love-hate relationship with Rommel since college and which apparently continued until that dinner – I remember all of us going to her house in Vista Verde in Pasig for the parties at their club house or just plain chillin’ out in her room (altho the words chillin’ out were not uso then hehe). Next to Jinky, it’s Maricris whom I lost contact for a long while. Seeing her and Rommel banter around again at Chili’s brought back memories of their galit-bati relationship hehe.

Last but not the least is Kips who deserved praises for organizing the reunion. I’m just sad that she’s leaving soon for the States as she is a registered nurse now (she works in a hospital that her family owns in Tarlac, how’s that?) Kips is also a mother of 2 boys and like Maricris, is just waiting for an annulment of a bad marriage. I’m surprised and happy that Kips and Maricris have been in touch throughout these years…

I look forward to the next reunion dinner of the group, on December 8, tomorrow. Hopefully, Rosanna and Ferdie will be able to join the group. Hopefully too, Jinky will be able to give out copies of the photographs that she took of the November 10 dinner.

I’ve been having problems with my earlier site and I have’nt talked to the guys over there yet. For a while there I was losing hope from in continuing my blogs. But I promise to remind myself from now on that there is always hope in everything. At times you just don’t realize it yet but when you take the effort to see beyond what’s bedeviling you, you’d be surprise at the big picture…

Hope and the lack of it filled my thoughts when I was contemplating my new blog host as well as what to post on here.

While reading my emails, I came across a quotable quote from a behemoth of an intellectual; it came from an email invit of a comrade on the latest mob against the WTO. The quote somehow sums up what I’ve been feeling lately on a lot of things in the country (Note: read about the author of the quote at Wikipedia here):

“There are no magic answers, no miraculous methods to overcome the problems we face, just the familiar ones: honest search for understanding, education, organization, action that raises the cost of state violence for its perpetrators or that lays the basis for institutional change—and the kind of commitment that will persist despite the temptations of disillusionment, despite many failures and only limited successes, inspired by the hope of a brighter future.” By Noam Chomsky…

As expected, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has been silent a day after no less than Thailand Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra led other regional sports officials in insinuating the 23rd SEA Games the Philippines is hosting has been rigged in its favor.

Since Thaksin and Thai sports officials have protested, only Philippine sports officials have debunked their allegations; his counterpart did not even manage to raise anything to counter his unfounded allegations.

Yesterday in Bangkok, Thaksin, without naming the Philippines, was quoted as saying that regional sportsmanship must not be sacrificed at the expense of winning. He even threatened to raise the medal issue on the sidelines of ASEAN’s December summit in Malaysia.

Malaysia for its part protested the slim win margin of the Filipinos in the 10-meter platform synchronized diving competition, charging that the 9-member team of judges officiating the event was clearly biased in favor of the Philippines (no Filipino was a member of the team of judges ).

The first to criticize was Vietnam when one of it’s journalists quoted the head of the Vietnamese delegation as saying that the Philippines had rigged the final medal count even before the games started. The Vietnamese official as well as journalist later retracted their statements even though the story can still be accessed in a newspaper website’s news archives.

Philippine Olympic Committee Chairman Robert Aventajado sought to dissuade the minds of the Thai, Vietnamese and Malaysian delegation officials by saying in a statement that officiating in every contest is solely under the supervision and control of the Southeast Asian Games Federation and its pool of international referees and judges.

Aventajado also said the Philippines has been strictly observing the policy that athletes should only be judged or refereed by judges and referees from other nations.

Aventajado also contends that he already confronted the vice president of the Thai Olympic Committee, who assured him that the Thais have no complaint about the officiating of the games.

It seems that the nation’s high medal haul is largely being questioned by past winners in the SEA Games. It’s as if the Philippines has no right at all to excel in disciplines long dominated by other perhaps now  complacent athletes and nations.

Never mind that our athletes have trained as hard and as well as the next ones, and in China at that. This despite the poor support from the government whose leader has chosen to be silent in the wake of a clear attack on the country’s conduct of the games.

Of course Thaksin’s comments were unfair and sounded like those of a sore loser. Just because their athletes won in bigger competitions but lost in the Philippines doesn’t mean anything. The Philippines has as much right to surge ahead in the medal standings even if it is the host country, just as Thailand did when they hosted it, the Malaysians and even Vietnam when it romped away with a huge margin in 2003. It’s called simply the home-court advantage. How come Thaksin did not raise a howl when Vietnam took 150 gold medals in its freshman year in the SEA Games in 2003?

While the Philippines is a not a typical top finisher, it has performed consistently well through the years. The country had its best finish ever in 1991 during its second time to host the games when it lost out by only one gold medal to eventual champion, powerhouse Indonesia. 

A newspaper has since found that half of the medals won by Philippine athletes were in sports not heavily dependent on judging, meaning the margin of human error either from biased officiating or outright cheating is minimal to zero. So the protests here are extremely unsportsmanlike.

Perhaps Thaksin thinks he can bully the country who has a President who does not know how to stand up to people like him. It’s good that the complaints of Malaysia and Vietnam have been confined to the sports officials’ level. That’s normal in any sporting competition.
But Thaksin thinks he can just fire away his big words on a country

whose President hides from a skirt, literally and figuratively; who snubs a dinner reception for athletes the week before the games but poses left and right for photos with winning athletes a week later.

But he underestimates the Filipino people just as the present occupant in Malacanang is doing. The games have been the most positive thing to happen to a nation long hurting under the inept rule of the worst leader the country ever had since Ferdinand Marcos. It’s about time it won something.

Other countries have declared wars for lesser reasons. Let’s hope Thaksin realizes the folly of his big mouth before the wrath of a hurt nation unleashes its fury on him just as that Malacanang occupant will soon realize her mistake of not standing up for the nation’s athletes.
     

The country’s defeat was only expected; it was even surprising for the team to have come this far (it lost to Thailand 1 – 0 in it’s first game and won over Cambodia in it’s second game 4 – 2). After all, we are ranked #187 out of 205 countries, by FIFA, the world’s governing body of football. This world ranking list follows basic principles and methods of calculation drafted by FIFA and Coca Cola in August 2003 basic of which is for a national team to play in international matches.

Not surprisingly, all four SEA Games 2005 semifinalists (except, surprisingly Singapore, which failed to make it) are doing better in FIFA’s world rankings than us (as of November 2005):

Singapore #95 Indonesia #103 Thailand #105 Vietnam #114 Malaysia #116

The rest of the ASEAN region as ranked by FIFA, including the Philippines:

Myanmar #142 Laos #165 Cambodia #185 Philippines #187 Brunei #199

FIFA’s current ranking of 2005 countries is topped by 2002 World Cup champion Brazil followed by the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Argentina and France.

Asia’s top five highest ranked are Japan #15; Iran #19; Korea Republic #29; Saudi Arabia #32 and Israel #44.

I can only shake my head in disbelief. For a football fan like me who grew up in football-crazy Dumaguete City in Negros Oriental in the Visayas, my question is Why has it soccer come to this? (Football is what the game is known in most countries – according to Wikipedia; about five countries, however, call the game Soccer – Canada,the Marshall Islands,New Zealand, Samoa and the US).

Save for some fanatics in the elite schools in Metro Manila, the branches of of the AFP and most schools in the Visayas and Mindanao, the Philippines has never been serious with football, ironically the world’s number one sport, played or watched by 6 billion people worldwide. For most Filipinos though, this is an alien concept – for what game could ever top basketball, in this hoop-crazy country?

Unfortunately, the world thinks differently, never mind if we continue to march to the drums of the United States of America, the birthplace of basketball (football was born in the United Kingdom). Some argue that basketball is more suitable for our cramped spaces especially in the Metro – who has never seen basketball crazy players slugging it out in some street corner oblivious to traffic and pedestrians?

But someone once said that Filipino’s should change gears and refocus one’s mind, energy, time and money on football and away from basketball because our Asian physique is physiologically built for speed and stamina on the football field – we invented patintero for crying out loud! Our bodies, it was said, were never meant to be genetically predisposed to play basketball, which is the game of the Caucasian race (which is mostly evident in the genes of some Filipino-Foreigners).

Football, on the other hand, is the great leveller of all sports – all you need is a wide field, a set of good lungs, a great pair of running legs and some ball tricks that can be picked up from training and discipline and voila, we can properly join the ranks of the great nations playing this sport.

But sad to say, this sport is only played by a minority in Metro Manila; the bulk of football players are in several provinces in the Viasayas and Mindanao. Several few years ago, in Metro Manila, a dozen ball clubs were formed to start off a professional football league in the country. But after a year-long struggle, the league died down. Ironicall y, several elementary football teams in top private schools in Metro Manila won in international tournaments, like the Gothia Cup in Sweden. You wonder what happened to them when they grew up… Maybe some of them got sent off to boarding schools in England and other European countries; they then came back as seasoned players like Filipino-British James Philips and the five other Filipino-Foreigners playing in the SEA Games’ heroic football team.

What are we, as a nation, missing anyway if we don’t get serious with football. Well, we are missing a lot actually in the whole brotherhood of mankind when the quadrennial football celebrations, dubbed World Cup, is being held. In fact we missed it bigtime, when three years ago, the World Cup was held for a historic first in Asia and co-hosted by bitter political rivals, Japan and South KOrea. Consequently, both countries did the whole of Asia proud by stunning more seasoned European and Latin American rivals and making it as far as the semifinals.

Next year, both countries are expected to figure strongly again in the football world stage when the 2006 World Cup will be held in Germany. Filipino football afficionados can only dream of the day when our Pinoy footballers will make it to a World Cup staging.

But at the rate things are going, even with the good enough performance in the SEA Games,the Philippines will need a lot of work before it can muster a really good powerhouse of a team that can withstand the challenges of other teams in the region who have been ahead of us in the sport. Because as we know in any kind of sports, good enough is just not enough.

This was the translation on the shirts of Muslim youth who led a peaceful march two Saturdays ago. The march was in honor of the two young Arabs whose deaths sparked the deadly chaos that has been raging in Paris and its surrounding cities for the last two weeks.

The deaths of French-Malian Bouna Traore, 15 and French-Tunisian Zyed Benna, 17, were not the only ones that died for no reason.

With the French government’s slow response, its police force’s misguided attempts to contain the chaos and the populace’ apathy to the plight of the immigrants living in the “banlieues” or suburbs, it’s as if France’ famous motto “liberté, egalité and fraternité” may just have died itself… Time Magazine’s latest issue chronicles and dissects the rationale why the streets of Paris are burning…

The best part of the magazine issue was a sidebar on a young French-Algerian rap star who dared France to accept him as a Muslim, Arab and French and urged the country to move on. (Sorry, I tried to locate the sidebar in Time magazine’s internet edition but didn’t saw it.)

I’ve always been fascinated with things Francophile. It was what drove me to take up the French language for two levels and counting, as a Certificate course at the Department of European Languages at UP Diliman. So what’s happening there now has gravely alarmed and saddened me.

My graduate class on Media Law discussed race reporting last semester. As with every race issue, the roots of the problem here are usually long-rooted, multifaceted and too complex for any one solution to be administered.

Here’s hoping that the French government and more importantly, its people – whether French, Arab or Muslim alike – will be able to solved the chaos in their streets, hearts and minds as soon as possible.

I’ve had my share of battles with my desk editor especially when I was just starting out and he was the big, bad bully in the newsroom. Back then, I only knew of the desk editor as being out there only to make my life and that of my fellow reporters’ lives, miserable.

Shouting matches were par for the course then. The advent of cellphones only made our arguments mobile and real time – I was often heard quarreling with my desk editor in the mountains and jungles of Mindanao as well as in the coverages in Metro Manila.

Before I knew it though, I reluctantly accepted a promotion in the newsroom as, gasp, a desk editor. And that was when I saw the view from within, well, the enemy’s perspective. I didn’t liked it and so I left.

Now I’m a desk editor again and the perceived enemy of a number of reporters, cameramen, assistant cameramen etc. And no matter how I view it, the relationship between these groups in the newsroom will never thrive beyond a natural enmity between each other – the concerns of each group are too parochial and limited to their immediate needs and wants. But a desk editor’s is beyond that and more – he or she has the responsibility to see the bigger picture and implement what must be done to get the job, well, done simply and efficiently. I have been there and I know it.

So the question remains. Who is the enemy really? Is it the desk editor or the reporter or both?

My thoughts turned lately to such matters when I had an opportunity again to go out in the field last Saturday and gather the news first hand, never mind if my day-off was cut one day short. I covered three stories on that day with one exclusive report and all were used in the weekend newscast. I was even able to do voice my exclusive report, give or take a slow start in voicing, owing to not having practiced it lately.

In all these time, I got a good support from the desk – never mind if there was an extra effort there for a co-desk editor. The fact is, the desk editors in our newsroom are a fine bunch of overworked and underappreciated fellows, not to mention underpaid (and a whole lot more but let’s not go there).

So who is the enemy now? I’d say the enemy is oneself, whether a reporter, cameraman, assistant, desk editor, the bosses or anyone else among the people in the newsroom…

Each and everyone fulfills a role that needs each other as a team. The trick simply is how to be more consistent day in, day out in the job with one’s self; most important for me is how to be intellectually honest with one’s self in essaying out one’s role in the news organization.

My big, bad bully of a desk editor in my former network died this year. But before I left that newsroom for my new network, I made peace with the guy; he was not necessarily bad. He was just misguided and like most people in the vast and impersonal world of tv news, overworked and underappreciated (I would call him underpaid though but again, let’s not go there.)

Come to think of it, I came out wiser and more knowledgeable now after my stint with my former desk editors. And I hope this has made me more effective in doing my job as a desk editor myself. Now, whether I enjoy it or not is another thing; after last Saturday’s field work, I realized I missed doing it so bad.

Thinking back on my experience with my big, bad bully of a desk editor made me recall the German philosopher who was assigned to me in my first year of college in UST: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) once said in his work, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1885″:

“But if you have an enemy, do not requite [pay] him evil with good, for that would put him to shame. Rather prove that he did you some good.”

Just like that credit card commercial, there is simply no measurement in getting something that is beyond the value of money.

Looking back at the semester in Graduate school that was, I can only shake my head in disbelief and marvel at how I survived 3 major subjects and 1 elective. I’ve received the grades of 3 of the 4 subjects and I’m quite happy. Most unexpected was the high grade in Ethics.

The best part of the semester was meeting my professors and classmates – saying what a fine bunch of people they are is the understatement of the year. My most happy moments were the campus sessions at the Ateneo last August. While they were quite exhausting what with classes from 8am to 6pm and the extra hours after for socializing, still it was all worth the sleep-deprived days. I can’t wait for the summer when we will meet again for the campus sessions at the Ateneo. 

Now its officially 1 semester down and 3 to go. I’ve blogged previously about why my acceptance into the Fellowship of Masteral Program of the Konrad Adenauer Center for Journalism at the Ateneo (whew) was the single most significant thing that happened to me this year (runners-up in this category: getting regular status as a desk editor in the network and finally graduating belatedly from college last March). Now i can only imagine the benefits it will bring me in the coming days. The possibilities are endless even as I blog. Most importantly, what it has doing to my psyche and how it is healing the gaps in my education is more than I can imagine. I will probably never tire in blogging about this.

Meanwhile, the second semester is looming ahead. Who ever said that school is dull and unexciting? Now more than ever, I’ve got a new lease in life, especially in work and in my career beacuse of all the inputs and inspiration I’m getting from studying again. And that is simply priceless.

You’d think this happened anywhere in EDSA or the provinces right? Wrong.

This happened in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2000. And this is the powerful and award-winning documentary, Bus 174.

In a nutshell, Bus 174 chronicles the descent into madness of one petty thief, Sandro Rosa de Nascimento, who decides to rob a bus in one of Rio’s busiest streets. 

But he bungles the robbery and the police surrounds him; since the incident took place near the offices of Brazil’s leading media networks, the news programs soon covers it and beams the situation live. A standoff ensued; the hostage-taker, realizing his new-found power over the situation and the viewers, put on a deadly show that ultimately resulted in the death of a hostage. The police eventually killed Sandro but not before the crowd nearly mauled him to death.

This incident became the subject of a powerful documentary dubbed Bus 174, by upcoming filmmaker Jose Padilha. Last Sunday, the National Geographic Channel featured Padilha’s documentary in its No Borders program. By the way, Bus 174 won the best documentary award at the 2005 Emmy Awards.

In a nutshell, Bus 174 is an extraordinary account of a bus hijacking in Rio de Janeiro. Here, the act of former juvenile delinquent and petty criminal, Sandro became grist for networks whose news programs were starved for ratings.

The hijacker, seemingly high on drugs realized his power over his captives – both the hostages and the nation thru the news so he ups the drama more. The police botched the incident and one hostage dies while Sandro is taken captive only to be summarily executed by the police in retaliation.

Filmmaker Jose Padilha interspersed his docu with a back story of the hijacker and Brazil’s poverty – think Ciudade de Deus or City of God by the brilliant Fernando Meirelles (who also megged one of 2005′s best films, The Constant Gardener). Anyone who saw that movie would know how Brazil’s child gangs are notorious in its favelas or slums. While the film does not justify Sandro’s act, it does allow more understanding on why he did it and why the system failed him.

bus 174 is so like Costa-Gavras’ MAD CITY. One wonders whether the media is equal parts to blame or not for the fiasco… The funny thing is, I am not laughing for Sandro’s plight is so Pinoy and what happened there could have happened here… We may be oceans apart but we are joined in solidarity by the misery that afflicts our youth…

First the PCIJ Blogging Summit last October 22 at the Linden Suites in Pasig City. I got invited on the basis of being among the journalists who are into the phenomenon of blogging.

Like most people (not just journalists), I got into blogging after reading the accounts of US soldiers blooging about their experiences in the Iraq War and who were subsequently banned by the US military to continue.

I first set-up my blog in Blogger last year but it was a one-time post. I revisited it this February and again posted once. I finally got to posting on a semi-regular basis by April of this year. Then I got invited to the First Philippine Blogging Summit held at UP NISMED last May 7, 2005. My story there made me produce my second voice over report for GMA News but it came out only in Unang Hirit;I was told that bigger stories bumped it off from 24Oras (that url capture was courtesy of the genius web designer, developer & netrepreneur Abe Olanday or more popularly known as Yuga, who was among my interviewees as one of the speakers during the summit).

The Chairman of the UP Law & Internet Society Program Atty. JJ Disini (who’s JJ?) even featured me on his blog about it (more bloggers blogging about IBlog here).

You’d think after this that I would become a regular blogger? For a time yeah, probably from May to July. But then graduate school happened and suddenly my schedules got screwed up.

Attending the PCIJ blog convinced me otherwise to pursue blogging religiously. And so it has been a contant thing for me to revise and improve my blogsite, hence this reincarnation of it yet here. I will keep the i.ph site probably for family matters but I read somewhere that it’s now doing a WordPress so that would be great since I like it here too.

I’ve a lot of posts written offline so there would be a lot of retroactive ones here… As this is a work in progress, please do bear with me.

When I started out, I didn’t knew what to write; I’ve silenced myself so long that I almost forgot how to voice out what I think and feel as a journalist. Such is the downside in having become one of the network’s desk editors. Add to that was the unwritten policy imposed on us bloggers in the network which was TPP’s subject of discussion at the PCIJ forum (which I guess must have horrified anyone who attended there).

At any rate, attending the summit cleared up a lot of doubts to my mind as to what direction I may be going from now on as a journalist. It’s a good thing that this second semester’s offerings are tied up to the Internet – Computer-Assisted Reporting in the first half and Online Journalism on the second half.

The PCIJ summit also afforded me a mini-reunion of sorts with classmates Carol Arguelles of Mindanews, Joyce Panares of Manila Standard Today and Luz Rimban of PCIJ (who was very busy and had to leave for her coverage at the Ateneo too). After the summit Carol now vows to become a serious blogger; Joyce as well had put up her’s (check out the links section).

As far as I’m concerned, the future looks bright so I gotta wear shades…

Well not anymore (I hope) because it’s really scary to beat deadlines. And that’s what I’m doing today, now, this minute – finishing the finals paper for our media law class due midnight tomorrow. Attending to my blog is relaxing me a bit, albeit momentarily. Trix, I hope you are doing fine as we beat our deadline (hoping too that our other classmates are doing fine as well). After tomorrow, we can hopefully move on with other, equally important matters in life, like love and blogging, among other things…

Meanwhile, here is a different phobia – blogophobia that is. Here’s a list of companies and organizations who are allergic to blogs and bloggers… I hope your company and mine will not make it here, now and forever.

The good news is I finished my first Jasper Fforde novel – Something Rotten. And now I can’t get enough… Good thing I saw a copy of the first one, The Eyre Affair over at Fully Booked at the Gateway Mall (plus the 2nd Lost in a Good Book and the 3rd Well of Lost Plots; also saw The Big Over Easy, Fforde’s new novel on Humpty Dumpty’s fall and who was behind it).

Finally saw that HAMLET dvd w/ Mel Gibson. Glenn Close and Helena Bonham Carter were good as always; Gibson was convincing but Ralph Fiennes should have been Hamlet. Also saw CRASH – pretty good movie, I totally liked it (full review about this later).

Only had time to open my email tonight. One item caught my eye from my gmail. It’s a cautionary tale for bloggers like me, although the author is an anonymous blogger unlike me. The short of it is, she got fired after her employers found out about her blog; the worst thing is, she also got fired from her next job after finding out what happened to her. Well now that she’s fired, she’s now blogging openly. Check it out: Jolie in NYC and beware or at least learn how not to end up like her (and still blog on what the h**l)!