Ramblings Intérieurs

Philippine Daily Inquirer

100. Philippine Daily Inquirer

Finally, I reached the 100th mark for my list of reasons to be happy and thankful that I am living in this lifetime. Since this is a record, it is only appropriate that the 100th reason would cross all boundaries. And what more could this be but our newspaper for more than 15 years (if I'm not mistaken).

This broadsheet has been a very big help not only to me but to my family as well. The information that this newspaper has giving us for the last 15 years or so has been very, very useful to us. It does not only give us the latest news (very, very credible I must say) but tips on practically every aspect of life - personal, financial, mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual. It's an all-in-one paper.

I can give short examples about those as I grew along with PDI.

Personal: I grew up reading the advices of Robbie, Rissa, and Raya Mananquil (now all models and professionals) when they were still teens in the 2BU! section of Inquirer. The advices of Tita Dulce also made perfect sense as I heed her advices and gave her advices to my friends who turn to me for advices (shhh...that's a secret).

Financial: The Business Section of PDI has more that just business news. It has featured and is still writing stories about the inspiring and success stories of the best entrepreneur the country has produced. Of course, on those stories it is clear that the success stories of these CEO's, COO's and taipans were not walk in the park. They encountered a lot of challenges, difficulties, and pains but they continue and succeeded. How? Read the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Mental: The Opinion Section of the Inquirer is another gem. This is where I read the best writers that the country has produced. Conrado de Quiros, Michael Tan, the late Adrian Cristobal are just one of the few many writers that I read in PDI that got me hooked on reading the most widely-read broadsheet in the country.

Emotional: A lot of stories in PDI had made me emotional. The stories of the youth in "Young Blood" and their counterpart, the uhmmm, sixty-something in "High Blood." Not to mention the real stories that appears in it's front page. The not so-good-things about our country and how we and I are not able to do something about it. But what makes this truly special is that because the stories always end up with hope. Hope that we should not abandon despite everything.

Physical:
Of course the Sports Section of the Inquirer is a class of it's own. Almost always on time (sometimes PBA results yesterday would not be included in the next day's issue). But in general, I could rely on PDI regrading results of sports tournament I watch. NBA, US Open, Super Bowl, you name it they got it. They also have the best sportswriter in town, Al S. Mendoza and Recah Trinidad (who came back after a fling with retirement). The Tuesday Section of PDI about Lifestyle and Leisure also gave me tips on how to live a healthy and happy life with articles about the latest exercises and how to have a happy disposition in life through the articles of Cory Quririno.

Spiritual: This is the best part.

PDI has Fr. Jerry Orbos in it's Opinion Section every Sunday. Fr. Orbos column is my must-read column of Inquirer every Sunday with his jokes and anecdotes about life and his practical tips in life on how to live life as a Christian.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer also has what it calls "radical optimism" every Sunday. This means that every Sunday, it's front page only features good news. Yes, only good news. If you read a bad news or headline, you will see the good news inside it. I have another good news. It's not limited to Sundays anymore, as you can see in my previous blog entries.

Now, how's that for news?

And The Oscar Goes To...

This is the second time in my blog that I used the title "And The Oscar Goes To" but this is really the only way to start a blog about the Academy Awards. I won't go into details about what happened and who won in this 80th edition of the highly-respected awards body and one of the highest-rating TV show in the US. However, I would just like to mention that I liked Jon Stewart's hosting this time. I am not really into Jon Stewart's brand of humor but he had me laughing several times. I also enjoyed watching the 80th Academy Awards as always.

40. The Oscars Awards

As any of my friends know, when I was young (up until now of course) there are two M's that really moves me like no other - movies and music. Since this is about the Oscar, let's concentrate with movies first.

By act of fate, my first "real" job is working in a video recording company called Magnavision. There I was able to watch countless great movies which I wasn't able to see since I wasn't born yet, I didn't have money, or I just didn't know that a such a great movie existed. These are the movies that won "Best Picture" in the Academy Awards. A few of them are "Kramer vs. Kramer", "The Deer Hunter", "The Godfather" series (although only Godfather 1 and 2 won Best Picture), and for the new ones "A Beautiful Mind", "American Beauty", "Shakespeare In Love", and a whole lot more. I will be listing down some of the great movies I enjoyed in the future to be included in my 2008 list.

In the meantime, the 40th in my 2008 list is, of course, the Academy Awards because of, among other things, the Oscar showed me that the movies above existed. I have come to know and watched these movies because the Academy chose them as the best in the year they were released. Indeed they were.