Quaere Verum

Well, in the spirit of Halloween, what say you if we trade some scary stories? :-) I've had my fair share of ghostly experiences and I still remember most of them vividly to this day. A close encounter with the paranormal is something that you just don't forget easily. I've also came across a lot of second hand experiences (those recounted by other people) but isn't that always the case with ghost stories? I'm not really a 100% skeptic when it comes to ghosts, but neither am I a true believer. If you believe in the afterlife, you may have to at least recognize the possibility that some souls may have been trapped in this plane, unable to make the transition for one reason or another. Whether you are into this stuff or not, one thing is certain. There are just some things which defy explanation of any sort. Here are some or my personal experiences, all of which are true . The dead schoolmates... I encountered this situation, not once, but twice . The first time happe...

It floods. Some things just never change. Will the powers that be stop sitting on their asses and exert a serious effort to clear our drainage systems? It's the same story every rainy season. The irony is, all of the pictures above were taken around the vicinity of Quezon City Hall.

Happy birthday son! On your 9th birthday, I offer you this short prayer: I ask of You Lord God, to bless my son Aaron watch over him and keep him safe from harm or illness help him learn and understand more of this world we live in foster in him kindness and goodness towards his fellow man give him guidance in the decisions that he may make help him continue being a God-fearing person worthy of Your love and lastly... impart on him the strength and courage to make his dreams come true Amen. Love you son. Happy birthday. :-)

Got this through email more than a year ago. I have no idea whether it really happened or not, but it sure makes one hell of a lawyer story. :-) A Charlotte, NC, lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars, then insured them against fire among other things. Within a month having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy, the lawyer filed claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost "in a series of small fires." The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason: that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion. The lawyer sued....and won! In delivering the ruling the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous. The Judge stated nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insur...

This is CL 's initial comment to my post: The Bible is wrong! (duh....) Makes some pretty good arguments. Thought I'd share her views with all of you. Thanks CL. :-) Do we really need an organization to govern our beliefs? Answers are pouring and testimonials are emotionally touchy for many. I can’t speak for everyone else but my religious experiences; exploration of other faiths as I journey to grasp the complexity of each dogma only led me to observe that there are far more common grounds than there are differences. What has organized religion basically offered people through out history? Let’s travel back in time… Filipinas for instance was a pagan practicing country. Merchants from the neighboring Indonesia and the Arab world [Islam], China [Buddhism] and India [Hinduism] who traveled the archipelago introduced their culture, religion, and traditions to the Filipino people. There was rarely any said bloodshed or forceful conversion. Interracial marriages took place. Soon a...

How accurate is news we hear from the grapevine? Not very, it seems, yet I strongly suspect that we have grown dependent on it in our daily lives, whether we would like to admit it or not. Most of us have been conditioned by our environments to accept information first, and ask questions later. Chalk it up I suppose, to our inate sense of curiosity. We just need to know. We pick up the habit early on in school, and we hone it as we move up to high school, then to college, then to work. After a while, whether we like it not, we have gotten used to relying on the grapevine as a source of news and information. And the information we pick up, we unknowingly trade for more information. And so on, and so forth. Is the grapevine nothing but a source of gossip? Sometimes it can be. Sometimes the grapevine is also full of truths. And sometimes the truths get mixed up in the gossip as well, and we no longer can discern which is which. The reason why the grapevine can be so unreliable is that o...

One of my older posts entitled: The fight against "tabloid blogging".... was featured on the Movement for Visitor Friendly Sites blog. Check it out here . And as long as you're there, if you believe in what the VFS Movement stands for, that is, the promotion of harmony and camaraderie in the Blogosphere by advocating tolerance, open-mindedness, courtesy and respect towards all visitors , please feel free to join our ranks. :-) Peace everyone! :-)

Doom the movie is based on the video game of the same name which established first person shooters (FPS) as one of the dominant genres of the computer gaming industry. The latest version of the Doom video game is Doom 3 , and it raised the bar in computer graphics to a whole new level, with never before seen use of lighting and shadows in a video game to create incredibly realistic images. Of course gameplay is another story altogether (see previous post here ). Doom 3 is an action packed, suspense filled shooter that will have you on the edge of your seat for the duration of the game as you nervously await where the next monster will appear from. As for its story and plotlines, it hardly has any. It was basically written to appeal to the senses via eye candy graphics and eerily realistic directional sound. Not to mention the fact that it taps into your violent tendencies and subconscious fears as you obliterate zombies and monsters trying to kill you as you grope in the dark (lite...

I used to think that geopathic stress was nothing but pseudoscientific new age mumbo jumbo. Now I'm starting to think that it's real. In case you haven't heard of it, geopathic stress is defined as vibrations which rise up through the earth and are distorted by weak electromagnetic fields created by subterranean running water, certain mineral concentrations, fault lines and underground cavities. The vibration distorted becomes abnormally high and harmful to living organisms. (Reference: Geopathic Stress by Rolf Gordon ) Principles: In the 1930s, geopathy pioneer George Lakhovsky first claimed that geopathic stress causes the human body to vibrate at much higher frequencies than normal, and can affect immune system function, making people sleeping or working in geopathically stressed locations more susceptible to viruses, bacteria, environmental pollution and parasites. Viruses and bacterium vibrate at over 140 Hz and parasites, including bed bugs, vibrate at over 250 Hz. G...

Christmas lanterns (parol) on display.

Read the latest (and hopefully the last) analysis of the controversy which has rocked the Filipino community in the blogosphere for the past several weeks here . It doesn't take a genius to see fakery, or at least bad manners in our midst, especially with all the evidence presented. To everyone concerned, let's all get this out of our system and get on with the rest of our (blogging) lives...

The fates have been kind to me. I recently learned via my colleagues Ken and xtnag that I was among those who passed the Career Service Executive Examination/Management Aptitude Test Battery (CSEE/MATB). The results were only released last October 21. In case you're not a Filipino civil servant, the CSEE/MATB is the first step in a four-part examination system for qualification into the third or executive level of government service. According to the Civil Service Commission (CSC) website, 4,751 examinees took the written exam last July 17. Of those, there were 364 passers, while 149 were qualified for supplemental written examinations (SWEs). Assuming all those qualifed for SWEs pass, we're talking 513 out of a total of 4,751, or a 10.8% passing rate. I really didn't expect to pass. The questions were really difficult, and the time allotted wasn't really enough. Just ask anyone who took it. I guess I'm just lucky to squeak through. Hopefully fortune will still b...

I've been using email for the past nine years or so, and somehow, I'm starting to think that it's not as useful as we thought it was in the past. Oh, don't get me wrong, I still use it a lot in communicating with friends and colleagues, as well as for sending various documents, both personal and in the course of my work. The usefulness of email has even been negated somewhat by the proliferation of cellphones and text messaging. Why email when you can text or call? And you get the satisfaction of immediacy as well. Despite this, I still would like to think that email definitely has its uses. But I had some doubts after examining in detail my Yahoo! inbox . I realized that the vast majority of email I receive (90-95%) are all of the junk mail variety. This consists of forwarded email messages, job offers, chain letters, promos, virus laden attachments, invitations to groups or messaging services, porn pictures, and all other kinds of spam. You get the picture. Your in...

Or maybe I can just retire (assuming I'm eligible and I can get something out of it). Hope our office's early retirement incentive pushes through. :-)

While browsing Teacher Sol 's blog , I came across a post and an associated link to a news article that I read in interest. In a nutshell, both are about the Roman Catholic Church's recently released document instructing the faithful that some portions of the Bible are not actually true. Some excerpts from the article published by the Times Online : The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their five million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture, that they should not expect “total accuracy” from the Bible. “We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision,” they say in The Gift of Scripture. Well. It took them long enough. While the change in attitude in the Church is welcome, regretably it happened too late for the countless lives who suffered or died in the name of the scriptures, literally taken to be the "word" of God. Consider these passages in the Bible and...

Once upon a time in the kingdom of Heaven, God was missing for six days. Eventually, Michael the Archangel found him, resting on the seventh day. He inquired of God, "Where have you been?" God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, "Look, Michael. Look what I've made." Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, "What is it?". "It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put Life on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a great place of balance." "Balance?" inquired Michael, still confused. God explained, pointing to different parts of earth. "For example, northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, but cold and harsh while southern Europe is going to be poor but sunny and pleasant." "I have made some lands abundant in water and other lands parched deserts." "This one will be extremely hot, while this one wil...

The past couple of weeks or so, I've been having all sorts of medical tests done. It's my usual routine to have all sorts of medical tests in the weeks following my birthday. It's kinda like my annual executive checkup. When I was younger I always imagined myself as being invulnerable to illness. Now that I'm older, I tend to be more pragmatic about my health. Well, so far, so good. Nothing really noteworthy, though I did get a couple of warnings for having borderline high blood pressure and cholesterol in the high normal levels. The best way of getting rid of high blood pressure for me is to just avoid stress. Ironically, the best way for me to avoid stress is to stay at home instead of going to work. Unfortunately, once I do get back to work, catching up with all the unfinished tasks stresses me again. It's a vicious cycle. As for cholesterol, it's nothing a diet adjustment won't fix. The trouble is, sometimes it's just so hard to eat right, especiall...

It is the year 2005 and Noah lives in the PHILIPPINES. The Lord speaks to Noah and says: "In one year I am going to make it rain and cover the whole earth with water until all is destroyed. But I want you to save the righteous people and two of every kind of living thing on the earth. Therefore, I am commanding you to build an Ark. "In a flash of lightning, God delivered the specifications for an Ark. Fearful and trembling, Noah took the plans and agreed to build the Ark. "Remember," said the Lord, "You must complete the Ark and bring everything aboard in one year." Exactly one year later, a fierce storm cloud covered the earth and all the seas of the earth went into tumult. The Lord saw Noah sitting in his front yard weeping. "Noah." He shouted, "Where is the Ark?" "Lord please forgive me!" cried Noah. "I did my best but there were big problems. First, I had to get a Mayor's permit for construction and your plans ...

One of the nice things about staying at home (I have been a bit under the weather for the past two days) is that I can get to watch afternoon television programs, which I rarely get to do during weekdays. Flipping through the channels with the remote, I can't help but notice how two television programs representing different religious beliefs do nothing but point out contradictions in the other's teachings, in an attempt to discredit the other. I'm talking about the religious word war between the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) and Ang Dating Daan (ADD) which translates to "The Old Path." I'm not a follower of either, though I am a Christian, specifically a Catholic. I do not claim to fully understand the INC's or ADD's religious beliefs, so I neither subscribe by them nor dismiss them. However, I can relate a bit to what they are trying to get across, as most of their discussions revolve around the interpretation of various passages in the Bible. Despite h...

A couple of weeks ago, I finally took the plunge and bought a new handset to replace my reliable and trusty two-year old Nokia 6600 as my main phone. After reading a lot of reviews and comparing various brands and models, I finally settled on a Nokia 6680 dual mode smartphone. Like the Nokia 6600, it's still a tri-band GSM handset based on the Symbian Series 60 platform, but it has two years worth of technical advances on the older phone. These include full 3G ( UMTS ) and EDGE network capabilities, a 1.3 megapixel primary camera (with 6x digital zoon, a lens protector and an LED flash), a front mounted secondary VGA (0.3 megapixel) camera for video calls and self portraits, Push-to-Talk (PoC) technology, a faster processor (a Texas Instruments OMAP1710 running at 220 MHz, versus the Nokia 6600's 104MHz ARM processor), more internal memory (10 MB versus 6 MB for the Nokia 6600), a clearer, 262K color display, better sound via an improved onboard speaker, built-in MP3 pla...

Most Filipinos think corruption in GMA gov't severe People's Rating of GMA 3rd Qtr & 2nd Qtr 2005 Nationwide Survey Pathetic...

The original Mojofly, circa 1999, with Kitchie Nadal on lead vocals. Another Day Mojofly I think I'll go home now it's been the greatest day thank you for shedding life to my fantasy throw me a wicked smile the one like yesterday that threw me up and away to the evergreen like a spiral staircase down i go losing every step I sense an earthquake I.L.U. don't even know how to say when will it break today is gone but tomorrow will be okay I'll wait another day I'll wait another day morning awakes me I need a special plan this very simple task I cannot overcome hundreds of streets I roamed in search for the perfect line nothing I've found good enough for a boy like you why I can never let you go so strange extraordinary why I can never tell you so I must be dumb why I can never let this go can't stop this fun it must be done I'll wait another day I'll wait another day I'll wait another day I'll wait another day

Given all the recent brouhaha over IP addresses, I thought it would be a good idea to help shed some light over these seemingly arcane numbers, and how they relate to our interactions over the internet. I do not claim to be an expert on these matters, however, I have worked in IT for a number of years, so I'd like to think that I have a wee bit more understanding about it than the layman. I am presenting this information as objectively as possible, without alluding to anyone else's concurring or dissenting views, and without necessarily taking sides. I always try to side with the truth , and if you're new here you merely have to glance up at the name of my blog to know that the search for the truth, among other things, is its reason for being. With that being said, here are some facts about IP addresses, in question and answer format: What is an IP address? An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a unique number, similar in concept to a telephone number, used by netwo...

Picked this up from xtnag . This is so me. And I'm not even a Capricorn. Ask anyone who knows me. I'm especially creeped out by the negative traits. They are so accurate its eerie. :-) Capricorn December 22- January 20 Best matched with Virgo, Pisces, Capricorn and Scorpio The practical and prudent Capricorn sign will be the first to tell someone if their new idea does not make common sense. You are a great refiner, taking people's creative ideas and fine tuning them, adding direction and practical application. You can be very ambitious and disciplined. And will climb the corporate ladder steadily, and with honor. You can be counted on to get the job done and to go well above and beyond the call of duty. You show extreme patience when dealing with short tempered people, and can listen to a long winded rant and still stay cool and calm. You have a very good personality, and have a great sense of humor. Your humor is more a sarcastic, and dead pan type humor, but works very ...

I have been blogging for almost a year now. While this pales in comparison to other true blue bloggers who have been in the blogosphere for years, sometimes, it just feels as if I have been blogging for a longest time. I've met a number of people through my blog, some of them online, some of them in person. I got in touch with old friends and old acquaintances. I helped a few people get started with blogging, and sat in the sidelines while new blogs are born, and old blogs die out. Some bloggers quit for some reason or another. Some just lose interest, or are just too busy. There are some poseurs who hop on the blogging bandwagon just because its "in," yet give up after realizing that a true blog requires a bit of an emotional investment to make your blog unique and a reflection of your personality. And there are those who put their heart and soul into it, posting symphonies of words and ideas that have you craving for more. So you visit them again. And again. And agai...

You are a Believer You believe in God and your chosen religion. Whether you're Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or Hindu.. Your convictions are strong and unwavering. You think your religion is the one true way, for everyone. What's Your Religious Philosophy?

Got these pictures through email several months ago. Illustrates why sex and electronics don't mix. :-) You have to admit, they do look kinda cute. :-)

Yesterday, I was asked to take a look at the cable converter hooked up to the TV in the living room. While I may not know how to fix a fluorescent light , people here at home tend to turn to me whenever a problem with any electronic doodad occurs. I guess I can't complain. It is up my alley. The TV in our living room is more than a decade old. A 25" Sony Trinitron which lacks frills like picture-in-picture, stereo sound or cable readiness, but it is as reliable as nails. The converter, a unit supplied by SkyCable , is another story altogether. I guess it can't be helped. It's pretty old as well, and it withstood years of abuse from people pressing at its buttons day in and day out. Until yesterday at least. The power button didn't work. Not only that, it sank deep in the housing, and got stuck there. Well, all it took to fix it was a screwdriver, a can of contact cleaner, and a couple of cotton buds. The circuit contacts had a lot carbon buildup, and the button...

Beware of people in malls or grocery stores who would try to sell you stuff you don't need. They will if you let them. For them, silence actually means yes . Yesterday, I was on my way out of Puregold along Commonwealth Avenue after shopping for some grocery items with my son, when I was suddenly approached by this lady from one of the stalls near the entrance. She took the receipt which I was holding, and blabbered away that my receipt entitled me to receive a free pen. Not one to turn down a free item (even if it was just a pen), she led me to her stall, and proceeded to make a sales pitch regarding a special promo that the receipt I had made me eligible for. I was told that I had the opportunity to purchase a cleaver (yeah, you heard me right...a cleaver) that she was selling for only P199.00, plus an additional seven items of my choice from among the knick knacks she had on display absolutely free. There were can openers, nightlights, knives, pens, miscellaneous tools, and all...

Ms. Precious Lara Quigaman made beauty pageant history last September 26 when she became the first Filipina in the last 26 years to win the prestigious Miss International competition. Historically, she is only the fourth Filipina to hold the title. Aside from her beauty, what struck me the most was her intelligence and eloquence. Below is the answer she gave during the question and answer portion. Read and judge for yourself. Q: "What do you say to the people of the world who have typecasted Filipinos as nannies?" A: "I take no offense on being typecasted as a nanny. But I do take offense that the educated people of the world have somehow denigrated the true sense and meaning of what a nanny is. Let me tell you what she is. She is someone who gives more than she takes. She is someone you trust to look after the very people most precious to you - your child, the elderly, yourself. She is the one who has made a living out of caring and loving other people. So to those who ...

The other day, I received a text message on my cell phone informing me that I am qualifed to receive P11,000.00 as reward for being a loyal Globe subscriber under their Globe for cool rewards promo. Ever the skeptic, I went to the Globe Business Center situated in the Shangrila Mall along Shaw Boulevard and EDSA in order to verify the message. One can never be too careful, given the number of text scams sprouting up from everywhere. Well, it turns out the promo is genuine. I am eligible to receive P11,000.00. Not only that, my other account was also eligible, this time for P6,500.00. There was a catch however. Rather, two catches. One, my accounts were to be locked up (the contract can't be cancelled or modified) for a certain duration (two years for the account qualified for an P11,000.00 reward, one year for the account qualified for P6,500.00). Two, the rewards can't be in terms of cash. They have to be either through billing rebates, G-Cash , or a handset upgrade. I a...

Butterfinger They call you sticky fingers for a reason! What Kind of Candy Are You?

Found this through the myepinoy blog . Click here to try this yourself. :-)