Bingo!

We played bingo at the Johnsonville Community Centre one weekend.  This was sponsored by the Mabuhay Association and they were running this activity as part of their fundraising activities.  It's been years (more than a decade in fact) since I played Bingo and I have fond memories of this game and so I decided to go with my family.

Playing Bingo was a social event in our family back in Baguio.  I was in my grade school then when bingo fever hit our house and we would spend afternoons poring through our many cards while somebody calls out the numbers.  I also had my fair share of winnings which added to the excitement of the game. 

We would also tag along when my older siblings and relatives would visit the local carnival fair and play Bingo either in Burnham Park or at the Pines Hotel grounds (which burned down in the 70s).  Chances are they'd bring something home with them as prize.  There are really people who are lucky with such games, isn't it?

More importantly, it was game that kept all of us at home and so we shared fun afternoons together as a family.

There was quite a crowd (the photo below show us amongst the early birds) and we had our share of excitement as we awaited for the number that will win us a prize!

I think our luck rubbed off on our friend though because they won and we didn't.  Oh well. Better luck next time!
Technorati tags: Baguio

Domogan, other gov't execs tagged in jueteng mess

Those named by Cruz as alleged jueteng lords and operators were:

• Governor Baby Pineda of Pampanga; 
• Paul Dy of Isabela; 
• Retired general Eugene Martin of Baguio City; 
• Mayor Mauricio Domogan of Baguio City; 
• Danny Soriano of Cagayan; 
• a certain retired "General Padilla" operating in Pasay, Parañaque, Muntinlupa, and San Pedro; 
• Governor Amado Espino in Pangasinan, and 
• Boy Jalandoni of Bacolod.

Identified as a jueteng collector on the ground was a certain Eddie Fontanilla, with retired General Rey Cachuela as the intermediate recipient, Cruz's list said.

Those identified as "good resource persons" for jueteng were Atong Ang for jueteng and jai alai and Manoling Morato for STL.

During former president Joseph Estrada's term, Ang became a consultant of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) on jai alai operations.

At the Senate hearing, Cruz was hesitant to divulge the names on his list, saying he would only disclose them in an executive session. "The one who should check this (list) out is the executive branch," he said.

But Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile insisted that the retired archbishop reveal the names. “Let's bring out the truth. No matter how painful. Let's name names," he said.

After a brief talk with the senators, Cruz eventually allowed Guingona to read the list aloud during the hearing.

Senator Francis Escudero, thanked Cruz for revealing what he knows. "Thank you for leading this crusade even if you are not part of government, you have taken the cudgels as far as weeding out (jueteng lords)," he said.

Go home and plant sayote

The lowly sayote, a vegetable (which is technically a fruit according to Wikipedia) that feels at home in Baguio City, needs little or no care. Just dig up a shallow hole, toss the sayote in it, cover it up, and watch it grow. Of course you will need to create a series of aerial tightropes, or netting to coax the sayote to climb but that is all there is to it. It's so easy to propagate sayote that you don't need formal education to grow it, prompting teachers to tell their failing students to "go home and plant sayote" instead (camote - sweet potato - is also a popular choice).

A lowly plant it may be, but it's my favourite for tinola.  Have you tried having stir-fried sayote tops? It's really good.

My wife bought sayote from the fruits and veggies grocer one time. I think it comes from one of the nearby Pacific Islands. One of it started to sprout leaves. We left it in the bag for a week more, and it definitely started to grow tendrils. Spring is in the air, and we thought it might be able to survive the coming months and so I planted it last weekend. Hopefully it will survive and we can have some sayote tops by summer!

Technorati tags: gardening

What does Fatboy Slim and Imelda Marcos have in common?

This CD, which jumped off the rack as I was browsing through rack after rack of compact discs trying to look for familiar names. I did a double take actually... is that Imelda Marcos? I wondered. Yep, that's her all right.  I didn't have to see the CD label to recognize her.  So what's she doing on a CD cover?

When I pulled the CD off the rack, there was the title: Here Lies Love. An album by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim. The songs therein by Fatboy Slim is interpreted by various artists including Tori Amos and Cyndi Lauper (the only names I am familiar with in the roster). The songs are supposed to tell the story of Imelda Marcos and Estrella Cumpas, the woman who raised her.  This CD was released just early this year.

A very interesting source of inspiration, isn't it? I was curious to know how the music sounds like, but not curious enough to shell out $24.99 for the CD. But still, curious enough to blog about it.

Oh well. On to the next discovery.

Uncompress files the open source way

Have you ever encountered compressed files and had to deal with the hassle of finding software to uncompress it? Or perhaps you have a huge file that you need to send across the net and compressing it will definitely help with the time spent sending it off?

We are all familiar with Winzip and Winrar, but are there other alternatives?

Fortunately, there's 7-Zip. It's a powerful open source software with the following features:

• High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
• Supported formats:
• Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
• Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z.
• For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
• Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
• Self-extracting capability for 7z format
• Integration with Windows Shell
• Powerful File Manager
• Powerful command line version
• Plugin for FAR Manager
• Localizations for 74 languages

7-Zip works in Windows 7 / Vista / XP / 2008 / 2003 / 2000 / NT / ME / 98. There is a port of the command line version to Linux/Unix.

I've been using 7zip for a month now and it works great.  Give it a go and download this software from their website

Technorati tags: software