Ah, the shopping lists of the young and sleepless.

Ayala Avenue, Makati City. 29 February 2008.

People perched atop the statue of Ninoy on the corner of Ayala and Paseo had one of the best views of the whole event (not counting the offices that were directly facing the intersection, of course). I wanted to get a better vantage point but unfortunately, street-level was all I was able to manage.

Pretty much every TV station had an elevated platform setup before the festivities kicked off; several camera jibs hovered over the crowds, and streets were crowded with OB vans and uplink trucks.

And of course, where there are crowds, there are street vendors. Rallying really gives one the munchies, after all.

I personally dislike how they have to pander to the religious leanings of the masses in order to get them to participate (they referred to this event as an "Inter-faith Rally"). I’ve said this many times before, but I’ll say it here again for emphasis. People need to stop using religion as a compass for morality and common decency, because religion is far from moral, or decent. But that’s a subject for a different rant, I suppose.

Come to the light, you mindless zombies, and leave all your garbage behind.

It turns out that I am extraordinarily apolitical. It was fun to blow an hour’s time at the rally, although I think that the frequency of these events have reduced their impact to pretty much nothing. People are about as responsive to these things as they are to advertising on the web; the vast majority simply ignore them.

Cigar-flavored Condoms

I have to admit, I’m having difficulty seeing the necessary connection between sex and tobacco. Sex and champagne, fine. Sex and chocolates, sure. Sex and firm, cylindrical produce, great. But apart from the occasional quiet cigarette afterwards, is there really a need for a prophylactic that resembles "the tasty Indian treat of betel nuts, spices and tobacco wrapped in betel leaves"? (Originally spotted at Gizmodo.)

NYPost’s 100 Greatest Cover Songs of All Time

Without looking, you would know that in order for this list to have any kind of credibility, it would have to have Buckley’s "Hallelujah," and Hendrix’s "All Along the Watchtower," so those two are freebies. Some of my personal favorite covers include Goldfinger’s "More Today than Yesterday," Alien Ant Farm’s "Smooth Criminal (fantastic video)," Guns N’ Roses’ "Live and Let Die", Muse’s "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want", Phantom Planet’s "Somebody’s Baby", Cake’s "Never, Never Gonna Give You Up" and maybe Nada Surf’s "If You Leave." A couple of my picks made it on to the list, although the more obscure stuff — Cake and Phantom Planet, in particular — were conspicuously missing. And how come Alanis’ "My Humps" isn’t on there? What a travesty!!!

The Cosmos, by AKARI

Beautiful cosmic photography courtesy of the Japanese-made AKARI infrared astronomy satellite. More information here.

	Kirsten Drunk pretty darn drunk.(Spotted at The Blemish.)
	Possibly the world’s biggest Rubber Duckie. Those French guys have all the great ideas. (Spotted at SFGate.)
	As far as concept cars go, this VR Concept from Paulin Motor Company is straight out of a Will-Smith sci-fi. (Spotted at Crave.)
	The world’s tallest man meets the world’s shortest man. Their height discrepancy was a total 5 ft, 5 inches. (via Laughing Squid.)
	The Optimus Prime Gold Masterpiece edition. Less than 20 of these were ever produced, and this dude has one.

All images originally posted at Highfiber.org. 

If you’ve seen Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, you’ll have noticed that he seems to like his Powerbook a whole lot. Debates on Global Warming aside, there’s an interesting photo-essay at Time.com which features — amongst other things — Herr Gore sitting in front of a tri-monitor Apple Cinema Display setup. It’s hard to tell from the image if those are 30-inchers or 23’s (probably the latter), but oh! how wide thy resolution be either way (7680 pixels in a triple 30 setup, and 5760 pixels on the 23). Enough space to have over a half a dozen webpages sitting side-by-side.

(As a small aside, any Mac Pro desktop can drive up to 8 monitors at a time, by adding a couple of NVidia GeForce 7300 GTs. The standard setup — an ATI Radeon X1900 XT — supports dual monitors right out of the box. Geeky little things here.)

Time for a brief commercial break from our sponsor:

This banner is the first piece of art I generated on the Macbook, a 6-ft by 2-ft tarp for wrapping around the reception desk during Mobiuslive events. 

I saw a CD player in Megamall last year that looked exactly like this.

121 images from Highfiber’s Christmas charity event, 21 Dec 2005.