travel again!. . ..jpg

travel again!. . ..jpg
Originally uploaded by arleighmac.

travel again!. . ..jpg

travel again!. . ..jpg
Originally uploaded by arleighmac.

Photos from 15th DOHA Asian Games

Photos from http://www.dohaasiangames.org

The sky above Khalifa Stadium is lit up with an array of coloured fireworks


News from the Official Website of 15th Doha Asian Games

A magnificent spectacle

Friday, 01 December, 2006

Fireworks explode over Doha to conclude the most remarkable Opening Ceremony of any games

In the beginning, the Opening Ceremony of the 15th Asian Games Doha 2006 focussed on the future, as Qatari youngsters were introduced into the stadium and spent an energetic and colourful 10 minutes creating a traditional Qatari sadu carpet on the stadium floor with huge pieces of billowing cloth.

They were followed by youngsters from ASPIRE, who raced around the stadium chasing Orry, the Games’ mascot. This emphasis on youth underlined Qatar’s bid to make the country the sports capital of the Middle East.

But this was merely the hors d’oeuvre to the main course.

With the countdown getting close, a sense of excitement filled the stadium before the show really swung into action with a barrage of light and sound as hundreds of men with hand-held flaming torches formed the shape of the Qatari flag in its red and white, before re-forming to spell out the words “Peace be upon you” in English and Arabic.

HH The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani was then introduced to the audience, before the Qatari flag was raised and the national anthem played.

Following a rapturous reception, performers then played out a story which reflects the growth of Asia told by a Qatari, the Seeker, who navigates his way through the world with the help of a mystical astrolabe. He faces and surmounts hazards to a stunning backdrop of video graphics and lasers featuring sea monsters and even a golden falcon. At every turn the effects, the costumes and graphics became ever-more impressive and dramatic.

A stunning display then featured the Far East as a colourful caravan of Chinese dragons, dancers and vehicles entered the stage surrounded by Chinese fire-crackers as the story of the silk robe was told. An illustrated map of the Silk Road appeared on the floor of the stadium, populated by wonderfully costumed players.

The story continues with our hero finding his way to India where he is showered with gifts before setting sail back to Arabia. Here he finds a wife and marries, with the whole of Asia invited to the ceremony through music and dance while the spectators were also invited to participate by flashing lights and releasing huge party-poppers from a special Ceremony pack that was beneath every seat in the stadium.

Then the production moved on to celebrate Arabic culture by bringing on the desert riders of Qatar, who drew a great cheer on their powerful steeds. This was followed by a dynamic display focussing on the golden age of Arabic science, proceeding through time, passing the present day and looking into the future.

Every moment brings a new surprise, a new light show and new costumes for the thousands of performers who fill the arena.

The tale ended with a flourish as Qatar promised Doha would be a city of the future amid a flurry of fireworks that left the spectators spellbound.

Hong Kong, China entertainer Jackie Cheung then sang ‘Together Now’ accompanied by hundreds of drummers as the Games' flag bearers entered the arena.

Next, the athletes entered the stadium to an enthusiastic reception from the thousands of spectators. Teams entered the stadium in different attires, some wearing tracksuits, others in suits, while countries such as Malaysia arrived in their own national dress. Hundreds of drummers beat out a rhythm for every team.

China were the first big team to enter the arena. They received a warm welcome and there were more cheers too as teams from India, Pakistan and Indonesia arrived, while the Gulf States were also roundly applauded.

The team from Kazakhstan had the most flamboyant headgear, parading in blue fedoras, while the Saudi Arabian team wowed the audience with glittery robes. IR Iran received a loud welcome as they entered the stadium with their Talisman Hossein Reza Zadah, the Iranian Hercules leading the way carrying the flag.

There were emotional welcomes too for the teams from Iraq and Palestine while those from Jordan, Oman and Lebanon also received huge support from the watching audience.

However, the loudest cheer of the night was left for the host nation, Qatar. The vast team took five minutes to walk to their positions as they stopped to be greeted by the waving Emir.

Whilst all the athletes were in place, Indian starlet Sunidhi Chauhan sang the song ‘Reach out’ as hundreds of children ran into the arena holding white doves, once again symbolising the peaceful nature of the Games.

The Heir apparent HH Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani took to the stage with the Olympic Council of Asia President, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah and greeted the athletes by saying the gathering here today celebrates young Asians and confirms the future of sports in the region.

The OCA president added that “The athletes are the core of the Games, years of practising and hard work will now be put to the test. I call upon athletes to engage in a competitive spirit and be fair to each other.”

It was then left to HH The Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani to officially open the Games, followed by a short burst of fireworks while Spanish tenor José Carreras sang a duet with Magida El Roumi and entranced the audience.

But then it was to the ceremonial duty everyone had been waiting for. The lights were dimmed and the 15th Asian Games Torch entered, carried by world champion bowler Salem Bu Sharbak.

He passed on to star footballer Mubarak Mustafa who then exchanged with shooter Nasser Al Attiya. Attiya handed over to legendary middle distance runner Mohamed Suleiman who in turn handed on to former football international Mansour Muftah who finally passed the Flame to former international sprinter Talal Mansour

The torch final found its way to Sheikh Mohammed Bin Hamad Al-Thani, the Qatari equestrian captain who rose through the floor of the stadium astride his horse to accept the flame.

After giving a brief salute to the Emir, Al-Thani then turned and urged his mount into a gallop as he gallantly rode up a ramp that reached the full height of the stadium, much to the audience’s amazement.

At the top the Torch lit a gold star, which turned upwards within revolving circles which became the astrolabe of the Seekers quest. The flame was lit signalling the start of the 15th Asian Games.

Pyrotechnics then took over as the huge Sport Tower ignited at its peak into another glowing flame. Then a final volley of fireworks concluded the evening in spectacular fashion echoing all over Doha.

After the conclusion of events, Deepa Vish, a Doha resident from India said, “All I can say is that I am speechless. This has been an experience of a lifetime. It was absolutely fabulous and I am proud to be a resident of Doha.”

Echoing her comments was 12 year-old Simon Borghesi, who said: “It’s the best show I’ve seen in my life. My favourite part was when the rider went up the stadium and the fireworks afterwards.”

Meanwhile, another audience member was just as breathless with excitement. Joni Reyes said: “It was marvellous. I didn’t expect anything as beautiful as this. It cannot be better than this.”

So the Opening Ceremony was a spectacular show of culture and dazzling effects.

Was it this greatest show on earth?

If you were there you had to believe it.

Philippine TV RATINGS - 11/29/2006

TV RATINGS - 11/29/2006

>From PEX

Research by Jun Jun aska26ph2001@...
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/ABS-CBNKapamilyaPEXers2
Posted by yahoo

AGB OVERNIGHT RATINGS
NOV 29 2006
WEDNESDAY

12 SIS 11.7
12 homeboy 13.1

16 YELLOW HANDKERCHIEF 15.9
18 game ka na ba? 17.8

22 EAT BULAGA 22.4
18 DAISY SIETE 18.0
22 wowowee 21.7

16 kapamilya cinema 15.8
16 MAKITA KA LANG MULI 15.9
17 KAPUSO MOVIE FESTIVAL 16.8
13 inocente de ti 12.8
07 yugi 6.7

19 GHOSTFIGHTER 19.2
09 beet 8.7

19 JEWEL IN THE PALACE 19.4
19 pangako sa yo 19.3

32 24 ORAS 31.8
30 tv patrol world 29.7

32 CAPTAIN BARBELL 31.6
32 deal or no deal 31.9 -eto na ang no.1 sa primetime!

29 ATLANTIKA 28.6
29 super inggo 28.7

29 BAKEKANG 29.2
25 maging sino ka man 24.9

25 A ROSY LIFE 24.7
21 pinoy dream academy 20.5

14 NUTS ENTERTAINMENT 14.1
16 crazy for you 15.5
11 bandila 11.2

09 SAKSI 9.3
06 probe 6.2

05 palaban 5.3
04 mirada de mujer 3.9
02 pda uplate 1.9

A French manicure... thanks to YOUNGBLOOD of INQ7.net

By Tish Martinez

Inquirer

Last updated 00:17am (Mla time) 11/30/2006

Published on Page A13 of the November 30, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

A
bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every
government on Earth, general or particular, and what no just government
should refuse to rest on inference. -- Thomas Jefferson

WHEN people learn that I’m an activist, they automatically look at
my nails. No matter how much they try, it seems they cannot imagine
anyone among the angry horde they see on TV news programs having
manicured nails.

Explaining the seeming paradox is never easy, especially if one is
not accustomed to explaining to people one has just met. Which only
goes to show, I suppose, that after all the education I got in the
activist world and after all the people I’ve met, I remain indifferent
to society at large.

This is not to say that I do not have a heart for the poor or that
I’m living a double standard. My pretty nails cannot tell you that
everything I have learned along this badly ridiculed path has gone to
waste. I think that the issue here is perception. People perceive
activists to be generally unhygienic and unkempt. For example, when my
family meets one of my activist friends, they make excuses for his
appearance. “Ang dungis niya ano? Aktibista kasi eh" ["Doesn’t he look
dirty? That's because he is an activist”], someone would say.

Comments like this sound funny, but some don’t. Some people look at
activists as spineless political individuals. Even worse, there are
those who believe we are fighting for a lost cause.

Most people I’ve met are surprised when they learn that I study at
the Ateneo de Manila University and that I have no qualms about living
indefinitely in an urban poor community. Let me explain. First off, all
throughout my life in the university, Jesuit education has taught me to
try harder at thinking about others. Our Jesuit mentors try to instill
in us a sense of altruism. They tell us to try not to be the
money-hungry yuppies or money-driven career persons. They teach us at
the Ateneo the value of other human beings regardless of their station
in life. And they drill into our heads that we have to be “men and
women for others.” I suppose they are trying to save us from our
bourgeois selves.

This is not to toot my own horn. This is something that I have
learned in personal encounters in the Ateneo. Despite the seemingly
sanitized environment of our upper-class school, it never lets you
forget that there are people dying just outside the walls of the
university. If there is anything important the university has taught
me, it is that every step down your personal ivory tower is
excruciating and stepping out is something from which no one fully
recovers.

Which leads me to my second point. For almost a year now, I have
lived in an urban poor community. The discomforts aside, I can honestly
say that this has been the best time of my life. After getting over the
excitement of being in an unfamiliar environment, I discovered three
things: First, life is hard no matter what the President says about our
economic growth. Second, to be poor does not mean to be uncivilized.
And third, life offers us an astounding array of choices on how to live
it.

Among the three basic truths that I have learned, the one that needs
the most explaining is the third. Admittedly, my middle-class existence
has been very comfortable. Most other activists I’ve met sneer upon
learning about my school and my social status. But it is only now that
I can admit that I belong to a more privileged part of society. It is
only in retrospect that I can say I had no reason to whine about my
allowance or my wardrobe.

Activism did not fuel my angst, it actually gave it a cold shower.
As I look back on my past, all my complaints were rooted in my sense of
deprivation. I thought that I was being deprived of “the good life.”
While my family insisted that I was indeed privileged, I constantly
thought about the things I did not have, mostly non-essential things,
the accessories to life, things such as a five-digit allowance, the
latest fashion and, yes, my manicure.

If you think this is ridiculous, ask any typical middle-class
student and you will hear the same complaints. But in my case, the only
“real” problem that I had was my nails. My crowning glories must never
be chipped or damaged in any way. But of course, when I started going
to political demonstrations, my nails were chipped every time. And of
course, I was pissed. Very socially oriented, indeed.

But then again, what can you expect from someone who has been raised
on the other side of the economic divide? I had been taught that the
poor were poor because they were lazy and that rallies accomplished
nothing except to cause heavy traffic. I could have thought worse about
activism. Nevertheless, in the beginning, the only thing I had against
activism was my chipped nails.

And what can I say about activism now? It has been a lonely and hard
journey to self-realization. It has been harder still to accept that my
country is not the utopia of shopping malls that I once perceived it to
be. Milan Kundera put it this way: All of us can choose to be in the
grand march of humanity or to step down the road and become animated
machines.

The greatest lesson learned from all this? We all must join the
grand march. Everyone has to live for something. We who are in the
upper strata should always remember that though today we are being held
up by the system, no matter how much we justify our actions, we are
still living in a world where the basic human rights of the
underprivileged are neglected. It is because we have been educated that
we have a moral responsibility to stop ourselves from thinking that we
cannot do anything to help the marginalized sectors. Because we have
lived most our lives comfortably, we have the time and resources to go
out in the streets.

But privilege does not confer more rights on us. Underneath our
clothes and pretenses, we are all humans with free will. We can decide
to be passive bystanders or we can make a difference. Social division
creates conflicts. We need to see beyond it and realize that everyone
has the right to live with dignity. There’s a line from the musical
“Rent” that neatly sums up what I mean: “There’s only us, there’s only
this.”

So go out and protest against the crushing of basic human rights --
if you have enough courage, that is. That is your responsibility. And
if you cannot, hold your tongue and don’t tell us activists never learn
or that we do nothing but rally. We do learn and it is because we learn
that we never stop shouting to make our voices heard. And when we are
not mounting rallies, we are trying to live lives that are free of
bourgeois sensibilities. So, cut us some slack.

Tish Martinez, 20, is a member of Migrante Youth Philippines.

Copyright 2006 Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

TV RATINGS - 11/26/2006

TV RATINGS - 11/26/2006

>From PEX

Research by Jun Jun aska26ph2001@...
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/ABS-CBNKapamilyaPEXers2
Posted by james chicago

Sunday

Mega/Metro

AHKD - 7.2 / 7.4
KST - 10.9 / 8.5

ISWAK - 11.1 / 11.6
Super Rookie - 9.5 / 7.0

ASAP 06 - 15.1 / 16.4
SOP - 14.6 / 12.2

Your Song - 11.4 / 11.3
Love Spell - 10.8 / 11.1
KMF - 20.9 / 18.5

The Buzz - 12.7 / 13.5
Sfiles - 11.0 / 10.2

TVP - 20.8 / 22.4
AMB - 19.9 / 16.5

Rated K - 20.9 / 24.0
Hoo U - 17.5 / 14.3

Sharon - 16.6 / 17.3
M&J - 21.5 / 18.0

PDA - 17.0 / 18.2
All Star K - 15.9 / 15.7

Sundays Best - 11.0 / 12.1
DDD - 13.8 / 14.8
SNBO - 6.8 / 7.1

UZ - 1.9 / 2.5
Diyos at Bayan - 0.9 / 0.6

PHILIPPINE TV RATINGS - 11/24/2006

TV RATINGS - 11/24/2006

>From PEX

Research by Jun Jun aska26ph2001@...
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/ABS-CBNKapamilyaPEXers2
Posted by james chicago

November 24, 2006 AGBN Mega/Metro Manila Ratings

Friday

Mega/Metro

Wansapanataym - 11.2 / 11.2
One Piece - 13.6 / 13.3

Homeboy - 13.5 / 14.7
Sis - 11.9 / 10.5

PGKNB - 19.9 / 20.1
YH - 18.3 / 16.4

WWW - 22.1 / 24.1
EB - 22.3 / 18.8

Kapamilya cinema - 13.9 / 14.2
Daisy Siete - 18.1 / 15.0
MKLM - 15.0 / 13.1
N&F - 14.1 / 12.6

Inocente de ti - 11.7 / 10.9
Into the sun - 13.5 / 12.3

PSY - 15.5 / 14.9
JITP - 16.7 / 14.3

TVPW - 26.0 / 26.9
24 oras - 27.7 / 25.7

KDOND - 30.3 / 29.5
SI - 27.4 / 28.5
CB - 34.2 / 31.8

MSKM - 25.5 / 26.4
Atlantika - 32.0 / 30.6

MMK - 20.3 / 20.9
Bakekang - 32.1 / 31.7
A Rosy Life - 26.8 / 26.1

PDA - 17.7 / 17.7
Bandila - 10.8 / 10.7
Bubble Gang - 15.1 / 16.0

Mirada de mujer - 5.2 / 5.3
Saksi - 8.1 / 9.8

PDA uplate - 3.0 / 3.1
Emergency - 7.7 / 9.1