Five Things #8
I have some good interesting things in store for this five things edition. Some of which you might have heard of already but I am sure most of you haven't yet: Beijing Olympics torchbearer, Manila Ocean Park, MakisigTV, October Holidays, and, the greatest for the week - JK Rowling's revelation.
1. First, I want to apologize for not posting this item earlier. I've been keeping this site on my bookmark list for a month already and just realized that the deadline was last week.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics has launched an online poll sponsored by Lenovo on who should be the eight expats in China to carry the the torch in the relay next year. Marco Torres is the Filipino expat who vied for the slot . Here's a snippet of his "Why vote for me" blurb:
"Hope you can help me be the first Filipino torch bearer for the first time since the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. It is said that the first and only time a Filipino held the torch was during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics 44 years ago. If he doesn’t carry it now, we may not have a Filipino in the next 50 years as it may take awhile again before the Olympics are held in Asia. Winning an Olympic gold has been elusive for the Philippines. This is an opportunity to unify all Filipinos towards a single golden Olympic cause."
The voting ended in October 14 and he garnered the second highest number of votes. He had 13342 votes, which is 846 votes behind a US expat.
2. Speaking of something Filipino, a state-of-the-art oceanarium will be built at the back of Quirino Grandstand. Dubbed as the Manila Ocean Park, the P1B project of foreign investors will be the habitat of marine animals which will need around 12000 cubic meters of water. Entrance fee will be P250 for students and P350 for patrons. Good news to us because the first-in-the-country sight will open by December 2007.
3. Finally, a channel all devoted to Brusko Pinoys. Our cable channel has been sprinkled with channels devoted to sports and lifestyle, cartoons, knowledge and information, and home improvement and cooking. But it's very hard to find a station that can house shows all devoted to the male population of the country. Of course, sports channels such as BasketballTV, Solar or adult-oriented ones like JackTV and ETC may be classified as those that cater to men's interests but I think the Makisig Network (channel 76 on Sky and Home cable providers, 80 on Destiny Cable) can be the real answer. The channel banners the horseracing telecast before but when it was about to sign off, they reorganized the network to offer more than a live telecast from the race track.
Line up and description of shows on MakisigTV:
In “At Your Pleasure,” host Nancy Castiglione talks about cars, bikes, drinking, toys, gadgets, even women and gambling. Men will speak their mind on sexuality, spirituality, hobbies and interests in Ariel Ureta’s “Man To Man Talk.” “Macho Gwapito,” hosted by Rico J. Puno, is an hour-long musical show. Tim Tayag’s “Menpower” reports on subjects of interest to men as tackled in current men’s magazines.
There are also specialized shows: Monsour del Rosario’s “Fit and Fast with Monsour,” about martial arts; Dominic Ochoa’s “Mad About Wheels,” for car lovers; and Inquirer food columnist Reggie Aspiras’ “Venus Cooks for Mars.”
Claudine Trillo and Kit Cojuangco’s “Timepieces” is all about watches. In “Living the Life,” Trillo talks with high-profile men about their collections and hobbies. “Pinoy Gamers,” hosted by Reema Chanco, are for lovers of video games, and “Your Sport” is about extreme sports. “Retrosports” features successful Filipinos in the field of sports. “The Bachelor’s Pad” presents a bachelor’s lifestyle.
The horse racing shows are: “Racing Roundtable,” “Largabista,” “King of Sports,” “Ensayo at Trangko,” “The Finish Line,” “Racing Live” and “Inside Racing.”
4. Before the biggest new discovery for the week, I would like to inform you that the week of Halloween will only be a two-day work week. Since there will be barangay elections on the 29th and annual observations of All Saints' and Souls' Day on Nov 1-2, work is only on Oct 30-31. This only means that if you take a leave on Oct 30-31, you will have nine days of no work!
5. One of the biggest revelations in ten years of the Harry Potter heptalogy, which the author said, might still be talked about for ten years more, is that one of Harry Potter's most prominent character, Albus Dumbledore, is gay. Yes, you read it right. And JK Rowling herself mentioned it last Friday when she did a reading of Book 7 in NY. She made this statement when asked if the headmaster has ever found "true love". She also said that Dumbledore was smitten with Grindelwald whom he defeated in the Great Battle long ago. "Falling in love can blind us to an extent," she said, and added Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down" and his love for Grindelwald was his "great tragedy".
Here's JK Rowling's revelation as it appeared in the Leaky Cauldron:
"If I had known this would have made you this happy, I would have told you years ago."
The question was: Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself?
JKR: My truthful answer to you... I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. [ovation.] ... Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extend, but he met someone as brilliant as he was, and rather like Bellatrix he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him. Yeah, that's how i always saw Dumbledore. In fact, recently I was in a script read through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying I knew a girl once, whose hair... [laughter]. I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, "Dumbledore's gay!" [laughter] "If I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!"
Jo also said after revelation: "I had to give you something to talk about for the next 10 years...Just imagine the fan fiction now."
Added to this, she mentioned having a part of the Book 6 script nixed as it is the scene where Albus Dumbledore talks about remembering a girl in the past. Maybe this is JKR's way of making sure leaks about HP information would not come from anyone else than her.
My personal opinion is that, with these revelations and progression of analyzing the whole heptalogy, HP is beginning to be a different series than how we perceived it to be ten years ago. I first believed that the character development (much like showing Albus or Harry getting angry, or Snape's hidden love for Lily Potter) was very heavy, deep, or even surprising for the younger or leisure-only readers to understand but I realized it is the beauty of the book, of maturing at the same time as the readers would as they read from book 1 to book 2 onwards. That we have the benefit of a living author revealing things to us as we try to ask more about the vast and webbed backstories of the book. This makes this children's book more complicated and far more interesting than fairy tale collections.
1. First, I want to apologize for not posting this item earlier. I've been keeping this site on my bookmark list for a month already and just realized that the deadline was last week.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics has launched an online poll sponsored by Lenovo on who should be the eight expats in China to carry the the torch in the relay next year. Marco Torres is the Filipino expat who vied for the slot . Here's a snippet of his "Why vote for me" blurb:
"Hope you can help me be the first Filipino torch bearer for the first time since the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. It is said that the first and only time a Filipino held the torch was during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics 44 years ago. If he doesn’t carry it now, we may not have a Filipino in the next 50 years as it may take awhile again before the Olympics are held in Asia. Winning an Olympic gold has been elusive for the Philippines. This is an opportunity to unify all Filipinos towards a single golden Olympic cause."
The voting ended in October 14 and he garnered the second highest number of votes. He had 13342 votes, which is 846 votes behind a US expat.
2. Speaking of something Filipino, a state-of-the-art oceanarium will be built at the back of Quirino Grandstand. Dubbed as the Manila Ocean Park, the P1B project of foreign investors will be the habitat of marine animals which will need around 12000 cubic meters of water. Entrance fee will be P250 for students and P350 for patrons. Good news to us because the first-in-the-country sight will open by December 2007.
3. Finally, a channel all devoted to Brusko Pinoys. Our cable channel has been sprinkled with channels devoted to sports and lifestyle, cartoons, knowledge and information, and home improvement and cooking. But it's very hard to find a station that can house shows all devoted to the male population of the country. Of course, sports channels such as BasketballTV, Solar or adult-oriented ones like JackTV and ETC may be classified as those that cater to men's interests but I think the Makisig Network (channel 76 on Sky and Home cable providers, 80 on Destiny Cable) can be the real answer. The channel banners the horseracing telecast before but when it was about to sign off, they reorganized the network to offer more than a live telecast from the race track.
Line up and description of shows on MakisigTV:
In “At Your Pleasure,” host Nancy Castiglione talks about cars, bikes, drinking, toys, gadgets, even women and gambling. Men will speak their mind on sexuality, spirituality, hobbies and interests in Ariel Ureta’s “Man To Man Talk.” “Macho Gwapito,” hosted by Rico J. Puno, is an hour-long musical show. Tim Tayag’s “Menpower” reports on subjects of interest to men as tackled in current men’s magazines.
There are also specialized shows: Monsour del Rosario’s “Fit and Fast with Monsour,” about martial arts; Dominic Ochoa’s “Mad About Wheels,” for car lovers; and Inquirer food columnist Reggie Aspiras’ “Venus Cooks for Mars.”
Claudine Trillo and Kit Cojuangco’s “Timepieces” is all about watches. In “Living the Life,” Trillo talks with high-profile men about their collections and hobbies. “Pinoy Gamers,” hosted by Reema Chanco, are for lovers of video games, and “Your Sport” is about extreme sports. “Retrosports” features successful Filipinos in the field of sports. “The Bachelor’s Pad” presents a bachelor’s lifestyle.
The horse racing shows are: “Racing Roundtable,” “Largabista,” “King of Sports,” “Ensayo at Trangko,” “The Finish Line,” “Racing Live” and “Inside Racing.”
4. Before the biggest new discovery for the week, I would like to inform you that the week of Halloween will only be a two-day work week. Since there will be barangay elections on the 29th and annual observations of All Saints' and Souls' Day on Nov 1-2, work is only on Oct 30-31. This only means that if you take a leave on Oct 30-31, you will have nine days of no work!
5. One of the biggest revelations in ten years of the Harry Potter heptalogy, which the author said, might still be talked about for ten years more, is that one of Harry Potter's most prominent character, Albus Dumbledore, is gay. Yes, you read it right. And JK Rowling herself mentioned it last Friday when she did a reading of Book 7 in NY. She made this statement when asked if the headmaster has ever found "true love". She also said that Dumbledore was smitten with Grindelwald whom he defeated in the Great Battle long ago. "Falling in love can blind us to an extent," she said, and added Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down" and his love for Grindelwald was his "great tragedy".
Here's JK Rowling's revelation as it appeared in the Leaky Cauldron:
"If I had known this would have made you this happy, I would have told you years ago."
The question was: Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself?
JKR: My truthful answer to you... I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. [ovation.] ... Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extend, but he met someone as brilliant as he was, and rather like Bellatrix he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him. Yeah, that's how i always saw Dumbledore. In fact, recently I was in a script read through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying I knew a girl once, whose hair... [laughter]. I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, "Dumbledore's gay!" [laughter] "If I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!"
Jo also said after revelation: "I had to give you something to talk about for the next 10 years...Just imagine the fan fiction now."
Added to this, she mentioned having a part of the Book 6 script nixed as it is the scene where Albus Dumbledore talks about remembering a girl in the past. Maybe this is JKR's way of making sure leaks about HP information would not come from anyone else than her.
My personal opinion is that, with these revelations and progression of analyzing the whole heptalogy, HP is beginning to be a different series than how we perceived it to be ten years ago. I first believed that the character development (much like showing Albus or Harry getting angry, or Snape's hidden love for Lily Potter) was very heavy, deep, or even surprising for the younger or leisure-only readers to understand but I realized it is the beauty of the book, of maturing at the same time as the readers would as they read from book 1 to book 2 onwards. That we have the benefit of a living author revealing things to us as we try to ask more about the vast and webbed backstories of the book. This makes this children's book more complicated and far more interesting than fairy tale collections.