Coffeetable Blog

Just a quick update on the promo, particularly on the Terms and Conditions (meaning, how you can get paid):

1. You and the person you invited both have to be in the eligible countries (India, Thailand, Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia or Singapore) to be paid or to get credit for your invites. The Terms and Conditions state:

"If you reside outside of the Eligible Countries, you may be permitted to download the PayPal WishList; however, you will not be eligible to participate in this Promotion. Additionally, you will not be entitled to receive an additional US$1 or cash back for those PayPal WishLists created by a person(s) outside of the eligible countries, even if the sum stating ‘you’ve earned’ on your Facebook page may indicate otherwise."

2. The friend you invited must create a wishlist AND a Paypal account (or have one already) for you to be eligible for the prize. Again, from the Terms and Conditions:

"You will be entitled to $1 USD for your own PayPal WishList, plus an additional $1 USD per friend who uses your invitation to create his or her own PayPal WishList, provided your friend has a PayPal account.

3. If two friends invited the same person, the one who gets the prize is the invite where the invite actually created a wishlist. So, if a friend of yours accepted the invite, your FB account will show $1 earned, but it's not yet yours unless she/he created a wishlist via your invite.

Well, that's it for now. Hopefully these guidelines will help you get "sure" additions to your paypal wishlist prize.

Everybody could use some extra cash, whether it's Christmas time or not. And even though you won't be able to enjoy the cash that you can get from Paypal's promo until after the Christmas season, it's still spending money of up to $100. With hardly any additional effort. Here's the mechanics:

This is another Facebook game similar to other farm-tending games like Farmville, Farmtown and Country Story. I just thought of checking it out after seeing a friend's post about it. The very first thing that came to mind was that it looks and feels a lot like Ranch Rush of Yahoo!, although there isn't any character that you order around to do jobs. Games like these are already so common in Facebook that the developers didn't even bother setting up a tutorial. Speaking of developers, I am still checking out who they are, because they don't seem like from Playfish or Zynga.

Some of the features of the game:

1. No more crops going bad if not harvested. I thought I won't be playing the game for long since the first crop you can plant, Clover, matures in four hours. Which is quite fast for a casual player that only gets to check Facebook once or twice in a day, even if it goes bad at the same rate that it ripens. But turns out it doesn't spoil, even after I visited the game several days later.

2. There are a couple of machines that you can use to process crops you harvest. For starters, you get to use a cheese machine to process milk that you get from feeding clover to cows. Then there's the ketchup machine, the flour mill, and a chicken coop. They just introduced rabbits, but I don't exactly know yet what they are supposed to produce.

3. Crops, animals, and machines can actually be gifted to you by friends who already reached a certain level to be qualified to gift them. You will also need a certain number of friends to become your neighbors for you to be able to expand your ranch (or you can shell out some real cash for it).

The game do require that you spend a considerable amount of time feeding animals, planting or processing harvests. More so than you would playing, say, Cafe World. But I guess that's the game design and it's fairly reasonable.

That's it for now. I am pretty new in the game, but I will try to update on this as I go along.

Yahoo! Shine recently featured the product refund in the US for Baby Einstein videos primarily because they (quoting the article) "...did not, as promised, turn babies into wunderkinds." You can read the full article by clicking on the pic at the left.

As a parent of young kids, I am sure I have a couple of such videos at home, along with other kid staples like Barney, Sesame Street, Backyardigans, and even not so common ones like Land Before Time. These videos have always played two roles for our family: they entertain while at the same time they introduce children to educational concepts. In addition, we got tons of picture books and starter books and playboards and toys at home, all intended to spur the kids to curiosity and imagination at every turn possible. And it is implied in all these that we as parents will be there to guide and educate them. That their learning will primarily be due to our teaching them, and these materials only as tools.

It would appear then that some parents had other ideas in mind. Reading the article, it seems that the sale of Baby Einstein was anchored on a promise (or two): an easy way to educate kids that would bring extraordinary results.

In the modern world we live in, it's not really surprising to accept that promise as gospel truth. We are regularly bombarded by news of successful people who seemed to have it made it big "overnight". So, easy is not really a hard thing to accept (pun intended). But the fact is, easy is only easy when you have prepared for more than just overnight. For most of us, the only part we see of these successful people is their time in the limelight and possibly the minute before that. We do not see what they went through in the proverbial dark room before that impressive picture of them comes out in the light. I seriously doubt that anybody, other than being born into wealth or doing something illegal, could actually make it big without putting in his dues. But then again, we choose to accept what is pleasing to our senses.

To be fair, some parents are simply already overburdened. They got a job, home chores, and so many other valid and worthwhile things to do that it sounds good to have a product that can deliver as much promise. Well, any burger will taste good if you're hungry. This is one of those hungry moments for parents. It really does take willpower to decide to cut back on some things to make way for something of paramount importance as the education of our children.

And then, some are simply lazy. To the point of irresponsibility of abdicating their duty of educating their children to "experts". So the children watch these videos while the parents are on their Facebook's virtual farms, in the phone, or in some other time-wasters.

Teaching children is indeed a challenge. I have to say it's even a skill that one needs to learn and will be good at only with constant practice. But it's something that we cannot fail on. The education of our children is simply something we cannot leave to automation. After all, each one of us is unique in his or her own way. And no standardized educational tool can account for that uniqueness.

Hopefully this product refund will awaken many to the reality of what true education entails.

Been reading about lemons on the Net lately, after that night when I thought of throwing a slice of lemon on my glass of water. The rest of what you will read below is a recollection of what I've come across so far, as far my recall goes.

A simple Google search led me to a couple of sites about Master Cleanse, which is a detox/weight reduction approach using primarily lemons and not much else. I've never been a fan of anything about detox or cleansing that excludes a whole bunch of everything else except for a few food types, regardless if it was intended to be done only for a period of time. Besides, it was also intended for weight reduction, which is something I don't have need of. So I move on.

The next thing I started reading about is the alkalizing property of lemons. Alkalinity is generally that state of being not acidic. Being acidic carries with it certain limitations in how the body can absorb nutrients and dispose of wastes, hence bad. Technically, being not acidic can be measured in terms of ph levels, with about 7.0 ph as being "neutral", and anything lower than that contributing to acidity. Coffee is about 4.5ph, while lemons goes a long way down at 2.3ph.

Now, that seems to run counter in most sites that says lemons actually contribute to lessening acidity in the body, or technically, bringing the body fluids closer to 7.0ph. That's where the term "alkalizing" comes into play. Lemon, though being acidic, actually contributes to alkalinity because it triggers a reaction in the body's organs to produce stuff that reduces acidity and bring about alkalinity. Hmmm sounds interesting, so I asked a medical friend of mine.

My medical friend calls the reaction of the body to the lemon as a possible form of "compensation", which happens to other situations in the body to account for certain imbalances. But this can lead to longer-term problems. For example, a situation in the body can reduce the heart's ability to pump blood, for which the body will compensate by increasing the heart rate, or the number of pumps in a given time. The desired effect may be obtained, but may result in greater damage to the body in the future. What needs to be done instead is to possibly remove the reason why the heart is not pumping blood as well as it should, like having enough exercise and proper diet.

In possibly the same way, when we take in a certain amount of lemon juice, the body is releasing substances to induce alkalinity because of the high level of acidity. Which makes drinking substantial amounts of lemon juice to induce alkalinity (some sites recommend the juice of half of a lemon to be squeezed in a glass of water, three times a day) essentially pointless, even dangerous to the body.

So far, I have yet to find a site that's actually a "medical" one that has something to say about lemons. Hope you could share here if you have come across some.

How would you like to take the stairs rather than the escalator or the elevator? Would you pick up your trash if you missed shooting it in the garbage bin? Maybe you would, but it won't be something that you would look forward to, right? But what if tasks like these that are obviously good for us can be fun to do, encouraging us to even go out of our way to be able to do it? That is the fun theory.

An initiative of Volkswagen, the fun theory is all about changing people's behavior for the better by making it easy, even fun, for them to do so. Based on the two videos on the site (click on pic above), ways to accomplish this include taking the mundane out of a certain activity, like giving music to your steps as you climb a set of stairs decorated like a piano and fitted with the applicable piano sounds as you step up. You can even see in a portion of the video an old man who is already slow in his steps choosing the piano stairs over the adjacent escalator.

Another way they have done it is making something amusing, like the case of the deepest trash bin. A trash bin is fitted with a sensor that when you put in a trash, would create a sound like an object is falling to a very very deep hole ending in a thud. People who have heard it even went so far as to collect garbage from around to put in the bin.

Of course, these ideas can lose their edge as you see them day in and day out. Which only highlights the need for more and more ideas like these. That's why Volkswagen is sponsoring a competition called the Fun Theory Award, where they will have cash awards for fun ways to change behaviour. Head over to their site to find out how to submit your ideas.

And in the interest of making it fun for everyone, I am sharing one of their videos from the site right here.



Have a fun day!

It's quite encouraging to find movies that both kids and adults can enjoy, with each one getting the point of the movie in somewhat different ways. I don't think my 4-year-old son understood it when one of the rodents said something about rising to the occasion and becoming great because somebody believed in you, regardless of where you started. But I do think he got the fact that even a rodent can put down a monster coffeemaker and an army of similar machines. And all that accomplished because of teamwork, perseverance, and risk-taking.

G-Force appeals because of our tendency to like something cute and cuddly doing something high-tech and risky. And of course, we like ordinary machines changing into futuristic robots and shooting lasers and wreaking havoc and stuff. Plus high-tech tools and gadgets with just the slight tinge of being real, now or sometime soon. The whole idea of G-Force is actually the use of non-human agents, be it biological or mechanical.

I like it that they kept mum on a possible love story. Maybe they can let it bloom on a future sequel. The redemption at the end of the movie is also something worth noting, keeping all those cuddly ones on the good side, which is easier for the little ones to digest. Lastly, nice pace. Not much "downtime" to keep everybody on their toes.

My only "problem" is that I didn't enjoyed using the eyeglasses that comes with watching the movie on 3D. Neither did my son. But that's a different matter altogether, and the subject of my future post.

Here's my take on another movie. Click HERE.

Just a quick follow up on what I've been learning about Cafe World. These include friend visits, renovations, and use of friend gifts.


Friendship Has Its Limits

I mentioned before that friend visits will allow you to earn xp points and coins at least once a day. But I thought back then that the xp and coins you will earn will depend on the level of your friend. Turns out it's a random thing. Even a level 1 friend can give you 5 xp and 20 coins, the highest I have seen so far. The reverse can happen as well, with a high level friend only giving you 1 xp and 5 coins. Looks reasonable to me, otherwise you will end up leveling primarily because of your friends' efforts. I think it's also one way to remedy the abuse of adding "temp" friends like what people have been doing at Restaurant City. If somehow you end up getting only a limited number of maximum rewards for friend visits, it doesn't really pay to add too many people when you will only earn 1xp every visit.


Renovate Carefully

Be careful in renovating when the equipment you are about to remove from your resto has something on it or you are using it. I lost an entire batch of one day's worth of cooking totaling 4,000 servings (or 16,000 coins @ 4 coins per serving) when I removed the serving table carrying the serving and replaced it with an upgraded serving table. All the while I thought the servings will be retained, since when I replaced a dirty stove with a higher model stove, the new one also ended up being dirty. I guess that's not the way the game is designed, where you lose valuable things without even being prompted. But since the game is in beta, it's really a case of renovate at your own risk. Also, try to minimize going in and out of the renovate mode, since it appears that the customers you have are reset when you go out of renovate mode, which means you lose out on those that were seated when you started renovating.


Maximize Your Gifts

You can maximize the use of friend gifts (those drinks they send you) if you use them when your tables are all full. However, if you happen to be like me who visit Cafe World only once a day, you may not expect to see a high popularity rating when you log in because the servings by then and it would have been a waste of resources to invest in so many tables and chairs when I know many of them will be non-earning perhaps half of the time. However, I am reserving the gifts for that golden moment when I can be online when my popularity is going up and I can supply as much tables and chairs as needed to keep up with the demand. Then I should use those gifts when I perceive that the maximum number of diners possible has been reached. Hopefully the waiting would be worth it. And hopefully that day would come.

Forgive this rant, I just have to get it out of my chest. Hopefully, something good can still come out of this. I just got back to Manila from my trip to Cebu a few days back (see my post), and was really looking forward to a nice dinner with my family who picked me up at the airport. We headed for Mall of Asia, and we were already inside World of Chicken when we noticed the place is already full. So we decided to move to Rai Rai Ken, which is just beside it. Turns out it's my biggest mistake of the night.

We were seated at those corner cubicles, the closest one to the serving counter. Then, my two-year old daughter had a fit and threw up. She threw up several times, and it was on the floor and partly on the table.

Our first reaction was to take hold of something we can use to wipe my daughter's mouth with, as well as my own hand which got covered with the vomit. Well, that should have been Rai Rai Ken's staff's first reaction as well. Instead, as I was standing there trying to get ourselves cleaned up, a crew approached us to bring our order. AND THEN DID NOTHING ELSE. My wife had to ask them for tissue papers, had to ask them to mop the floor, and had to ask them for a plastic bag where we can place the tissues. Later, we even have I think the shift supervisor come over to bring us something, but never anything in the context of apology for not having assisted us.

I must have been quite tired that night that the only thing I thought of doing to get back on them is not to leave them any tip. Well, I have my wits back and I hope they like this publicity I am giving them.

If you think I rant good, go check THIS out as well.

I am in Cebu City today, as part of a group from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) or the Central Bank of the Philippines. Tomorrow, I will be one of the resource speakers on BSP's Public Information Campaign, which is part of the continuing activities of BSP's Economic and Financial Learning Center. My role is to discuss the topic of electronic money, which has been my exposure for about a year now, and continues to be part of my activities as one of the Bank Officer of BSP. The rest of the speakers will have topics ranging from microfinance, payment systems, and recent economic developments. Each of us will have fifteen minutes to discuss our part, which will be followed by an open forum after all the speakers have finished their presentations.

I find it worthwhile being able to share to people (our audience of 150 will come from business, academe, and local government sectors) what I know of this aspect of the financial system and somehow encourage them to further their financial education. Especially when you realize that the Philippines is considered at the forefront of mobile commerce (m-commerce), of which electronic money is an integral part of. I had the chance to discuss this topic, along with internet banking, to study groups coming from Indonesia, Cambodia, and other Southeast Asian countries, who are eager to find out how we have been successful in the implementation of m-commerce. I even had the chance to go to Chennai, India to share my knowledge and experience on m-commerce to a group of policymakers and leaders of grassroots microfinance organizations.

Aside from the topic itself, speaking engagements like this provide me with opportunity to develop my presentation and interpersonal skills. And the ensuing activities, like the business dinner later, provide opportunities to network and further my knowledge, gaining insights from industry leaders themselves and somehow channel this knowledge to help out my superiors in crafting better regulations and policies.

Of course, there's also the fun of being able to go around the country for free. I've never been to Cebu, and I look forward to the experience.

I will have some posts in the future here on the key areas of my presentation in Cebu. If you have some questions or queries related to the above or other financial matters, you may leave a comment which can help me in deciding what and how to write about financial topics in the future.

You may want to check out my other posts related to finance and investment HERE.

Just a little spontaneous event from my everyday surroundings...

Enjoy!




So, which one dance better? Let me see your votes.

Have a nice day!

Zynga recently launched Cafe World, it's very own game to match the other restaurant games in Facebook. The game has the same look and feel as Restaurant City. And perhaps that's really the intention, because they are the only ones in the same category among cafe/ restaurant game types in Facebook. However, it has some significant differences from each other.

I have just started in the game, but let me share some of the things I've been learning so far. I've also included some comparison to Restaurant City which I have noticed so far.

Objective of the Game

You start off as the chef of your own cafe. The objective is managing a cafe operation, making it profitable so that you can purchase items to make your restaurant as unique and eye-catching as possible. Leveling is an integral part of the game, which unlocks certain features of the game when you reach certain levels. These include being able to have more choices in what to cook and option to hire more friends as cafe staff. You acquire cafe points, which is the level up unit of the game everytime you accomplish some tasks, such as cooking food and cleaning up the stoves you used for cooking. The dishes you cook earn you coins as they are served by your crew. You use the coins to buy more ingredients to cook your dishes (explained below) and to upgrade and decorate your cafe. Dishes continue to be served by your waiters as long they have been moved to the serving counter, even when you are offline.


The leveling process is different in Restaurant City, where the Gourmet Points used in leveling is earned as part of serving the dishes. And there is also the requirement in Restaurant City that the browser window you are using should be active (meaning, open on top of all other browsers, otherwise you only earn the coins and not the Gourmet Points). In Cafe World, the Cafe Points is earned as part of your activity in cooking, cleaning stoves, and serving the dishes, as well as the occasional hiring of cafe crew. What's similar is that you have to be active in both cases in somewhat different manner, otherwise you don't level up. And in the case of Cafe World, you don't even get coins if you don't cook since you have to manually prepare the dishes and move them to the serving tables before your crew can serve them to the customers and get paid for it.

Preparing Dishes

You prepare a dish by purchasing the necessary ingredients as provided for in the cookbook. However, you don't purchase ingredients individually, but collectively for the dish you intend to cook. This means no need to be looking for ingredients from friends as in Restaurant City. Ingredients in the preparation of dishes are purchased using the game's gold system, and are always available.


Each purchase of ingredients to cook a dish will yield a certain number of servings, where dishes with shorter cooking time having less servings compared to dishes with longer cooking time. Cooking times can be as fast as 5 minutes to as long as 48 hours. So there's really a dish for everyone, whether you are a 24/7 online player or an occasional Facebook user that can log on only for several times (or even just once) during the day. Certain dishes also yields different amounts of income, but the main difference in the amount that you will earn per batch is really in the number of servings per batch. Basically, the more active you are in the game, the more you will earn. Which only stands to reason. But of course, that also means a great deal more effort. To illustrate concretely, you will earn FOUR TIMES MORE serving cheeseburgers that cooks every 5 minutes against a spit-roasted chicken which cooks for 24 hours. However, with the cheeseburger, you will have to be checking your cafe every 10 minutes since dishes spoil at the same amount of time as the cooking time, as against checking your chicken once a day or even less since it won't spoil until after the 2nd day from cooking. This means that unless you can play for at least six hours a day, you are better off just cooking the chicken rather than the cheeseburgers.


Unlike in Restaurant City, dishes are not leveled up in Cafe World since it operates under a different set of playing conditions. Since I am a casual player that only gets to check my Facebook at night during weekdays, I can only serve the chicken or the roast beef, since they have 24-hour and 48-hour cooking times, respectively. But I tend to serve only the chicken since it will yield more income for me. Hopefully as I level up I will have access to additional dishes that have the same cooking time as the chicken, so I can serve more varied meals.

Hiring Cafe Crew

Like in Restaurant City, you start off by hiring one of your friends as a crew or waiter.
This also does not require their acceptance. You get to hire more crew as you level up.

Miscellaneous

You can purchase upgrades of furniture and equipment to make your cafe look better. You can expand your cafe by buying a larger floor area also from the in-game shop.

The number of customers you will have on a given amount of time will depend on the popularity of your cafe, which is basically the same as with Restaurant City. But since the dishes are prepared somewhat differently, I find no real incentive in closing the cafe when I go offline, even if it would mean losing popularity points. You will get to understand it when you start playing.

There is currently no player rating feature. Hopefully it will have one soon. Not sure if they have a messaging system in place as well.

That's it for now. I will post more about this game as I progress. Let me know if you discovered something as well.

More Cafe World posts here.

As I am building my list of How To Make Money Online, let me start off on the simplest way to do it for bloggers: hosting ads. This method simply requires that you put an HTML code somewhere in your blog, which would allow ad hosting sites like those above to show ads of advertisers that they have a partnership with. With the availability of widget programs, placing the code is simply as copying the code, pasting it in the widget, and placing it where you want in your blog. At least that's the way it is with Blogger.

A few characteristics of this method includes:

1. Earning is primarily determined by the size of the traffic of your site or blog. Basically there are two ways to earn: impressions and clicks. Impressions is accomplished by simply showing the ads in your blog, sort of a billboard on a highway or an ad on a newspaper. Clicks is when a person who sees the ad actually gets interested enough to follow where the link goes. Obviously you earn more with clicks on individual basis, simply because not everybody who sees the ad will actually click it.

2. The ads presented are usually those that relate to the topics you discuss in your blog. This makes it more likely for viewers to be interested in the ads.

3. You usually do not have control over what ads gets presented, aside from the general guidelines of keeping it family-oriented and similar criteria.

So far, I have yet to receive hard cash from this method. This is because the ad hosts usually have a minimum payout amount, usually at around $50. And it usually takes a considerable number of impressions and clicks, usually in the thousands, before you can even get to a dollar. But since they do not require any maintenance on my part, it doesn't hurt placing them in my blog at the onset. Who knows, I may just hit the big time and I would really appreciate the extra income.

Lately, it's a rare week when I hardly come across some news through one mass media or another about the "evils" of spanking a child. So-called "experts" upon "experts" laud the benefits of alternative discipline approaches such as time-outs, reasoning, etc. This is well and good except that this campaign for alternative approaches is also coupled with a barrage of images and reports of children being maimed and even killed by their own parents in the name of disciplining them, trying to appeal to the emotional side of the issue. And from where I am standing (or sitting), I feel like more and more people are embracing the view that spanking is really the evil that it is being portrayed, to the point of excluding it from the arsenal of disciplinary tools that a parent can utilize to rear up their child.

As a parent myself and a Christian, and one that tries to follow "expert" advice, I am amazed and alarmed (at times, irked) at how people are hardly consulting what the Bible has to say about child discipline and relationship, and how it contrasts with what modern-day "experts" are saying. Here are a few insights that I would like to share. These are my personal opinions, and I am no "expert". But hopefully this may even help you save a few bucks before you consider hearing that next big "expert" pitch his/her ideas in a big conference:

1. Alternative discipline approaches are not new at all. As recently as my own generation, it is called by other names, such as being grounded, curfew, limited allowance, extra household chores, etc. The idea is that certain actions lead to curtailment of certain benefits. That's it. It was clear to me then, it is still clear to me now. In addition, the idea of discipline as a continuous process day in and day out is as old as Deuteronomy 6:6-7: "These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."(TNIV)

2. You are a parent. Isn't that obvious enough? Apparently no, with all the current emphasis on being a friend to your child, etc. etc. I am not saying it's a bad thing, but you can definitely stretch it to unintended lengths. The fact is, children need and look up to authority. It gives them a sense of order. And part of that authority is being able to mete out punishment when necessary, as much as you can give rewards for desirable behavior. The proper emphasis on the parent-child relationship is a prerequisite to the proper orientation a child will have over a spiritual authority.

3. Lastly, there is HELL. Huh, what does it have to do with the topic? Simple: reasoning can only get you so far. If you fail to heed advice, you are bound to get hurt. So, drumroll for the battlecry of pro-spankers.....

"Those who spare the ROD HATE their children" (Proverbs 13:24, TNIV). Notice the emphasis? It means that as a parent, withholding physical punishment to a child when necessary and at the proper amount is tantamount to hating that child. Why? Simply because children aren't all the angels we envision them to be: "Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the ROD of DISCIPLINE (insert: not RAGE) will drive it far away" (Proverbs 22:15, TNIV). Physical punishment properly used is ultimately your child's life-saver: "Do not withhold punishment from children; if you punish them with the rod, they will not die. Punish them with the rod, and save them from death." (Proverbs 23:13, TNIV).

Granted, some parents do not mete out punishment for the sake of correction, but as a sign of their own immaturity. But as the saying goes, you shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Physical punishment has its place in the proper rearing of children. And so much "research" of so much "experts" has led to no real conclusions, only interjections that they try to pass as scholarly work. Click on the pic above to get you to an example of such an article. Since their theory seems only as good as mine, let me end with my own theory: the best-reared children are those in homes where a proper mix of rewards, punishment (including physical), and close relationships operate.

The following is a list of sites that offer some ways for you to make money through your blog. Some of these do not require that you do anything more other than setting it up in your blog. Others require some daily activity to be performed from your end to make it work. There are those that pay directly in cash, while others are a way for you to earn in an indirect manner, usually through an increase in traffic.

In general, these opportunities can be categorized as follows:

I. Simple Ad Placement

• Google
• Adbrite

Had the chance to watch the drama unfold in the Clijsters-Williams Semifinals match in the 2009 US Open, which resulted in a point penalty for Serena Williams at match point, costing her the match. A match which many believe would have been won by Clijsters anyway, given the way she's playing the whole night. The incident once more highlighted the need to implement a more "professional" attitude in professional tennis. Time and again, umpires and line judges are berated by so-called tennis professionals in a manner that would have ended in a fistfight elsewhere. Does it really have to go to the level of name-calling and unveiled threats before such a penalty can be given to a player? I think the chair umpire should be given more leeway in defending the dignity of these line judges, who are professionals themselves. Of course, it can be said that it can cause undue disruptions in games, but in my opinion, players will toe the line more if such powers are given to chair umpires, resulting in "cleaner" matches. A case of a potential power that accomplish its intent without having to use it.

The other matter has to do with some of the comments regarding the foot fault. No less than Yahoo! Sports commented that a foot fault call is hardly ever made at match point, let alone in the semifinals stage of a Grand Slam. Whoa! Is that to say that players have been getting away with it all this time? Also, it must be pointed out that the foot fault call MADE the match point, it wasn't match point yet before it was called. Serena could still dig her way out of it yet. But that is not the real issue. A rule is a rule, and if Clijsters can win the match because of it, so be it. Or else just do away with the rule. Or put in stricter measures, like the way they have revolutionized ball tracking technology to provide a non-biased review of important points in the match.

Just my take on the biggest news of the day for tennis fans everywhere.

I've always gotten quite confused with the term "time value of money". The true essence of the term is sort of hidden in the way it was named. I mean, do you have more time if you have more money? Or rather, would you have more money if you have more time? I know these are semantics, but it helps to introduce a topic that is basic to understanding how to make the most of your time in making more money.

So, what is essentially the money value of time concept? At the heart of it is this: if you can choose when to get your money, you should choose to get it now than tomorrow. Makes sense, right? But why does it makes sense? Primarily because of two things: what that money can buy now will be more than what that same money can buy tomorrow (in short, purchasing power influenced by inflation), and secondly, we can make that money grow by putting it somewhere where the folks will pay us for letting them use it (also known as interest). The first one holds true in most circumstances. The second one deserves a bit more attention.

Note: Not all cultures accept the concept of interest. But even though it's not the way you would choose to earn money, it can still pay to know how it works.

The traditional place to put your money to work is in a bank. The bank takes your money, lends it out, earns an income and splits a portion of it with you in the form of interest. What makes this process very very powerful is the concept of compounding. It simply means that the interest you earned can earn interest too.

How powerful is compounding? An example can make it clear. Suppose two persons have 20 years to save. The first one decided to save 100 per year, for the next ten years at say, ten percent interest. Then he just let the money earn interest from years 11-20. If the other person decides to save at a later date, say from years 11-20 at the same interest rate, how much do you think he would need to put in every year to equal the amount that the other person has at the end of the 20 years? Fifty percent more? Double?

The answer is 1.6 more, or 260 per year. So, the other person saved 1,000 and end up having as much as one who saved 2,600 for the same ten-year period, all because the other person started earlier.

Of course, this is a very simplistic illustration. But it's simplicity makes the concept clearer. We'll build on this topic in future posts. Your comments and questions can help all of us clarify this topic more.

Note: The following items apply only in the Philippines.

Wondering why those three words are together? Well, I found them together in a single page in Facebook. I have yet to find out how really "free" they are, but here's some info on them:

First, there's the free 18 inch Yellow Cab Pizza if you get approved for a Standard Chartered Credit Card. Just text (omit the quotes) "YCAB (space) SCB (space) Your Name" to 2338 for Globe and 3919 for Smart. You will receive a confirmation message informing you that a representative of Standard Chartered accredited agent will contact you soon.

Hopefully, the card is free for the first year. And there won't be a ton of documents to show before you can get approved. Another thing with credit card companies today is that you don't get any favors unless you use your card for a couple of times. I tried to have the annual subscription fee of my HSBC credit card waived, but I was told they can only do so if I use the card for at least seven times within the next month after the card needs to be renewed. I can almost expect I would need to use the SCB card for a couple of times before I can get a bite at that pizza. But I think that's reasonable enough.

The other one is actually a raffle from EventIdeas.ph. You fill up a form which will entitle you to join the raffle to win an all-expense paid vacation to Boracay for you and 4 of your friends. The form basically ask for information about your company and the events that it normally holds. The important part of it (at least for EventIdeas) is supplying the name and contact information of the person in charge with arranging for these company events. In addition, they get to have your email address for their mailing list. That may be a turn off to some, so at least be aware of what you are getting into.

That's it for now. I'll spread the word when I run across some more freebies. Also, if you would like me to feature some freebies you know, just send me an email.

It's been a while since a movie related to me as close as this film did. And the trailer was that good that it did not revealed the plot at all, all the while making it interesting enough for one to want to see it. Neither will I spoil it here. Suffice it to say that it has given some spark to my otherwise mundane existence, and allowed me to view my day-to-day activities in a new light. Not that it diverts significantly from how I view my life: in a way it sort of inspired me and confirmed to me to continue along the path that I have been taking all along.

Maybe I can say this much so that this won't be a candidate for the most cryptic post you've read: Adventure is a state of mind: it is right where you are!

Aside from that, the movie is quite engaging and very fun, especially if you are watching it with a 4-year-old (my son) who confirms to you each and every facet of the movie. The graphics are very good, which made me think if I should have watched it in 3D, since I preferred to see it in 2D after that disappointment in watching Ice Age 3 in 3D. Very few portions tended to be a drag, although the overall length of the film is a bit long, speaking for myself and my son. And like I said, the moral of the story, set in the plot it was in, made it a movie worth seeing. Although I have to say the moral lesson is more for us adults. Not only is it too deep for kids to grasp even with explanation, I also tend to think there is no need to teach them: they live by that moral lesson day in and day out. I guess that's the way it is: if you live by something, you don't get it when it's taught you from the outside. It is us adults who have grown up out of the lesson, to our loss.

Curious enough? Go catch it before it goes UP, UP, and AWAY!

Here's another movie review for you. Just click HERE.

Nope, I am still hosted at blogspot. Although it seems now that I won't be able to migrate this blog to a .com in the near future. I was Googling for coffeetableblog a few days ago, trying to find out in what page this blog would land, and I was surprised to see coffeetableblog at the top of the page! Only thing is, it's not this blog: it's a .com. In the spirit of never-ending curiosity, I head over to the site and found out that it is totally devoted to featuring coffee tables of all shapes and sizes and inspiration. It was really a fun site to explore, with lots of pictures of coffee tables that given some effort, you can imagine for yourself the one that you can make (or decorate, for the less talented ones like me) that is uniquely yours.

The chick has grown up, and it's a hen now! And it already laid a bunch of eggs. Might be I am doing the right thing giving it care and feeding it well. I still have to wait for sometime before I find out what will happen next, which I expect to be a bunch of more chicks.

While waiting for that, now is a good time as ever to talk about Friendship Points. As I posted earlier here in my intro post about Country Story, having friends play a role in the game. Aside from the 3 random gifts that you get for the first time you visit your friend, additional interaction with friends are also done through Friendship Points (FP).

You start off with 75 FPs to each of your friends (you can click on the pic to enlarge and see better). How do you use those points? Well, for one you can automatically ask friends to help protect your crops from being stolen (by other friends or by themselves, ironically). You either go to your friend's farm, and click on the Friendship Icon (the one with the heart on the upper left of the pic; it would be on the lower panel of your screen if you are on your friend's farm). You can also do that right in your farm by calling up the screen on the left and clicking "Get Help". You can then proceed to assign a plot of unharvested crop to your friend. It will protect the crop from being stolen, and it will also automate the harvesting. Of course, this is not without a price. Each time you assign a friend to give you help, the FP goes down. Sounds like a typical relationship where you can't get too cozy long enough.

Now, your FP with your friend won't get up if he also asked you to do something for him. He will only end up losing FP on you as well. The only way you or him can get it up is to send gifts to your friends. Each item you send as a gift from the shop that is worth 1,000 coins, it will increase your FP with that friend by 10. Any item sent for less than 1,000 won't have any effect. Also, you can only increase your FP to your friend by a maximum of 10 per day. Take note that if you received an item worth 1,000 from the shop and you "re-gift" it, it won't be counted as gifting something worth 1,000 since the resale price (which becomes the reference price of the gift) is much much lower.

By the way, "asking" help from a friend does not require that they accept it too. Just like in Restaurant City, it's only a concept in the game and the accepting is done automatically.

If that is the only use of FP, you may think you would want to maximize your friends' help and ensure that you get your full harvest early on in the game. It turns out being friendly (and generous) can have long-term benefits. If you have at least 15 friends playing CS, you can get yourself a dog if you can get your FP with each of them up to 100. That's basically spending 3,000 coins to each of them (30 FP total, since an amount less than 1,000 gets you nowhere), for a total of 45,000 coins. If you think that's a steep price for getting a pet, you can view that dog as an investment, since it can prevent others from stealing from you. Saves you a lot of FPs and harvest in the long run, not to mention time spent on assigning plots to friends.

That's quite a lot for a post already. Back to the farm and remember what it's all about: having fun!

Had my first "pet" in County Story after finishing a quest that required a certain number of wood, stones, and chicken wheat. Am not really sure what to do with it though :) Based on the information given, I have enough feeds for the chick, and there's also a countdown when it's supposed to mature. I don't understand though if I am supposed to move up from the Happy to the Great and how to do it. Been clicking on the Heart logo incessantly for some minutes but with no evident effect. Anyway, I'll learn it as I go along (or if somebody volunteers some information here).

I'm supposed to post about Friendship Points, but this one came up and I just thought it would be much better to talk about this first. I'll post on Friendship Points next time around.

More Country Story here and here.

Playfish, the creator of Restaurant City, just recently launched its newest game, Country Story. This game is likewise accessible via Facebook. The game builds on the SIM-like style of Restaurant City while at the same time incorporating the theme of other popular Facebook games like FarmTown, BarnBuddy and Farmville.

You start in the game with a nice little house (that you can't get inside), and a plot of land that you can plow and plant crops in. Then there's the usual watering and harvesting. Of course, all these hard work will get your character tired, and you would need to replenish his strength by providing food or letting him rest for a while.

The game introduces also the concept of quests, which is quite similar to Awards given in Restaurant City. Some of the quests may require you to simply do so much of one thing in your farm, or it may require that you get involved with your friends. The Awards affects your farm in different ways, such as increasing your production capacity. The quests are given through one of the several institutions in the village (shown below) such as the Mayor, Bank, Construction, Livestock, and Market.


Having friends also play a role in the game. How crucial, I have yet to find out. Much like other games, you get a reward (actually, three rewards) for your first visit to your friend's farm. You can also assign friends to look after your crops, since it can be stolen (by other friends, ironically). And I think you must have a number of them to get yourself a dog.

Well, that's it for now. The game's quite new, and I have yet to explore it myself. I'll post my developments from time to time. For now, try it yourself, and create your own Country Story.

More Country Story here.

I was watching a movie a while back where one of the characters commented that one of the reasons he doesn't like bowling is because the game puts a limit on your potential. At any given game, you can only get as much as a score of 300 for a perfect game. Now, anyone who has bowled for a time already know that even getting to a 200 once in a while is already a mean feat. But there is indeed some merit to that comment. After all, when you bowled a perfect game, what else is there to aim for? More perfect games? Doesn't sound too appealing to me. Will it make a difference if we compare the number of perfect games bowled? Maybe. But still it doesn't answer the question: what's the highest score you can get?

That is why I find it nice to see that GEICO sponsors a team bowling tournament that introduces a feature into the game: the endless tenth frame. The feature works as follows:

1. To activate the endless tenth frame, you must either strike or spare the 3rd ball on the tenth frame. Which means you must have a strike in the tenth frame. The downside of this is if you got two strikes in your first two throws. You have to make it a punch out! (well, that's unconfirmed, but that's how I am getting it)

2. Once activated, a player can bowl indefinitely for as long as he keeps on getting a strike.

3. Each strike earns 10 points, but has no bonus points added to the previous strikes, since it is still considered part of the tenth frame. So, two strikes count as 20, ten for each throw only.

4. The pinfalls for a non-strike throw is not added to the score. It also signals the end of the endless tenth frame.

I am just wondering when, if ever, the endless tenth frame will be a norm in bowling. It could provide some needed excitement into the game. Although it will mean there will be no "perfect" game anymore, but each game carries the potential of being the highest bowled game. It will also mean more competitiveness, since a match's final outcome can no longer be determined in as early as the eight frame. Of course, it's popularity would also be influenced by the willingness of bowling outfits to adopt to the change. I am one fan of the endless tenth frame! Hope you are too!

Leveling up the menu you serve in your Restaurant is crucial in maximizing the time you spend progressing in the game, because it affects your gourmet points. Gourmet points (GPs) are earned everytime you served a successful order (meaning, the customer doesn't get up before he gets served because it took you a great deal of time to serve him). A certain number of GPs is needed to level up, which could mean an expansion of your restaurant or option to hire additional employees. A high-level menu (at least level 7, I think), gets you more GPs per serving, up to 2.8 GPs. Hence, you could be leveling up almost as much as 3x faster with a level 7 or higher menu. With a decent popularity (around 30.0), a few hours online already gives you quite an earnings and progress in leveling.