Polymer Clay Cupcakes

I just hate looking at foodstuff turned into jewelry…. because they make me hungry just looking at them… grawrrrrrr

Online shop found here.

A Sin is not a sin

Here’s an interesting thing our priest told me today. I asked him if I had committed a sin with something I did. What I did wasn’t entirely bad but it was classified as a sin by the Church. So my conscience was a bit disturbed by it so decided to turn to a priest.

So I explained to him what I did and I asked him if it was a sin. To my relief he said that what I did was not a sin, although it went against Church teachings the intention to commit a sin on my part was not present.

That’s a relief. Nice to see that ignorance of the Church Law does not make one liable for a crime against your faith. Of course if I repeated it, then it would be a sin.

Buzzed

I had a very interesting morning… I rushed out of the house after hearing a helicopter nearby… I usually don’t gawk at helicopters when they flyby but this one I had to make an exception because it sounded close. And when I got out it was indeed close.

Turns out that a military helicopter landed right infront of my house. There’s an open field infront of my house owned by my neighbor, huge enough I guess to accomodate a helicopter.

Stock Market to be taught at select Philippine Schools

Here’s an interesting bit of news from the Nation’s Department of Education. Select high schools will have a module on stock investing

First to be taught will be the teachers who will teach the subject. According to the PSE only few Filipinos are investing in the stock market.

Detailed Philippine Historical Gas Prices

Finished coding and uploading some historical data on Philippine Gasoline Prices. It’s more detailed compared to the previous “only monthly” version of gasoline data I was uploading.

It also fills a previous request we had to include a breakdown of each specific oil player’s pump price. The previous monthly data was just an average and lumped average.

Davao Directory Online Misunderstood

A few weeks back somebody submitted an entry to the online directory that I run. The directory is for the city of Davao. Normally I would have accepted his entry, except that it was an SEO company located in another country.

After one day I got an email from this guy, he was pissed off on why it was taking such a long time for his entry to appear on the site. Caps and exclamation points in his email showed how aggravated he was.

I replied to him kindly, Thanked him for his submission, then explained to him that it was because he was from another city in another country that I couldn’t approve his submission. All entities in the directory must reside in the city of Davao.

That’s why I’m happy to be Asian sometimes, because we are so tolerant of other people’s rudeness.

Davao Real Estate Forum

A retired public servant and soon to be real estate broker suggested that a specific forum channel be put up to answer questions that people might have regarding real estate. And with that the Davao real estate q & a forum was born (here).

It’s quite an interesting and informative forum really. I never knew the intricacies of real estate taxation that the local government imposes on land, housing and commercial establishments till I read the articles posted there.

Quite an important thing to have knowledge of when you plan to put up a house or building in the Philippines. Also posted there the reason why you have to transfer right away any properties that you have bought to your name, because some unscrupulous sellers report a lost title and resell the property.

Oil Drop Shock

It’s great that gasoline is cheap right now. In the Philippines its back to 2004 levels, about P30/liter at the pump for unleaded gasoline. I could actually start driving in the road again for recreation. The past year one could only go outside in ones car if one had an actual purpose to it.

I remember back in 1998 when gasoline was at P11/liter. I was fresh out of college, was starting out at a new job and had my first car. It was second hand. Then come 1999, the price of gas was starting to creep up. By 2000 it was at P13/liter. I told myself that if gas hit P15/liter I’d ditch my car and start taking the company shuttle bus. I guess you know how that ended up.

OFW Scam

I feel sad whenever I hear news of OFW’s (Overseas Filipino Worker) being scammed. It’s a curse of this perception that OFW’s have a lot of money. Ok so maybe a small percentage of them have a lot of money, but the reality is that the majority of them eke out just enough to support their families at home. That’s why its despicable to see people conning people from the meager earnings that they have.

Toyota Loom

Who would have “thunk” that car manufacturing giant, Toyota Motor Corporation, started from the weaving industry?

Quite inspiring really. If you disregard the fact that it was because of the war in China that they were encouraged to start a car manufacturing division.