when i get stirred up

(culled from my email to Twisted's Jessica Zafra, reacting very excitedly to her Aug. 3 Philippine Star column. )

Hi Jessica,

This time, I can't resist emailing you (after reading 'You be the shrink').

Never fails to tickle me whenever you write about the tennis greats because I also adore Marat, the unpredictable Russian. I find his natural, spontaneous manner very engaging. When he walks around the court, I only see a giant good-looking teenager - the nineteener who defeated Sampras and who couldn't explain how he did it. (I'm always in a time warp when I watch him loping around, swinging his racquet or looking intently at the strings).

When he beat Sampras in the US Open, I didn't hate him even if I felt badly about Sampras' defeat.

Federer - I can't forgive him for depriving Pistol Pete (the greatest of them all) of a 2001 Wimbledon title. I know you admire him, but I call him Babalu.

Sampras - he affects me in a grand way. He moved me so much when he dropped on the grass after beating Rafter in Wimbledon 2000. Simply awesome.

By the way, I don't know the rudiments of tennis but years ago, I stayed glued to the TV everytime Safin, Sampras, Rafter were playing. Now, I only watch tennis when Safin is playing.

Haas? Used to like him because he looks good. It was just a momentary infatuation.


Best,
Samprasita

Why I like these 5 blogs among the nominated emerging influential blogs

Again, one of those busy busy mornings. A busy morning for me is when I cannot even spare half an hour reading the newspapers. But after rolling through the morning, I am now here at digitalfilipino looking at the nominated blogs for this year's emerging influential blogs: And because I love gossip at the highest and lowest level, here are my choices:

1. Cheezmizan with Chuva - I admire anyone who openly declares his interest in local movie gossip
2. Gibbs Cadiz - because he's gibbs cadiz
3. From the boondocks - traveling is an obsession of mine and I just love the not-so-common tourist destinations.
4. Trader Pinoy - unexpected humor in graphs and trading. Trading & economics not being within my area of expertise
5. MartialArts3000 - blogger just explains everthing about self-defense so well.

This was a busy week...

Last Monday, I thought it was going to be a relatively quiet workweek with only the mid-week workshop on web traffic analytics providing a welcome break from the not-so-stressful writing deadlines. After all, localizing a press release that was written from the Client's regional HQ in Singapore meant just changing Singapore with a Manila dateline.

The Wednesday web workshop was great. Never mind if among the 6 or 7 participants, it was I who could not transition smoothly into the next web pages , struggling with the data on the screen. My associate Nicotine was breezing through the lessons but of course he is from the YouTube gen.

That evening, the request for a PR proposal from the local sub of a global search engine came. The next day, a US-based client who has been silent for the past week needed our help to follow-through an online promo involving a software superstar that I will just call Em.

Thursday was 'brainday' at the office . There were three of us at the office keeping out of each other's way. We were all busy with our thoughts, our hands tapping furiously on the Dell keyboards , our brains willing the telephones to stop ringing because they interrupt our thinking.

And yes, we did it. We met the 6-hour deadline of the search engine founded by two men, one of whom I quite fancy. As for Em, we've long been ready with our html pages and video demos, we're just waiting for them to finalize the promo prizes.

And what a fitting way to end the week with lunch with two tech-savvy journalists from the Manila Bulletin. Halfway through the noisy lunch, my 24-month dilemma over what mobile phone to buy next was over. The editor fished out a prototype phone which the manufacturer wanted his newspaper to review. I looked at the colored sheet listing the specs. I scanned the tech specs and as usual, understood only 1/4 of the info I saw. I looked at the sheet again and I liked its glossiness. E65, I memorized.

quiet reflection

I was almost sure he would be in my senatorial line-up until this morning when I came across a brief comment of his on biotech crops. He is against them because their safety is yet to be proven. That froze me. In the coming days, I will be in deep thought.