How Norton by Symantec made my friend happy

It was one of those unusual days in life that you'll encounter.  I was so excited about an event that I even tag along friends to join me and have fun.  At the end of the day, somebody who was not even suppose to be there will have the biggest laugh of them of.  And oh boy, did he laughed big time.

Last week, Norton by Symantec launched its product at Milky Way Deli in Makati and a few lucky souls where chosen to attended the event.  I was one of those invited to the event and was advised that I can bring a friend.  I ask this fellow named Agus if he wants to come with me. He said he was reluctant to go because he would miss viewing Amaya that night.  But in the end, he was there.

And so we treated to a sumptuous feast, if that's not enough, we were serenaded while eating. To top it off -- a loot bag containing Norton Mobile Security is given to everybody.  Here are the features of this magnificent software:Remotely locks your phone if it is stolen so thieves can't use it and run up your bill

• Remotely erases information on your phone if it's lost or stolen.
• Gets the coordinates of your phone so you can find if it is lost or stolen
• Block annoying and unwanted calls and text messages
• Protect against cybercriminals who treaten your privacy or try to take control of you mobile device
• Download and install on your mobile device with just a few clicks

The presentation of Norton's newest product was quite impressive considering Norton antivirus' unbeatable lead in performance against all its competitors. There was a photo contest in the event and lucky me, I won first place and took home Php 3000.

My winning entry

You think, that would be enough to make my day. Ah ah.  Agus won in the raffle.  Also first prize and the lucky guy that he is now sports a brand new Samsung Galaxy Tab, making him triple handsome that he used before.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the cool people from Norton! You guys rock and you just made my friend happy!

Experiencing a magic called Disney

 

Growing up, I have always been fascinated with magic. I would watch in amazement with sometimes my mouth wide open when a man in tuxedo pulls out stuff from his hat, a lovely woman being sawed into halves or those playing cards that would fly from one end of the stage to another.

Of course, as I got old I soon found out that those kind of magic were just tricks that even I can perform based on the books, online videos and TV shows about their secrets being revealed.  Watching magic shows now is not really to be entertained but more on to decipher how the tricks were done so I kinda missed the good old days of me just sitting and getting enchanted with the performance.

But there is one magic that continues to surprise me even though I am already in my 30’s.  From the classic kid flick Bambi, the very first feature I saw in a movie house as a kindergarten, to the great adventures of Mickey Mouse and friends that I watch with my son everyday, I am still spellbound with this magic called Disney!

How magical is Disney? Well, I can remember some memorable moments that I’m sure others can also relate to: For days I have been singing the catchy tune "Under the Sea" after you saw the animated film Little Mermaid; the motif of my son Charles' first birthday party was Aladdin with me wearing the costume of Jafar, the celebrator as the movie’s lead character and my wife as Princess Jasmine; and I have engaged with debates with people who don’t agree that Toy Story 3 is the most touching and moving animated movie of the last decade.

Well, I think it’s also worth mentioning that my son just loves anything Mickey Mouse!  He even wore a Mickey getup during his Disney-themed (again) second birthday celebration.

My 2-year old son Charles simply adores Mickey Mouse

That’s why one afternoon while we were watching TV at home, we were delighted to see an advertisement about DISNEY LIVE!, a new brand of live family entertainment from the producers of Disney on Ice that will come to Philippines for the first time. I can just imagine now how my son will react as soon as he sees Mickey dancing live on stage. His face might be just like that of his dad when in awe--- watching attentively with mouth wide open. Priceless!

Mickey Mouse and his band of friends, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy will be performing in a music mash-up of mega proportions as Disney Live! comes to Manila and Cebu City with its newest stage show Mickey’s Music Festival.  Concert goers will hear greatest hits from the blockbuster movies, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story remixed to rock, pop, reggae, hip-hop, jazz and country, among other jams.  Produced by Feld Entertainment, Disney Live! Mickey’s Music Festival brings the biggest concert experience to hit live family entertainment. This show is presented in the Philippines by Vivre Fort Entertainment Inc., Guess Kids and Fox International Channels.

“One song can touch millions of people around the world and Disney has been at the beat of this concept for years by making music a main ingredient of storytelling,” said Producer and CEO of Feld Entertainment Kenneth Feld.  “In Disney Live! Mickey’s Music Festival we are celebrating with the Disney characters to a soundtrack of the latest sounds and chart-topping hits. We want our guests to walk away with lasting memories and singing these unforgettable melodies long after they leave the show.”

Disney Live! Mickey’s Music Festival, featuring an all star line-up of more than 25 Disney characters,   begins with audiences watching a state-of-the-art video projection of the frenzy backstage which spills onto the stage as Mickey welcomes guests to his concert tour.  Soon thereafter, they will be transported to a new world of hip hop beats, dizzying acrobatics, flying carpets and magical transformations with Aladdin, Jasmine and Genie.  Underwater is where the crowd will meet up with Ariel, Sebastian and their nautical pals to groove to the reggae rhythm. And, family and friends will stomp to the beat as Woody, Buzz and Jessie teach them how to boogie rodeo-style.  Anyone can be a member of the band as giant-sized balloons fall from the ceiling in one scene and then in the next, Disney characters are dancing in the aisles.  

"We’ve created an environment where audience members will be able to connect with the Disney stars,” said Alana Feld, Producer and Executive Vice President of Feld Entertainment. “Within each concert moment are elements of personal interaction and they will be harmonizing, dancing, laughing and having an outrageously good time with the characters right there in their city.”
 
Disney Live! Mickey’s Music Festival was built with a global audience in mind and a goal of being as universal as its featured music.  The father-daughter production team, Kenneth Feld and Alana Feld, has hand selected award-winning creative talents whose credits span from working with Madonna to winning a Latin Grammy®  Award to designing hundreds of costumes for Disney theme park shows:

•    Director/Choreographer Fred Tallaksen is the award-winning choreographer of Madonna’s “Sorry” video and the finale of her Confessions World Tour.  In 2008, he earned a Latin Grammy® in the Best Video category for Juanes’s “Me Enamora.” Tallaksen was also skating choreographer for “Austin Powers III-Goldmember”

•    Writer Jeremy Desmon’s credits include The Girl in the Frame, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie & Other Storybooks and Curious George Live! He received the 2007 Kleban Award for excellence in Musical Theatre Bookwriting, and is also a recipient of the Dramatists Guild's Jonathan Larson Fellowship

•    Scenic Designer Rick Papineau is the vice president of Scenic Elements at Feld Entertainment and is credited for leading the creation of life-like versions of the characters from Disney/Pixar’s Cars that move on ice for Disney On Ice presents Worlds of Fantasy

•    Costume Designer Cynthia Nordstrom designed costumes for more than 15 original dance shows in Downtown Disney from 1996 until 1999 and is credited for designing costumes for Disney On Ice presents Worlds of Fantasy

•    Lighting Designer Sam Doty is eager to work on his second Disney Live! show after Disney Live! Mickey’s Rockin’ Road Show put him in the spotlight

•    Music Director Stan Beard has arranged and written the musical score for numerous domestic and international Disney On Ice productions; has worked in the recording studio with such luminaries as Barbra Streisand and Frank Sinatra

Disney Live! Mickey’s Music Festival is set to be staged this year at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel from September 23-25 and at the Smart Araneta Coliseum from October 5-9. For Manila shows, tickets are exclusively available at Ticketnet (911-5555) located in SM Department stores and at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. For Cebu shows, tickets can be purchased at SM Tickets (032-231-3876) located in SM Cinemas, Waterfront Cebu City Hotel (032-232-6888) and at Ayala Center Cebu. For more details, visit www.disneylive.com.ph or call Vivre Fort Entertainment at (02) 470 6956.

Disney Live! Mickey’s Music Festival is also brought to you by Smart Araneta Coliseum, Waterfront Cebu City Hotel, Citibank, ABS-CBN, ABS-CBN Regional Group, Araneta Center, Gateway Cineplex 10, Alimall Cineplex 4, SM Cinemas, SM City Cebu, Discovery Suites, Renowed Sound and Various Production, MYX, Manila Bulletin, Businessworld, Sunstar, Cebu Daily News, Crossover 105.1, Power FM Cebu, Love Radio 97.9, Y101 Cebu, Alcordo Advertising, Greenworld LED Solutions and Manila Concert Scene. This event is for the benefit of Senyas Kamay Pilipinas.

This is definitely one great show that my family will not miss. After all, we will forever never get tired of being captivated with magic, the Disney magic that is.

Red Hot Chili Peppers is with us again!

 

Whenever we have visitors at home, I would base the music that I'll play in the living room on my first impression on how our guests look.

If we got some 50 something folks, like say my father-in-law type, I'll grab my Beatles CDs and let it do the whole entertaining thing for the duration of their stay.

When my wife brings her office mates in our house, I would enter our bedroom and switch whatever I'm watching on TV (no matter how much I'm into it) to Channel V or MTV so I won't do a thing for them until they leave (unless my wife gives me "the look," I'll say and offer some drink).

When former classmates intrude our abode, the foolproof thing to do to make them enjoy the stay is to turn on our PC and ignite the non-stop playlist of mp3s of either Eraserheads or Red Hot Chili Peppers hits.

Among the artists I mentioned above, RHCP has the latest to offer.  After five long years, the band has finally released their tenth studio album "I'm With You" which sounds perfect for their fans who have waited for their new materials.

For those who never heard of RHCP (which is only likely is you're deaf since birth), they're just one of the most successful acts in rock history who have sold more than 60 million albums, including five multi-platinum LPs, and won six Grammy Awards, including “Best Rock Album” for Stadium Arcadium, “Best Rock Performance By a Duo or Group” for “Dani California, “Best Rock Song” for “Scar Tissue,” and “Best Hard Rock Performance With Vocal” for “Give It Away.” The band holds the record for the most No. 1 singles of all time at Alternative radio, a total of 11, and a combined 81 weeks at No. 1.

The band is composed of singer Anthony Kiedis, bassist Flea, drummer Chad Smith and their new guy, guitarist Josh Klinghoffer. 

Now, so much for RHCP 101.  Here's some info about their album which I learned from the great guys of Warner Music Philippines who invited bloggers in a by invitation only viewing of the band's most recent exclusive interview during their trip in Hong Kong:

I’m With You is the band’s first new album since the two-set Stadium Arcadium, which debuted at Number One in 28 countries around the world, including the U.S. - their first Number One album on the Los Angeles quartet’s home turf. The album spawned three Number One Modern Rock hits: “Dani California” (which spent 14 weeks at No. 1 and is one of three songs in the history of Billboard’s Alternative Chart to debut at No. 1), “Tell Me Baby,” and “Snow (Hey Oh).”

The first single from the album is entitled The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie and it just kicked me on the jaw and told me to dance.  I am no dancer but my head knows how to bang and swing a little especially if the track is just irresistible.

This multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning rock band will definitely have a new hit with this album that features 14 songs describe by one music fanatic as "hard-pop spin on classic Chili Peppers funk, with a creeping bass line and a marching-disco rhythm in the chorus reminiscent of the late-Seventies Rolling Stones."

I can't find a perfect ending for this post since I can't stop listening to the album. Oh well, I can just mention the title of this article as an adlib.

Red Hot Chili Peppers is with us again! 

The Suplado Show: Snubbing it is not an option

 

How do you spend a stormy weekend with only a few hundred bills in your wallet and hope that you’ll see beautiful people and have the time of your life?

Pray hard.

Well, I did and I was invited to the Suplado Show held at the Grillery Café in Makati City last August 26.  The weather was not cooperative which changed my friend’s mind to accompany me that night.  Good thing, I have the two best-ever replacements for mga taong indyanero (tse, kayong lahat!). The replacements are the kind of people who are ready to meet you anytime and anywhere as long as you’ll have to cover all the expenses.  Nah, just kidding… these people just wants to have fun that’s why they immediately said yes when I said, “maliligayahan kayo” (which I believed they have taken seriously and expecting something kinky).

But they actually got more than they have expected (less the kinky stuff, of course) when I tagged them along to Stanley Chi’s riot of a show.

The event opened with a display of mind-boggling tricks from the man known as the Mental Assassin, Justin Piñon.  You might have seen him over TV5’s Magic Bagsik but I tell you, it’s much much better when he performs his skills live.  He did mind reading, predicted what my friend will choose among pictures displayed on stage and guessed how much money a volunteer from the audience was holding including its serial number while multi-blindfolded.

Justin Piñon

After the unthinkable, we were treated to more than a half an hour of insanity courtesy of ventriloquist extraordinaire Ony Carcamo with his good old friend Mr. Parley, the puppet who consider himself as the “pinakamalas na tao sa buong mundo.”  The duo was hilarious and presented new materials mixed with some classic jokes delivered in a way it will make you laugh like hell.  I love the way they interacted with the audience and my favorite part in their skit is their take on the popular game, Pinoy Henyo.

Ony Carcamo with Mr. Parley

I thought I have no more laughs left in my tank but when Stanley went on stage and started dishing out his own brand of humor--- tuloy ang ligaya!  He is my kind of stand up comic since he doesn’t humiliate anyone from his audience just to make people laugh.  His script was well taught and people can relate to the many amusing anecdotes he shared that night. The slumbook, the digital clock shown over RPN 9 then, and his I am Chinese moments are simply awesome.

Almost everyone who watched the show has a souvenir to bring home from Suplado/ Suplada button pins, shirts, Stanley Chi’s books (Btw, his Suplado Tips is already sold out) and Unisilver gift certificates.

With Stanley Chi and my new Suplado watch (tse!)

I am just super happy that I brought home the biggest prize of them all that night--- Php1000 worth of Unisilver GCs and the fact that I am the very first owner of the Suplado watch in the world after winning the Suplado Blog Contest.

No thanks to the heavy rain, I went home all wet (except the Suplado watch which I really took good care).  But who cares, at least I had a grand time at the Suplado Show and snubbing it is not an option.