The Real Thing Diner

A Saturday would not be complete without me going out on the freeway. Well its not much on the freeway but just a few skips and a hop outside my neighborhood. This particular place is right in the smack of Tomas Morato. IL TERRAZO has been one of the few new buildings that sprouted in this very heavy commercial district. A couple of new restaurants to boot and specialties on food and technology was weirdly placed together. Digital Camera shops, Computer Hardware stores and Steaks all in one place. This is a piece of heaven for me bar none and apparently it works since there are more spaces converted into restaurants. The Real Thing Diner emphasizes on food based on marinades and sauces from Coca-Cola Products. Cooking with this is not new to me (since I cook dishes with the same ingredients) but to solely dedicate food selection with their products is unheard of in Quezon City. I was in for a good trip!

Coinciding with the event I was in was a taste of the store's offerings so I went ahead and got my favorite Baby Back Ribs. It's not the usual one but the sauce and marinade is all based on Coke. Check this out!


Say goodbye to your diet plans because this slab of meat entails sweet-cola flavored base and a spicy-tarragon/rosemary after taste. They don't use fresh ones and stay with Mccormick dried ones so you get to know how potent they are when it crosses the dinner table. The meat falls off the bone and the ribs are quite a hit among the people who went there at that time.

They also have chicken marinated in Eight O'clock Orange juice and pork chops in Pulpy Minute Maid juice. They taste quite good since the citrus works well on them. The sauce on the ribs made of Coca Cola reduction was sweet and tangy; not the usual sauces you find in stores but it does actually taste nice with the spices that they also used with the ribs. I am trying to stay away from rice these days but this is one of the instances that you have to when you encounter em specially the huge slice of pork. =)

The Food did an average job but the place is really nice. There are Coke memorabilia's and stuff for promotion since the owner probably worked all his life in that corporation too. It's interiors were reminiscent of those 60's themed places with a touch of new since the coasters, condiments and table ornaments were from the present offerings Coke has. Nothing vintage with that so there. It was quite adequate but I am unsure if they have more people after we left. They are a stones throw away from the popular desert place Banapple so they will benefit from the spillovers and the curious ones. It's good and clean, a good 3 kumags for food and 4 kumags for the ambiance which was a notch better.






Thank you so much to the people behind The Real Thing Diner, Coca-Cola and JC Cuadrado who made us so "at home". =)

The Coke Dreampack Contest!

Someday I want to be heard when I get an idea going. This year's 25th EDSA Revolution Celebration meant something more special for me. I got to see the importance of freedom is at an early age. I might not have really grasped the meaning of it when it happened because I was too young then but even if I was just a kid I knew it was something big. It was something extraordinary and I wanted to be part of it. Today we have a lot of things that we can do to show how much we value freedom. Coca-Cola just launched a contest and you can be a part of this too.

It's called the COKE DREAM PACK CONTEST! To win an ITOUCH unit you just have to answer these simple questions!

1. If you had a dream Coke pack/bottle, what would it look like? How would you make it portable? How many mL/oz.? What would you call it and why? (e.g. in the same way we call the small Coke bottle Coke “SAKTO”).

2. It’s fun to make up nicknames right? How would you call a new Coke pack/bottle if it had the following characteristics and why?

“It's a new handy and re-sealable bottle which I can drink to go with my snacks, anytime, anywhere, whenever the need strikes. It is convenient, instant refreshment whenever, and wherever I go: be it travel, trip to the mall, gimmick, or just simply when I'm on- the-go. Truly a great companion for my mobile lifestyle.”

Just send your entries from February 18 to February 28, 2011 to to dreampack2011(at)gmail.com with these details!

Email Subject: Coke Dream Pack Contest Entry
First and Last Name
Age
Contact Number
Email Address

You can never tell! You could win this simple contest and open up the happiness! =)

Please check out these websites for full mechanics!

http://www.facebook.com/coca-cola
http://www.coca-cola.com/content-store/en_PH/Red/index.html
www.coca-cola.com.ph
http://www.youtube.com/user/cocacola

Coca-Cola: Any Concert, Anywhere!

It would really make me so happy to see Sean Kingston, Mike Posner, KE$HA, David Archuleta, Usher, Westlife, Foo Fighters, The cast of GLEE, Bruno Mars, Maroon 5 and other world renowned artists live in their own concerts. John Pemberton would cry to have the chance to see them in the flesh too; unless his company has something up their sleeve.

I'm so excited to get you guys into this too. The good people from the prestigious soft drink company just launched Coca Cola Music: Any Concert! Anywhere in the World! Raffle Promo. Yeah you heard it right! They can literally take you to any concert anywhere in the world!


This could be you! >>>>>>

It's so easy to join!

Just collect 5 crowns of the same brand (Coke, Coke Zero, Sprite or Royal Tru Orange) sakto, 8oz, 12oz with your name, birth date, address, contact number and the concert of your choice in a piece of paper then drop them on designated boxes found in Coca Cola Sales Offices or ACE Promo Offices nationwide. You can also mail them via the address specified on http://www.coca-cola.com.ph. You can send as many entries as you want to increase your chances of winning!

30 lucky winners will be announced on MYX the Philippine's premier music video channel (that's 1 winner everyday starting March 1 to March 30, 2011.

Just like them I want to go to my choice destination. I am gunning for WESTLIFE! I admire these guys with fabulous voices. How can I go wrong with them right?! They are considered national icons in Ireland together with Boyzone. You can even see a huge sign at their airport saying "Welcome to Ireland! Home of WESTLIFE!" (I'm serious!). I am so excited to see them either in Liverpool, the O2, Birmingham or Wembley Stadium. Wherever it maybe Coca-Cola will surely get me there! =)

Okay I admit, some people say I look like one of them but I don't want to specify who! Ha-ha! For the sake of cheesiness and making you guys smile a bit ( hehe =) )I'd like to suggest you play this one to get things started!

See what I mean? That feeling you get when you are "in the moment" sans blissful while listening to the catchy song is one way of opening up the happiness everyone dreams of! That's the same reason why I would love to see their concert. So if you guys are up to it make sure you gather those precious crowns and join now!

For more information about the promo please check out these websites!

http://www.facebook.com/coca-cola
http://www.coca-cola.com/content-store/en_PH/Red/index.html
www.coca-cola.com.ph
http://www.youtube.com/user/cocacola

P.S.

Don't forget to Open Happiness! =)

How to Look Professional

Branding this site needed a lot of things and one of them is handling images to represent it; and also the things I planned to write about. I found my niche after a few years and to tell you honestly I'm still not happy on the COW theme going on my site. No matter how I desperately try to make things a little professional looking it comes to a point where the cute and adorable still come in. I know how long I have been staying with it (probably since 2002 or earlier than that) and I have been contemplating on changing this integral part of the web site. There are several great institutions like LOGO MOJO that does this professionally and I am weighing my options. If I come to perfect my logo design then the rest would just follow. It's one of the things that I'm trying to accomplish before the year ends. I know that is a long time but it's nice to start early eh?!

If that pushes through I might need to change the site template too. That is going to be another story. I love of having the idea of going ultra modern and professional looking. How in the world would a cow do that? I don't have any idea but I must say that I have already survived the trials and struggles of maintaining this for the past few years. How could I go wrong? I know I can do this!

16th International Hot Air Balloon Festival

This is the first time I attended the Hot Air Balloon Festival and boy was it so far! I've been to Pampanga quite a number of times since I had an EX girlfriend sometime 2008-2009 (I think! Haha!) but this was another thing to attend to since I went along with my photographer friends from the C4. I was excited to say the least because this is kind of the first time I'm gonna see a balloon which is not the usual one you see when going out of the church. It can lift quite a few number of people and the premise was they are going to do that for the 150 dollars you have to pay them. We on the other hand just settled for the 150 peso entrance fee but we had to wake up and travel early (like 1AM in the morning) so we can get there around 4am. It was a long wait and still dark when we arrived on which I spent quite a few energy bars doing long exposures. It was not that nice looking at it now because the lights were too far obviously. I got a prime spot on front and we waited for a few hours just to see these giants in action. I love the big ones and the time they started their flames... it was nice to see in the dark.




They started to fill the balloons with hot air and all the flames were in double time. They needed to fly as soon as possible so they won't be having problems with the wind around 7-8AM. It was nice and very colorful. There were a lot of odd shapes and sizes. Some of them were just for show (like the one for Smart!) but the rest of them tried to fly. Only 2 had problems with it and the others went on a journey to Pangasinan (that is the finish line if I'm not mistaken). This was not bad for a first timer, I know some of my shots were awful but please spare me the drama... I'm a fashion photographer anyway! Hahahahah!











Now how's that? Heheh!

But I'm not that keen on going back to next year's celebration. The travel, the traffic and the people handling the event didn't prepare that much so it was a pain to do. I hurriedly went back to Manila because of work and because this trip was so tiring! I won't come back next year unfortunately! Enjoy the photos! =) Hope you like em!

Working Too Hard in the Office?!

 


If you are working too hard in the office and you concentrate so much with work, this might actually happen to you. Poor woman dies in the office last Friday and nobody noticed until Saturday.

Rebecca Wells was 51 when she passed away and people only knew her as the one who was always working. One woman even said that she might not have been noticed by anybody in the office even as everyone left. She was performing audit jobs for a risk management company. So if you know someone in your office works too hard, you might as well take a look at them more often because they might already be dead.

Sad huh?!

Building a New Website!

My photography career seem to have climbed up a notch after getting breaks here and there after my stint/workshop from a famous fashion photographer based in New York. I wouldn't say otherwise because I know I have been blessed. Gigs have been surfacing here and there for me and I'm getting really busy even on a weekend - which is normally a non working day for me. I want to put up media that would be able to show off my portfolio but I probably would be better off and just build a business website with my name as domain. Making one with institutions like Market Juice would make everything easy and if it materializes it would be easy to maintain everything. I don't need to add something to my currently "busy" life that would cause me to worry more. I'm gunning for something very low maintenance and easy to fix if I need to update it. I also need something that would be at par as far as design is concerned since I am in an industry where first impression matters.



This is my niche and I have been working on this craft for a few years now. I've obviously gained experience and a lot of other things that I need to have in order to be successful in this business. I hope with each step I take from here on it would be to advance my hobby turned career which is definitely not in the comfort zone. I will succeed if I make the right choices early on and building an impressive; professional looking web site would be one of them! Wish me luck!

New 9th Planet: TYCHE

Nope! You are not reading something out of the book. We were all part of the crowd who said WHOA! when space agencies said that Pluto was not part of our Solar System. We now had only 8 planets and so far it has not been that pretty in the skies these days. There are also times we get depressed in one way or another because who's going to represent the underworld without Pluto right? Well don't despair! Because scientists are currently searching evidence about a very weird one right in our Solar System. Yes we are probably going to have a confirmed 9th planet before the year ends, and it will be called TYCHE (Ty-kee) I know you guys are going to be as excited as I am but we have to wait til NASA and other Space agencies would be able to take a look at it!

The one who discovered this new planet are actually two astrophysicists named Daniel Whitmire and John Matese from (Kamuning joke! hehe) the University of Louisiana at Lafayette which might not have been doing that much down south. They are pretty old already but said that if this discovery becomes official they promise to do cartwheels. It will be all up to the International Astronomical Union though, maybe they can trick them first to do the cartwheels before they announce if its real or not. The planet by the way is very far and a lot like Jupiter in structure and form. Mostly gas and trying to cool down but it is taking a long time to do that so the release of those hydrogen and helium is making the planet look big. It is almost boiling point there so you get the idea how hot it is. The heat they say came from its formation (so you have to study your Big Bang theory to understand that).

The only thing we can do for now is watch that sky and enjoy the night while they confirm if this is orbiting on our Sun making this the real 9th planet! By that time teachers can put up the old posters of the solar system and just erase the name of Pluto and make it Tyche hehehe!

De Securite et de Prise de Decision Ethique Procedures

La vie n'a pas été facile sur ce côté du monde. Le taux de crime a été à un record de tous les temps et le gouvernement n'a pas un programme solide pour l'éliminer. Vous craignez constamment pour les vies de votre une aimée et la sécurité de vos affaires. Il y a quelques mois, il y avait un incident où huit touristes étaient dans une situation d'otage. Nous n'avons pas questionné l'héroïsme des hommes de police mais le manque d'entraînement a été évidemment vu. Je ne voudrais pas attendre jusqu'à ce que quelqu'un je sais ou près de moi être dans la même situation difficile. Je sais qu'il est dur à être victime d'individus sans scruples s'occupant si de votre vie et de la famille est d'inquiétude extrême. Si je vous étais j'installerais l'équipement video surveillance dans ma maison et aussi mon emplacement d'affaires. Il m'épargnerait beaucoup de mal de tête qui court environ sur qui blâmer quand je deviens la victime. Je n'espère pas... mais vous ne pouvez jamais dire vraiment.

Les vies de ceux que je suis très attaché à toujours serait ma priorité. La technologie est déjà disponible et la seule chose que je dois faire est le harnais il. Il pourrait me coûter quelques francs francs mais la sensation d'obtenir ma famille et mes amis la sécurité que nous méritons cela tous l'emporte sur.






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