Chibilicious - Having my own small, cute world is great

This got to be one of the most beautiful creations of God. It looks like a giant snowflake. Imagine having something like that walking around your green backyard. It’s like an angel is there with you.

I hope nobody gets the idea of making a livelihood of killing and selling the parts of this beautiful bird. That is just CRUEL!

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photo credit: varmazis

I was able to watch the Opening Ceremonies LIVE at RPN 9 last night. I greatly anticipated this event as I love watching grand presentations of any kind in relation to World Relations and culture exposure. It’s like the Miss Universe pageant. Every country roots for their representative to the core regardless if their beauty queen stands a chance or not. Though the pageant initially distinguishes vanity over everything else, it’s the country relation that counts.

I’m getting off topic. Back to the topic at hand, I was lucky to watch the Opening ceremonies on time. I have to admit, despite the lack of interest of people around me regarding the Olympics, it didn’t cease for me to hook up to youtube and be mesmerized by the Olympic music videos created by the stars of China. I was hooked when I first saw the FUWA mascots and I know I will be charmed by their opening ceremonies.

It did not fail me. It is a fact that China is the most populated country in the world. I just didn’t expect for that fact to be quite obvious in their opening ceremonies. Have you seen the number of participants in EACH segment. There are HUNDREDS of them, THOUSANDS I suppose all garbed and adorned according to a rich era of Chinese history. The props, the people, the lights, fireworks, especially the fireworks! Absolutely calculated, mesmerizing and I bet EXPENSIVE.

Everything the production is marked EXPENSIVE. If truth be told, I paid more attention to the special effects and costumes rather than the performance at some point. Don’t get me wrong, the production is perfect. Colorful floating fairies, the gigantic scrolls, the dragon columns reaching to the heavens, great lighting effects and more. They all contribute to a personified cultural eminence and majesty of China. I think, because of this overly input of effects, artist performances became simple and at some point boring. There was this moment wherein a man and a child were in the middle of the scroll, playing on this grand piano and was being surrounded by hundreds of men garbed in christmas like lights. They marched around the duo to proceed into formation depicting a flying dove. I liked the bright formation. I initially didn’t get why they did that. They lost me. @_@

As for the fireworks, I love the 29 giant footsteps gimmick. I can an invisible big giant walking his way to the stadium to bless and watch over the event. It’s a great idea and I bet it awed a lot of people in the world. Continous fireworks happened all over Beijing throughout the opening ceremonies and at times the fireworks happen at perfect timing with a program segment to emphasize the grandeur of the performance. Great concept.

Absolutely love the Tai Chi performance. There is something mesmerizing seeing a lot of people doing Tai Chi in sync. That synchrony of fluid motion does something good to the eye and spirit. I don’t know how to describe it. I just feel it. XD

The technology used was absolutely wonderful. Simulated waterfalls, swimming whales and holographic like scenes flowing across the giant scroll, they take you into another world. Getting technology, lights and effect together cost up to 100 million dollars.

Yet somehow, I think because of too much of a lot of things in the ceremonies, I got bored. When it was time for the athletes to parade their way in to the stadium, I grew sleepy. I didn’t even get to see our country’s pride Manny Pacquiao bear the Philippine flag. Oh well, I relied on Youtube for that. Problem solved.

But as I said earlier, what is important is the harmony of world relations. It’s the spirit of competition and fair game we are implementing here. So let us root for our representatives in the name of World Peace.

Would you like to hear a review regarding the Beijing Olympics 2008 Opening Ceremonies? Here is a CNN segment talking about the level of production and very motivated participation of the Chinese people for this event.

How about you, what do you think of the 2008 Olympic Opening Ceremonies?

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I’m excited! *drumroll please*

Olympics 2008 is here!

This major sporting event is also called Games of the XXIX Olympiad and will start today in Beijing, China. It will happen till August 24 followed by the 2008 Summer Paralympics from September 6 to September 17.

The slocal for this event is “One World, One Dream”. The slogan calls upon the whole world to join in the Olympic spirit and build a better future for humanity.

The 2008 Olympic Mascots are the five Fuwa, consisting of five (5) adorbable mascots that incorporate fish, giant panda, fire, Tibetan antelope, and swallow designs. The Fuwa each have as their primary colour, one of the colours of the five Olympic Rings that stand for the five continents. The five Fuwa are named Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini. When the first syllable of each of the five names are said together, the result is the phrase which means “Beijing welcomes you”. Absolutely love the gimmick!

Opening ceremonies will start at 8PM CST (UTC+8).

The Philippines will approximately have 15 athletes competing in the said event. The delegation’s flag bearer at the Opening Ceremony will be boxer Manny Pacquiao, who will not be competing.

Get the feel of the Olympics with this beautiful video. Let us root our athletes and pray for better fellowship among countries all over the world.

A song by Jackie Chan and other China stars for the Olympics is below.

Welcome to Beijing!

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I borrowed a book from an officemate titled “Pinoy Trivia” by Bong Barraneda. In it are facts and trivia about common knowledge not everybody would particularly know about. And no, just because it’s titled “Pinoy Trivia” does not mean it’s everything Filipino related. There are facts and odd news from other parts of the world. Below are but a few trivias that really stuck in my head and I want to share it here for knowledge keeps. ^^

1) Why is the wedding ring traditionally placed on the third finger of the bride’s left hand?

The custom dates to the ancient Egyptians who believed this finger carried a vein leading directly to the heart. Writers later gave it the name vena amoris, or “love’s vein”.

2) “Here Comes the Bride” - played at almost all traditional weddings as te happy couple march to the altar - is actually the “Bridal Chorus” of Richard Wagner’s opera Lohengrin. And it’s sung in quite a different setting. In this opera, the chorus starts singing as the hero, Lohengrin, accompanied by his new wife, Elsa, enters the bridal chamber, which is dominated by a very large bed. Their attendants then help them disrobe for their wedding night. Because of this sexually oriented scene, some religious sects have objected to using the “Bridal Chorus” as a wedding march.

3) A Japanese puppy named Haichi went to a Tokyo railroad station to see his master off, as usual, one day in 1925. That afternoon, at 5 o’clock, he went to meet the train his master always came home on. But that afternoon his master wasn’t on it. The puppy had no way of knowing his master had died in the city. Never giving up hope, Haichi went to the railroad everyday for the next 10 years - the rest of his life - and waited for the 5 o’clock train. Then, when his master didn’t appear, he went sadly home. When he died, the Japanese government put up a statue of Haichi on the spot where he had waited and sent small replicas to all schools in the country.

4) What language has the biggest vocabulary?

English, with abouot 490,000 words plus another 300,000 technical terms. It is doubtful, however, if any individual uses more than 60,000 English words.

5) There are many ways to play the ten opening moves in chess. How many - millions, billions, trillions, or even more?

Even more - there are at least 170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (17 x 10²⁵

6) A Friendly Reminder. The World Health Organization estimates that smoking the one cigarette stick shortens the smoker’s expected life span by 5 minutes.

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