When the songbird sings

“Blinding me his song remains reminding me
he’s a bandit and a heartbreaker
Oh but Jesus was a crossmaker”

— The Hollies, Jesus Was a Cross-Maker

These surveys come in very handy in times of writing dry spells.

99 questions from Kewlasa

1. What time is it? 8:00
2. Name: Kaye
3. What’s the question?
4. If you were a skittle, what color would it be? Red
5. Male or female: Female/Babae
7. Hair color: black
8. Eye color: black
9. Height: 5 ‘3″
10. Favorite Color(s): #cc0000
11. Glasses, contacts or neither: glasses
12. Shoe Size: 35
13. Piercing/tattoos? Pierced ears
14. Birthplace: Cabanatuan City
16. Sibling’s name: Joy and Lou

HAVE YOU EVER
17. Cut your own hair?: yes
18 to 20 missing?
21. Skipped school?: yup
22. Bungee jumped?: Not yet, but want to
23. Went to a concert?: Yup
24. Kissed the same sex not related to you? No
25 Kissed a stranger?: Nope.
26. Stared at the stars for hours?: Yes! I used to watch meteor showers back in college. I’d love to do that again?
27. TP’d someone’s house?: TP? Anuyun?
28. Won something?: Yup
30. Been rejected?: Oh yes, many times.
31. Been to a funeral?: Yes. I don’t like going to funerals, really.
32. Used a lighter?: Yup.
33. Been on stage?: Yes.

FAVORITE
35. Food: Italian, Pinoy, Thai, Chinese, Japanese
36. Ice cream flavor(s): vanilla and anything that has chocolate in it
38. School subject(s): Recess, hehe…English, History, Biology, Psych, Comm 100 and up, majors, polsci, humanities
40. Number(s): 15 and 30 — go figure!
41. Book(s): Atlas Shrugged, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensitivity, Possession, LOTR, HP, Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime…and the list goes on and on…
42. Movie(s): LOTR, Amelie, chick flicks, The Matrix and the list goes on and on…
44. Drink(s): Water, Coffee, Coke, Beer, margarita, Vodka Ice…
45. State: harassed, broke, tired
46. Place: Anywhere (but here?)
#47 Missing…This isn’t really 99 questions, Janey.
48. Sport you like to play: badminton
49. Fav type of music: too diverse
50. Letter(s): K, though some say it’s “R”.
51. Fast food: McDo
52. Cartoon Character: Care Bears hehe
53. Holiday: Christmas
54. Name for a son: Gigolo
55. Name for a daughter: undecided

DO YOU PREFER
56. Chocolate or Vanilla? both
57. Long relationships or one night stands? Permanent relationship with my honey (ditto Janey!)
58. cats or dogs: Dog s
#59 is missing.
60. Scary movies or comedies? Smart comedies
61. Silver or gold?: Gold
62. Croutons or bacon bits? Bacon bits all the way, baby!

FIRST THINGS THAT COME TO MIND
Jane, what did you do with #63?
64. Hedgehog: Jim Collins
65. School: UP
66. Green: Web2.0 (really–green is the most prevalent color next to gray/silver)
67. Cow: Steaks
68. Canada: very cold country
69. Mouse: Dora rat killer
70. Hand: Backrub logo (google it!)

THE PAST 48 HOURS, HAVE YOU…
71. Watched a movie? Yes–
72. Talked on the phone?: Yes
73. Cried?: Yes. Don’t ask.
74. Threw up?: No
75. Drank a glass of water?: Of course!
76. Talked to one of the opposite sex?: Yes
77. Read a book or magazine?: Yes. Been reading “The Devil Wears Prada”. It’s funny and reminds me of a former career which I’d like to blog about once I finish the book.
78. Watched TV?: Yes, and got v. annoyed with this news bit about a certain Sexbomb dancer refusing 300 grand to shave her head for a TV series. Who does she think she is??? I’d even shave off my eyebrows for that much!
79. Looked in the mirror? Yes
80. Taken a shower?: Many times
81. Taken a picture?: No
82. Listened to music?: Yes. Been listening a lot to my “comfort music” which are mostly soundtracks of my favorite movies
83. Kissed someone? Oh yes!
84. Done your HW? Oh God, remind me I have to pick up the clothes from the cleaners
85. Told someone you loved them & meant it?: YUP.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN…
86. Heaven?: Yes
87. Aliens?: No and Yes
88. Fun for the entire family?: yeah
89. Freedom of speech?: Yup. No freedom is absolute however. Rights = Obligations. (Ditto, Jane!)
90. Love?: Oh yes, definitely.
91. Magic?: Lumos!

SOME RANDOM STUFF
92. Last movie you saw in theaters?: X-Men 3
93. Are you listening to music right now? Yes. Kate Rusby’s “A Rose in April”
94. What clothes are you wearing right now?: Striped shirt, jeans and sneakers.
95. Do you like your middle name?: Yes.
96. What is the best thing since sliced bread?: Coffee, love, sex, internet, make-up, Johnson’s Milk Lotion, badminton, shoes, Starbucks and Figaro (love the UN Avenue branch!), cell phones, shoes, flirty skirts, movies,
97. What’s your GPA?: 1.9-something out of 5 (1 being highest)
98. Where do you want to live when you’re older?: In a European countryside, a quiet place beside the beach, a castle surrounded by a moat, with my love and surrounded by everyone who loves me.
99. What time is it now?: 8:10 PM.

The blogsphere is abuzz over the trademark application filed by O’reilly publishers for the term “web 2.0″. See the scan of cease and desist letter sent to IT@Cork, a non-profit Irish organization, here.

Boing Boing disagrees with O’Reilly:

…I’m not convinced that there is a trademark here. In O’Reilly’s latest post about this, they quote my pal and colleague John Battelle saying “Remember, Web 2.0 is also about having a business that works. And not protecting your trademarks is simply bad business practice.” But while that’s true…it’s not the whole story.

The O’Reilly Conferences’ unique selling proposition is that they rewrite the rules of the industry and coalesce meaning out of the stew of ideas floating around the field. If you’re going to name the next direction the world will take, you have to be prepared for the world to take that direction….

That means that O’Reilly needs to choose whether it’s going to retain control the word “Web 2.0″ for conferences, or retain control over the shifts that created the Web 2.0 phenomenon.

I think being able to call the shots is more important than being able to own those calls.

And John Battelle, O’Reilly’s partner in the conferences comments that the move wasn’t a very smart one:

…sending the Bigfoot letter to the non profit was a mistake. We’re SORRY. Tim and I did not know it was happening. This was done by the legal departments and business folks at CMP and O’Reilly…Clearly it shoudl not have been done, and from what I’m told, it has been worked out with the folks in Ireland. And we apologized. As we should have.

UPDATE:

Hans is not pleased and says YOU CAN HAVE IT!

Gary Reid made a good point in suggesting that everyone should have a web 2.0 conference (yup, use both web 2.0 and conference) wherever they can and see if O’Reilly would run after them with a cease and desist order.

Gee, a 10UKP web2.0 conference fee inclusive of free beer sounds fantastic! How I wish I could attend.

Why did the headless chicken cross the road?

Just fell in love with this song…

A House Is Not a Home

Hmm…
A chair is still a chair,
even when there’s no one
sitting there.
But a chair is not a house,
and a house is not a home
when there’s no one there
to hold you tight
and no one there
you can kiss goodnight.

A room is still a room
even when there’s nothing there but gloom.
But a room is not a house,
and a house is not a home
when the two of us are far apart
and one of us
has a broken heart.

Now and then,
I call your name
and suddenly your face appears.
But it’s just,
a crazy game
when it ends,
it ends in tears.

Darling have a heart,
Don’t let one mistake
keep us apart.
I’m not meant to live alone,
turn this house into a home
when i climb the stair
and turn the key please be there.
Still in love with me.

Yea…

I’m not meant to live alone.
Turn this house into a home.
When I climb the stair
and turn the keys.
Please be there,
still in love
with me.

mp3

Rome and I saw the advance screening of X-Men 3: The Last Stand last Sunday at the SM Mall of Asia (huge, huge, huge!). It’s a decent outing for an action-adventure flick, to say the least. This is supposed to be the ultimate showdown among mutants and more characters are added to both groups (Xavier’s and Magneto’s). The story is off to a slow start but eventually builds momentum towards the big mutant battle. As we all know already, the story is about the discovery of a “cure” to rid mutants of their uniqueness. The effect is irreversible and ironically, the source of this cure whose power zaps the strength of any mutant within its reach.

There are a few surprises, so here be the spoilers: Three mutants will lose their powers (one by choice), three will die (one too soon and too unexpectedly–does the director hate the mutant?), Jean Grey will rise with evil other-self Phoenix, a love triangle among the younger ones, the heroes refer to themselves as X-Men for the first time, Wolverine’s regenerative powers comes in very handy. Storm is simply cool, and frankly, if I had to choose which among the mutants’ powers I’d like to have, it would be to control the weather, hands-down. That and the power to look drop-dead gorgeous in skin-tight black leather. I’m not a big fan of the Tina Turner ‘do, though.

We attempted to watch The Da Vinci Code last Friday, but by the time we arrived at the cinemas, the only screening left open was for 1:45 AM. We weren’t that crazy over the film, so we decided to postpone watching it for another evening. I guess if it were The Lord of the Rings, I wouldn’t mind queueing up as I had done when Return of the King was shown unexpectedly a day in advance here in Manila. By Saturday, Rome plucked me in the middle of a badminton game to rush to GB3 to see “Da Vinci”. National Geographic had a special screening at Greenbelt 3’s MyCinema for press people. I wanted so much to continue playing, but free tickets to a MyCinema showing was a very attractive idea and meant no need to fall in line for hours at the ticketing office.

(more…)

Pearl Jam released the video of their latest single, Life Wasted, via Google Video. A nice move by Pearl Jam, methink, to utilize the net’s socialibility and engage in virtual word-of-mouth marketing. As this file runs under Creative Commons, it means fans can download, share or post videos provided that they credit this work to its author–the band, of course. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Pearl Jam, life wasted video, Creative Commons, Google Video

• Oh No! Not another web2.0 definition! - “The beauty of web2.0 meme/approach/trend may also be the same factor that cripples it: there are no well-defined boundaries. This causes a lot of confusion as well as opens opportunities for start-ups to have their shot, but at the end of the day, it’s all about “leveraging collective intelligence” as Kevin Kelly wrote. So let’s fire away with the collective intelligence and talk about what this meme is or isn’t. Your opinion matters.”
• Snap.com is an interesting search engine with lots of AJAX. I like the quality of individual search results (title, URL, meta/description + home page snapshot). Brilliant. You can check results’ pages without leaving the engine. Why didn’t the others come up with this?

  

• Why wait for the invites from Writely when you can create a document, a spreadsheet and a presentation on the web? Thinkfree is a nice, useful, smart (though slow) alternative to Office.

  
  Create a document.

  
  Create spreadsheet

  
  Create a presentation. Use public images on Flickr.

  
  Tag, sort, publish or share your documents.

1. What industry sites and blogs do you read regularly?
2. Do you prefer to work alone or on a team?
3. How comfortable are you with writing HTML entirely by hand? (+exercise)
4. What is the w3c?
5. Can you write table-less XHTML? Do you validate your code?
6. What are a few of your favorite development tools and why?
7. Describe/demonstrate your level of competence in a *nix shell environment
8. What skills and technologies are you the most interested in improving upon or learning?
9. Show me your portfolio!
10. What sized websites have you worked on in the past?
11. Show me your code!
12. What are a few sites you admire and why? (from a webdev perspective)
13. Fix this code, please.
14. I just pulled up the website you built and the browser is displaying a blank page. Walk me through the steps you’d take to troubleshoot the problem.
15. What’s your favorite development language and why? What other features (if any) do you wish you could add to this language?
16. Do you find any particular languages or technologies intimidating?
17. Acronym time (oh boy!)
18. What web browser do you use?
19. Rank your interest in these development tasks from 1 to 5 (1 being not interested at all, 5 being extremely interested)
20. What are a few personal web projects you’ve got going on?