One my favorite manga of all time is Hajime No Ippo known more popularly to the anime loving crowd as Fighting Ippo or Knockout. For those anime lovers who thought Ippo has already finished airing, well you got one coming. Just head over to your favorite anime providers and you’ll see that there are new episodes there. For the more hardcore Ippo fan, the manga series is ongoing and they churn out new episodes every week.

The only problem is that a week is too long! Especially now that Ippo is getting the shit kicked out of him by Woli that monkey boy from Indonesia. Dagumit!

But anyway, I thought about checking out other fighting manga’s so I can while away the time as I wait for another episode to arrive from Japan.

Good thing I did because I discovered Veritas, and just today I discovered Tough.

Veritas is a fighting manga but there are supernatural powers involved. If you’re a purist and wants to keep it real, this one’s not for you. But what I like about it is that the artwork is good, the story line is well, ok I guess and there a lot of hateful characters there that you would really love to read just to see their faces getting bashed by Gangryong.

Here’s the summary of Veritas lifted from mangafox.com

“Gangryong is a high schooler unlike others. He has always had a dream of being the strongest. One day he meets Youcheon, who teaches him a powerful skill. One year later, people come to see him and announce that his “master” is dead. Because he was his only student, Gangryong has to follow them and go to a school where everybody has supernatural powers.”

Another manga I just discovered today is Tough. This one bears a striking resemblance to Baki the Grappler. Even the lead character somehow resembles Baki as well. It’s an interesting take on underground fighting and even hints at MMA and other martial art disciplines.

Again here’s the synopsis from mangafox.com

This is a continuation of Koko Tekken-den Tough which ran for 42 volumes and followed the main character, Kiichi, when he was younger and was training under his father Seiko Miyazawa. This is a mixed martial arts fighter manga about the Miyazawa school of martial arts. Initially, it is about Kiichi trying to heal his father after he was nearly killed by his brother Kiryu but it then goes on to be less about that as his father recovers and some tournament style fighting begins.

As you can see Tough is sort of a prequel to Koko Tekken-den Tough. Something that I have yet to read. But since I have already finished the latest chapter of Tough, I will be reading this now. Teehehe.

Related posts:

1. Darker Than Black Manga Impressions

Ok, apart from that I think the iPad is a thing of beauty. I can already see myself going to meetings and taking down notes with it. Teehehe. Not that it would happen soon as I’m about to be leaving the rat race once again. Sad but true.

But aesthetics aside, what’s really the compelling argument for wanting to have an iPad? It doesn’t multitask, doesn’t support flash, and it doesn’t have any camera for videos. Based on those alone, a lot of folks are already shouting bloody murder and proclaiming to everyone who will listen that they’re not touching the device with a 10 foot pole. Hmmm.. I think those guys were just caught in the moment. I believe it’s too early to say that.

For bookworms, this device makes Amazon’s Kindle like something from the stone age. The flipping pages, the ease of download, the bookshelf? Gad, how can one resist? There’s also the photos feature. The blazing speed with which photos are shown is awesome, plus the slideshow, and the 1024×768 resolution. Man, I could already see the iPad docked on my office table showing pictures of my hot girlfriend in a slideshow while I work.

For me, no matter how Apple hypes all the other features and functionalities of the iPad, I do think its multimedia functionality is reason enough to buy. The rest are just gravy. Well that’s speaking as a third world geek where the availability of free wifi hotspots for internet browsing and email is scarcer than a taxi in Makati on a Friday afternoon.

Of course we can also talk about pogi-points but that’s beside the point.

eBook reader, photo frame, movies. Those are enough for me, really. Now if I can just get my hands on $500 bucks, everything would be perfect.

No related posts.

photo from guyism.com

According to an unreliable source (hehehe) the November 2009 Nursing Board Exam Results will be released either this week or next week. Should be a blast this time considering that the elves have vested interest on this one. Their girlfriends are nursing hopefuls and I do believe that those two ladies will pass.

Last November 2009, more than 95K nursing hopefuls took the NLEX looking to become nurses and earn big bucks working overseas. Ok, that maybe wrong. Some of them will want to work locally of course but these kids are the exception rather than the norm. I’m sure once the nursing requirements all over the world is revitalized, these kids will once again be lured into working overseas.

The only hindrance to their plan is they fail in the Nursing board exams. I’m sure most of them have been burning their lines to heaven just to plead their case. Oh well, what can I say but good luck!

Don’t forget to check out this site >>Nursing Board Exam Results<< for the full list of NLEX passers.

No related posts.

The only problem is that aside from arigato and baka, my knowledge of the japanese language really sucks. But whatever, music is supposed to be universal and thus transcends language barriers.

I’m not gonna linger too much on the band as I believe their music and their attitude speaks volumes already. What I will do however is leave you guys with a few scandal videos taken from youtube and hope that you’re seeing the things that I’m seeing and I’m not talking about their legs.

Here are the latest scandal videos from youtube.com:

Sakura Goodbye – Scandal Video

Shouju S – Scandal Video[Synchronized dancing under a fake rain. lol]

Beauteen – Scandal Video

No related posts.

See the picture above? It’s compelling, don’t you agree? You really can’t take your eyes off it. It warrants a second and a third look. In my case, I just had to take a picture of it. :)

I live in a third world country so a sight like that is not at all out of the ordinary. In a huge way, Infolinks is kinda like this picture. Visitors to my sites look at the black fonts in a plain white background and they get jolted out of whatever reverie they’re in when they see those double underlined green words.  Some folks can’t help themselves that they just have to click on the links. It’s hypnotic. Which is why in most days, the clicks I get from Infolinks far outnumber the clicks I get from Google Adsense.

As a long time blogger and a trying hard, second rate, online money-earner wannabe, I have experimented with a lot of ‘potential’ money makers and so far, when it comes to ease of integration with my blogs, Infolinks is one of, if not the easiest one to implement. Some similar contextual ads have the same ease-of-use functionality but they will make you wait for some time before you finally see the ads. With infolinks it’s like a plug and play device that you just stick into your computer’s usb drive, and you immediately see the results a few seconds later. I’ve never had to contact their support for anything. Well, except of course the email I sent to confirm that this little blog actually was one of Infolinks website of the month for January 2010.  Ahem.

My only regret with Infolinks is that I didn’t jump on the bandwagon sooner. I was one of those ‘hypnotized’ by some of my blogging buddies’ green underlines but I didn’t really took any immediate action to join the program.  It was only until later when they were raving about how in most days Infolinks has been outperforming Google Adsense in their blogs that I did. I must say that from what I’ve experienced so far, Infolinks gives other contextual ad programs a run for their money.

These days, I’m now one of those who rave about Infolinks and have been preaching its gospel to the very few people who follow my blogs. I just hope that for those who have yet to join, once they read this post and see the picture of a toilet bowl sitting on a man’s head, they will;

No. 1 – Immediately sign up with Infolinks, and not feel the urge to do–

No. 2

No related posts.

I did a little research on what would be the best netbook to buy, but in the end I decided to go for the HP Mini because of one distinguishing factor, the keyboard. If you take a look at the Mini you will notice that its keyboard is similar to that of a full-sized laptop. This is very important for me because I need to come up with a lot of articles week after week after week. And although the other netbooks boast of better features, I just really need something that has decent enough speed and RAM plus the standard 1.66Gb of processing speed. How much do you really need for word processing and facebook anyway?

The HP Mini was gorgeous when I first beheld it! I couldn’t wait for the lady to hand me the netbook so I can already connect it to SM Megamall’s wifi. Alas when you’re buying things in credit, you can’t really expect things to be superfast. Anyway, when I finally got my netbook, I was really hungry and wanted to go home.

After a quick bite, I tried out my apartment’s wifi connection on my new Mini. It worked perfectly! I can even work from downstairs where my living room is! I slept that night with a silly smile on my face. The following day however, the HP wouldn’t boot up. The freaking system has crashed! A required DLL library cannot be found it says.

Unfortunately for me, I was on my way to my province when it happened so I couldn’t bring it back to Sillicon Valley to be fixed.

Fast forward 10 days after when I got back from the holidays, I was asking Sillicon Valley’s security guard who I should approach regarding repairs of a defective unit. The guard pointed me to compuserve, which was across Sillicon Valley. I pleaded my case before the all-powerful technicians of this warranty service shop but all I got was “Sir, that’s a software problem so that’s not covered by the warranty.”

After explaining that I only used it for a day, they finally said that they will reinstall the software and will only charge me for the labor cost. I asked how much, they said P1250. WTF!? That much to install a frigging software? I get a defective software bundled with the HP Mini, and when the software conks out after a day, I get charged an additional P1250. Wow, that’s quite a cutthroat deal.

I almost shouted at the technician when I told him to pack everything and give me my notebook. There was no way in hell that I’m gonna pay that much to have my software re-installed? CompuServe? Seriously? Almost any moron including this one can install a windows OS blindfolded these days and youre charging me that much? Talk about highway robbery if ever there was one.

I huffed and puffed towards Sillicon Valley and asked to talk to their manager. Fortunately I saw the technician who prepped my HP Mini and immediately told her what happened. She also mentioned software is not covered by the warranty but she said the amount they’re asking is too much. I think she saw how vexed I was because she called another technician and asked him to take a look at my notebook and try to do a recovery.

After a long while, it looked like my hard disk needs reformatting because they couldn’t fix it anymore. I told the guy not to worry about, I’ll just buy an external DVD player and I’ll just take it from there.

And that’s the story behind the resurrection of the HP Mini. For sure we didn’t start in the best of terms but I kinda feel that we’re gonna be very good friends. As for that blasted CompuServe office, man those guys are pirates. I still can’t get over the fact that they would charge me that much for such an easy job. Oh well, good luck with that.

No related posts.

Ok, I’m not really doing something nefarious this time but I am very much glued to the internet every day, working on another stand-alone yet on a subdomain blog. It’s been such a fan thing to do that my vaunted Alexa Rank in my major blogs have suffered. But I guess that’s alright considering that my new sub-domain blog has just been going up and up.

I’m talking about my very own blog about facebook cheats. Yep I’ve joined the bandwagon and you know what, there’s still a lot more seats in there! My facebook centered blog can be read at http://facebookcheats.thirdworldgeek.com. I just seriously started adding a lot of articles around the third week of December and the results have been really good. I’m up to an average pageviews of around 1200/day with unique daily visitors averaging around 400 in the last couple of days and still going up. I told you it’s so much fun!

This facebook blog is currently focusing on Ninja Warz Tips, Tricks, and the occasional cheat. So if you’re playing Ninja Warz this is a good resource for you to visit. If you’re not, THEN WHY THE HELL NOT? Where else can you play a game where you meet lots of people and you get to kill all of them? loll.

Anyway the site’s traffic is sourced mainly from search engine visitors. I’m just starting to realize the power of the Thesis Theme when it comes to SEO. Only a couple of minutes after publishing an article and it’s already indexed by Google. Freaking awesome! The blog is also featured heavily on Mahalo and some of those aggregator sites like zappafly and others.

Subscription to the site is increasing by the day as well, as of last check, my email subscribers have reached 171. Not a really big number in any case but still, with not much marketing, just pure unadulterated content writing, I’m very satisfied with it.

I’ll probably go back to posting the usual stuff when everything’s not so crazy anymore in the office but right now, this baby here is hogging all my time.

Hey visit the blog some time. Cheers!

Related posts:

1. Blogging For Money: Exclusive Post for Pacland
2. The Cure For Blogging Burnout
3. Why Do You Want To Blog?

According to wikipedia, the story of Darker Than Black goes something like this:

Ten years ago, an inscrutable and abnormal territory known as Hell’s Gate appeared in Tokyo, altering the sky and wreaking havoc on the landscape. The heavenly bodies disappeared, replaced by false stars. During this time, people possessing various special abilities emerged, each capable of different supernatural feats – these are known as Contractors. Each fake star has a corresponding Contractor, which reacts to their activities. As such, Contractors are usually identified by their star’s Messier catalogue number. Kept secret from the masses, these individuals are known to murder in cold blood, smothering unnecessary emotions with logic and rationale. Their incredible abilities, however, are gained at the cost of their humanity – Contractors are thus named because of an involuntary compulsion to “pay the price” each time their power is used, which can range from eating particular foods and completing meaningless tasks, to self-harm and having their bodies change in peculiar ways. Various nations and organizations around the world train and utilize Contractors as spies and assassins, resulting in violent battles for valuable objects and information.

This piqued my curiosity so I made a mental note to read the Darker Than Black manga once I’m back in Manila.

After having gobbled up the latest chapter of my favorite manga of the moment, Fairy Tail, I started reading Darker Than Black. What I noticed first was the color of the scans. As an avid manga reader I am used to reading scans in black and white, sometimes there are scans that are in full color but those are very few and far in between.

The Darker Than Black manga however has a predominantly faded jeans blue background. I’m thinking that it could be for dramatic effect, sort of like manga noir or something like that. The scenes unfolding were the usual stuff of generic manga, sorry to say that, but still with all my siblings reactions, I decided to plow through, hoping that I could get hooked once I’m in the middle of the story.

Unfortunately, I was so distracted by the blueness of the scans that in the middle of the second chapter, I just gave up reading the Darker Than Black manga altogether. I guess that noir stuff is not for me after all.

Related posts:

1. New Fight Manga Discoveries

Dish Internet

Why go for satellite internet? Well, we all can’t be using cable internet. There will always be factors that prevent us from wanting the finest things in life. For internet connections for example, factors such as proximity, terrain, and even availability will always be a concern. Hence the emergence of satellite internet providers.

According to wikipedia.com:

Satellite Internet services are used in locations where terrestrial Internet access is not available, and also for users who move frequently.

Broadband Internet access via geostationary satellite is available almost worldwide, including vessels at sea and mobile land vehicles. Similar, but slower Internet service is also available through Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, however their coverage areas also include the polar regions at extreme latitudes, making them truly global.

End users must be aware of the different types of satellite communication systems and the technical issues involving each, such as latency and signal loss due to precipitation, in order to make informed decisions on which system will serve them best.

Here’s a list of satellite internet providers in the US complete with their websites.

AcmeSat – Satellite Internet Provider – Offers HughesNet high speed internet service via satellite internet technology for home and business anywhere in the USA. — www.acmesat.com

Satellite Broadband – Broadband Wherever offers great value 2-way, reliable and fast Satellite Internet & broadband services for home users and businesses. — www.broadbandwherever.net

Expert WildBlue – Nationwide Authorized Dealer for WildBlue Satellite Internet Service. — www.expertwildblue.com

HughesNet – Provider of broadband satellite internet service. — go.gethughesnet.com

Hughes-Internet – Hughes-Internet offers the most comprehensive satellite internet plans from HughesNet Satellite Internet. Start using the internet at broadband speed. — www.hughes-internet.com

HughesNet High Speed Satellite Internet – Sign up for HughesNet broadband satellite internet online. Internet via satellite for home, business, and areas with slow connections. — www.infodish.com

Satellite Internet Providers and Satelite Bandwidth Services - HughesNet Satellite Internet Provider Deeals and Satellite Bandwidth Internet Services. — www.SatelliteBandwidthInternet.com

Satellite Internet - Offering Satellite Internet Access through Service Providers.
www.satelliteinternet.com

Satellite Internet Broadband – Satellite Internet Broadband now available everywhere in the U.S. thanks to HughesNet Satellite Internet. Speeds up to 50 times faster than Dial Up! — www.satelliteinternetbroadband.com

Satellite Internet Deal – Satellite Internet Deal brings the best deals on Satellite Internet from HughesNet to the United States. Satellite internet is available everywhere. — www.satelliteinternetdeal.com

HughesNet Internet Service – HughesNet Satellite Internet service connects at broadband speeds up to 50 times faster than standard dial-up. — www.satellitestarinternet.com

Satellite Star Internet - Bringing Satellite Internet Broadband everywhere in the US with HughesNet Satellite Internet Service. Speeds up to 50 times faster than Dial Up! – www.satellitestarinternet.com

US Satellite – HughesNet satellite Internet with affordable packages for new customers, available nationwide. — www.ussatellite.com

Wild Blue Deals – Wild Blue Deals brings satellite internet to virtually anywhere in the United States that currently doesn’t have access to High-Speed Internet. –
www.wildbluedeals.com

Related posts:

1. Kizuna Satellite Internet Testing
2. Still No Update On The Kizuna Satellite
3. LNB Dish Satellite

I did a lot of research on where to buy my Canon 7D so I can get a really cheap price. My usual bargain hunting ground for anything electronic, tipidpc.com came out with a few suggestions but eventually I got convinced by a seller from sulit.com.ph. He was selling a Canon EOS 7D body for only 82K which is a real bargain considering that if you go to the more established stores, they’re selling it at around 99K. That’s a whopping 17K in savings.

I immediately contacted the seller and we agreed on a date and venue where he will be handing me the camera. Take note that most sellers in tipidpc.com or sulit.com.ph do not have their own physical stores, most of the time they’re garage type of sellers where they just keep their inventory somewhere and just deliver everything by hand or through forwarders depending on the item.

I’m not sure if it was a good thing or not but when I consulted a photographer friend, he was wary about dealing directly with a direct seller instead of a more established store. His main concern was the warranty. Most direct sellers will only offer either a personal warranty or a supplier warranty. If you go for the manufacturer warranty there could be some added cost.

Which was what happened in my case. I asked the seller if the price already covers the Canon warranty, he said no, and that it only covers his supplier’s one year warranty. He said that if I want Canon’s 3-year warranty, I would have to shell-out an additional 7k. Major ouch.

I was feeling a little gung-ho then so I said what the heck, I don’t need no warranty, I’ll just pay for the annual clean-up and stuff like that. The day of the delivery however, the seller called me and said they don’t have a stock as of the moment and it could take a whole week before they can re-stock! Well ain’t life grand!

As I was already itching for the Canon 7D and Christmas was fast approaching, I tried to contact the usual players in the domestic market for photography equipment. The famous Henry’s of Quiapo wasn’t picking up their phone so I called Camerahaus. They said their Canon EOS 7D body costs 99K as advertised. But when I asked if that was their final price they said they could probably lower it to 93K. I pushed a little bit more and asked if they could lower it some more to 90K and mentioned that I’ll be paying cash. After some whispered moments with the manager (I think), they agreed. The great thing about it is that the 90K price we agreed on already covers the 3-year Canon warranty! It was pretty sweet.

To make the long story short, I handed over my wad of saved money, got my spanking brand new Canon EOS 7D camera and was out of the Camerahaus store feeling like a million bucks.

I’m a total nub when it comes to DSLR cameras so if you’re looking for a review on the Canon EOS 7D, you may want to check out DPreview.com.

I’ve been using my new camera for a few weeks now using a borrowed kit lens and some snub nosed lens and it’s absolutely gorgeous. The sound it makes after a shot, the clarity of the pictures, the HD quality video– it’s awesome. Pretty heavy too, but really it’s a wonderful wonderful gadget.

Now if I can only save some more money to buy me a bazooka type telephoto lens, that would be awesome. Oh, and another lens for landscapes would be nice as well.

No related posts.