PBB Celebrity Edition debuts tonight

Weeeeeeee! I can’t tell you how excited I am right now. The launch of the Second Celebrity Edition of Pinoy Big Brother tonight has gotten me all worked up that I’m so lazy to post a proper, well, blog post. So I just snatched a story from the official Pinoy Big Brother Celebrity Edition website hoping ABS-CBN won’t sue my little tush.

Ang dating border ni Kuya, Bianca Gonzales, gives us to a sneak peek on what’s waiting for us at PBB Celebrity Edition’s kick-off tonight! Currently at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Ortigas where the new celeb housemates are billeted since Friday, Bianca excitedly shared additional information to their identities. She even toured the 7th floor where all the housemates where staying and spoke to one of them!

Preparations for PBB Celebrity Edition 2 are in full-swing right now at the hotel. The 13 housemates are already blindfolded and covered whenever they leave their rooms. All of them were called into the hotel one by one by Big Brother and are briefed with the rules of the house. The housemates also underwent the standard operating procedure of luggage checks and were taught on how to use the lapel.

As for the identities of the housemates here are some more clues straight from Bianca on The Buzz! Get ready to meet the Celebrity Hunk, Celebrity Babe, Wild Child, Princess of Charm, True Lover, Poor Beauty Queen, Despised Babe, English Outcast, Desirable Diva, Lonely Dreamboy, Mom in Distress and the Komedyanteng Promdi. Bianca even talked to one of the male housemates but their short conversation was in between a closed door. Talk about being so close, yet so far!

Going crazy from guessing? Well, don’t miss PBB Celebrity Edition 2’s grand debut tonight at 9:30pm to find out if your hunches are right!

Cartoons: Therapy for the not-so-young

I was surfing the Internet for my favorite blogs yesterday when I came across Happy Nest, a blog handled by Ms. Toni Platon-Tiu for Inquirer.net. In her latest entry, Ms. Toni said she and her husband tune in to at least one of the three good kiddie channels on cable television—Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and The Disney Channel. Her reason: It’s good therapy for starting an otherwise dreary day.

I put my parents (well, at the moment, only Mama Joyce) through the same thing by tuning in to The Disney Playhouse immediately after waking up. And I make sure the television is tuned in to the same channel almost 24 hours a day. Haha! I swear, mom sometimes throws a fit because she can’t watch her favorite shows like CSI and House.

Fortunately for my tiny frame (which includes my tiny tush), the shows on The Disney Playhouse are infectiously entertaining, even for grownups. Heck, my Dada Joel can’t stop humming the theme from Make Way For Noddy. Whenever he’s here in Leyte, Dada’s as bright and light as a sprite.

I agree with Ms. Toni. Tune in to a cartoon channel early in the morning and let it help you breeze through a day of grinding.

Dengue or UTI? Which is it? I want to know now!

Talk about tantrums. I’m sick. Not in the head, but really sick—the kind that drags your body asunder. It’s my lungs again. They’re pretty weak. Must’ve come from Dada Joel’s side of the family. As far as I know, DaddyLo Jess had asthma when he was a child. Dada, on the other hand, suffered from the same malady from grade school to high school. He still has bouts every now and then, especially after a terrible cold.

That’s what happened to me. It started with a cold. Durned virus. And just like my father before me, my cold graduated into a cough … a dry and unfruitful cough. Mama Joyce is in a quandary. About an hour after she sent a text message to my pediatrician, Tita Doc replied and urged Mama to put me through a complete blood count and urinalysis—whatever these are (thanks for the spelling corrections WordPress, Microsoft Word and Dada Joel). Seriously, though, I feel fine aside from the sudden fits of coughing and the recurring fever.

Mama tells me that’s what the CBC is for. Doc suspects I may have contracted dengue fever, since I feel normal during most times of the day but feverish when nappy and sleeping time comes around the corner. I don’t know what the weewee exam is for. UTI? What’s that? Something to do with my, well, weewee or tinkle or whatever you grownups call it nowadays.

Well, looks like I’m going to be out of commission these coming days. In a few minutes, Mama will whisk me to the hospital for testing and—gasp!—confinement. I certainly hope not. I hate being tied down to a hospital bed when there are so many things to do … so many places to explore.

Dada’s probably going nuts right now and praying his heart out. Hope the Big G hears him. I hate getting sick, and I’m sure Dada hates worrying his guts out while he’s a thousand kilometers away.

Welcome to Ceskypooh’s World

I know. I know. I’ve promised time and again that I’ll update the blog regularly. But a lot of distractions are coming my way that I just don’t have that much time. I do, however, visit my blog every day to check for malicious comments and other problems.

Dada Joel isn’t doing well updating his personal sites, either. He’s just too busy with the blogs at Hinge Inquirer Publications that he has little time to check on other things (hopefully excluding us, Mama and me).

Well, enough of the ranting. I’d like to welcome you to the new Ceskypooh’s World. Why change the theme when the old theme was working well? White. Yes, white. I miss having a white background. There’s so many things you can do with a white background that you just can’t with others, like the Andreas’ gray.

Before I sat down to actually activating a new theme, I was considering switching to Contempt or Ocean Mist, both of which would have done nicely. But when I logged in this morning, I found this nifty new theme by Small Potato of wpdesigner. Cool! A theme designed by my dad’s favorite (he’s using the potato’s themes on some self-hosted blogs).

This theme, simply called Digg 3-column, features two widget-ready sidebars, a customizable header image (which I haven’t really fixed yet), and “nifty green tabs” at the top of the pages. What more can a young blogger ask for? Haha.

So, without further ado, I bring you the new Ceskypooh’s World. Again, I promise to update more regularly. Hopefully, my loyal readers will continue to visit and encourage other readers and bloggers to drop by, too, even once in a while.

Perfect World Expedition: A newbie’s view of Pangu

It’s been a while since I posted, so I feel so rusty. Gosh. My absence can be attributed mainly to the fact that Dada Joel is so busy to help me maintain Ceskypooh’s World. But I vow to do my best to continue posting regularly. And now, for my first post in over a week, I’m happy to introduce a new blog co-authored by my father (so that’s what you’ve been doing, huh!).

Perfect World Expedition is, as its introductory phrase implies, “The adventures and misadventures of an erudite Pinoy gamer in his first-ever MMORPG.” Primarily authored by Dada Joel’s long-time friend, Relly de Guzman Carpio, the new blog provides a fresh take on online gaming. It features not only insights into a first-time MMO gamer but also funny anecdotes presented through one-line comic strips.

Here’s a sample entry:

I have never played an MMORPG before (that’s short for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, dearie, and its pronounced as spelled; try not to read it as a word). But I have played. Oh have I played. I have been playing Role-Playing Games since I was 12. On this, my 20th year as a gamer, I have finally decided to cross the final threshold, to finally drop the proverbial final fig leaf.

Blogging: Search for Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs ends

Digital Filipino’s latest writing project, the search for the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs in 2007, has drawn to a close after almost three months. A brainchild of SEO expert and blogger extraordinaire Janette Toral, the project of identifying new and emerging blogs that are making an impact on its readers has drawn more than 500 nominations from different bloggers across what we call the Philippine blogosphere. In the end, however, only 10 blogs will be chosen.

Sadly, Ceskypooh’s World, though nominated early in the search by Mon Macutay of GM Tristan Online, was disqualified because it had been started before August 1, 2006 (although technically, this blog really got things going in March 2007 hehe).

On a more cheerful note, however, it’s good to see the names of familiar blogs in the masterlist of nominees—truly, they are deserving not only of the prizes but the distinction. Among these blogs and bloggers are Aileen Apolo’s An Apple A Day, Chris and Apples Haravata’s Kubiertos, Paolo Mendoza’s The Philosophical Bastard, Dine Racoma’s The D Spot, Sally Lo’s The Angel’s Garden, Miss Trinity Divine’s Female Gamer, Carlo Ople’s Waukster, and Chino Yray’s Voluntary Death. If only Dada Joel and I got our acts together, we would’ve voted for these wonderful people.

Anyway, it’s time to end this post. Good luck to all the nominees and congratulations to all the winners. See you on August 1.

Perfect World: Egwene in the house!

Dada Joel has just finished watching his first-ever episode of Level Up! TV, a weekly show on cable animation channel Hero, and the first words from his mouth: “WTF!” Uhmmm, what’s that supposed to mean? Probably another swear word I shouldn’t be asking about.

Anyway, the show and its features were not really what got Dada Joel so het up. It was seeing Chris Haravata getting interviewed about Perfect World, the latest massively multiplayer online role-playing game from, who else, Level Up! Games.

No, he’s not jealous that Tito Chris got interviewed instead of, ehem, him. Dada Joel, copy editor of GAME!, the Philippines’ best online gaming magazine, was just surprised to find out that the avatar that Tito Chris, aka (also known as) ChrisH, played–Egwene–was known to him. Well, I just told Dada Joel that Tito Chris probably didn’t know, too. So they’re on equal footing. Hehe.

I’m currently playing a character on Perfect World, too, with the help of Mama Joyce. Guess what my avatar’s name is…

PBB2 Update: Wendy Valdez, Maxim covergirl

Maxim Philippines must really be desperate to dislodge FHM from the top of the list of best men’s magazines. Why? Because they just wrapped up the pictorial for the August 2007 cover with none other than our favorite Pinoy Big Brother Season 2 housemate Wendy Valdez.

Ehem. Now that I’ve got that bias off my chest … let’s focus on the pros and cons of having Wendy as the covergirl.

Advantage: Wendy is beautiful and sexy, making selling the magazine a breeze.

Disadvantage: Wendy’s, uhmm, scars and other skin problems show quite clearly. Without the help of Photoshop, I don’t see how they’d make her beauty stand out. Well, they’ve done it before, with Angelica Panganiban, I don’t see any reason why they can’t do it again.

Advantage: Wendy’s popularity definitely gives ABS-CBN Publishing and Maxim Philippines an edge. Pinoy Big Brother Season 2 is, after all, an ABS-CBN show. Why not cash in on the “brand building” they’ve invested on during the show’s three-month run?

Disadvantage: Wendy’s notoriety definitely throws a spanner into the works, as even flesh-ogling males have a hard time understanding the housemate’s antics while inside the Big Brother house.

Darn! I’ve run out of witty remarks. Can you contribute a few? No bashing please—we’ve had enough of those already. Just witty, factual remarks based on your observations.

MMORPG: Perfect World opens doors today

It’s official. Level Up! Games is opening the doors of Perfect World to open beta players today. This marks a milestone for my family as both Dada Joel and Mama Joyce are players—not necessarily fans—of the popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game from China, although Mom is by far the better and more avid gamer. :p

Here’s the announcement from Level Up! Games:

Perfect World Gearing Up to Go Open Beta!

Perfect World is getting ready for its open beta, and we would like to express our gratitude to all our closed beta players for all the support and patience they expressed during this period.

Today, July 18, Perfect World goes Open Beta, when we can once again enjoy adventuring together.

Thank you!

PW Team

Video courtesy of Hinge Inquirer Publications and GAME! Magazine.

Toys: Transformers now and then

“That’s Optimus Prime!” I’d probably blurt out some time in the future when our family comes across this toy at the mall. Children of my generation and those of previous ones, born five or so years ahead of me, would shout out the same thing.

Although I haven’t had the chance to watch the movie, considering Dada Joel and Mama Joyce won’t watch movies, no matter the level of excitement, without us being together, I know that this image of the being called Prime will forever be in my mind. (Mama and I are still in Leyte, a province about a gazillion miles southeast of Manila, where Dada is working to keep us alive).

Dada, on the other hand, would probably shout “No, that’s Optimus Prime” if this toy was put right beside the Peterbilt truck. In a recent conversation we had, he told me about Uncle Relly’s disappointment with the Transformers Movie (not the 1996 version).

“It’s a bastardization of what we have come to love,” or something like that, Dada quoted Uncle Relly as saying. Hmmm, what the hell does bastardization mean. Oooh, Dada, you’re in trouble now.

Very soon, I feel, Dada will put me through sort of an indoctrination, to straighten out my perception of how the Transformers look like—at least in my father’s and all my uncles’ eyes … of how Bumblebee should be a Volkswagen Beetle (”Heck, that’s why they named him Bumblebee!” Dada is wont to say) and not a sleek concept Camaro. :p