In yet another magic, Harry Potter casts his way to a billion pesos through the Philippine Box Office. A billion Philippine pesos is roughly around 20 Million US Dollars. That is half the total winnings in a year of Manny Pacquiao (Well, he was reportedly to pocket 40 Million USD). Anyway, the latest sequel to the J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, 'The Half-Blood Prince' was reportedly to earn 157 Million Pesos in just 12 days of showing in Philippine theaters. This is very interesting because it is the first franchise among successful movie franchises such as 'Spiderman', 'Pirate of the Carribean', 'James Bond' (and perhaps we could add 'Mano Po' and 'Enteng Kabisote' and 'Tanging Ina' in the list) to be able to reach 1 Billion Philippine pesos in box office earnings. This is expected to even grow as there are still two movies lined-up for release in the Harry Potter franchise. They are going to split the last book of Harry Potter: the Deathly Hallows into two movies. Perhaps this is patterned in the style of 'the Matrix' and the 'Pirates of the Carribean'. Harry Potter fans in the Philippines will surely await these two movies and of course Harry Potter will surely be once again happy with the multi-billion franchise will once again thrive.

Meralco, the largest power company in the Philippines and previously controlled by the Lopez clan, has its stock price shot up to meteoric levels recently. Just 6 months ago, it has a flat price of around 60 pesos, now it has a current price of 272.50. This is 350% increase, if my math is correct. Simple investment example would be if you were able to purchase Php 100,000 worth of Meralco stocks last January 2009, then its current value right now would be Php 450,000. This is a quite amazing profit especially for a blue chip company like Meralco. The swings of blue chip companies are usually smaller because they are the more stable ones in the market. This is certainly because of the acquisition of shares from MVP and his PLDT group of 20% of Meralco from the Lopez family. Their plans of implementing smart grid and internet through power lines are catching the investor's interests.

On July 22 Wednesday, for five minutes countries across Asia will be able to see the Solar Eclipse. From the above illustration from NASA, the Solar Eclipse will traverse the path of countries in Asia, which could include the Philippines. The Solar Eclipse is expected to last for 5 minutes. In Japan, the country that has not experienced Solar Eclipse for the past 46 years, they would be greeting the phenomenon with fireworks. In my case, the last great Solar Eclipse that I remember seeing was when I was in pre-school (around 6 years old), the Solar Eclipse that time I think it lasted for several minutes and I witnessed it with a glasses with plastic film on it. It was a spectacular site to behold. I think it was around noontime that the Sun was suddenly covered with a black ball ( the moon I think ). I am not sure if the same site would be seen on July 22 in the Philippines, but I think there are parts of Asia such as in Japan and China that could possibly be seeing this kind of Solar Eclipse. Many astrologers are saying that this could be a 'Dooms' day sign which could brought for natural disasters or war in the world. And some are saying that this could be a very good time to meditate and pray because of the powerful spiritual waves could be emitted by this phenomenon. I think we should constantly pray for blessings and protection from harm from our Almighty God everytime and anywhere irregardless of natural phenomena occurring or not.

Recently, I and my husband have visited several appliance stores. And we noticed their latest big budget blowouts, they are the affordable 32 inches LCD TVs at PHP 25,000 to PHP 30,000 price range. We were taken at awe by the 'cheap' LCD TVs at 32 inches of rich color and texture. The brands were Samsung (la-32a330), LG (32LH2OR), Panasonic (L32X10X), and Sanyo (LCD-32K30). These LCD TVs are capable of receiving High Definition channels (Of course there are no digital HD channels here in the Philippines just yet) and they are also great at displaying videos (DVDs). I am particularly interested with watching high definition videos on these LCD TVs and maybe playing PlayStation 3 or Wii or Xbox 360 on these systems are also very exciting (my nieces and nephews will surely love these too). I could just imagine watching my favorite movies such as the Transformers, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and other effects laden films with large and 'affordable' LCD TVs coupled with home theater systems. These LCD TVs could also be plugged with the laptops with HDMI adaptors. That means more video watching through YouTube could be enjoyed. This certainly would be one of the tops of my want to list especially once bonus season comes.

I have been hearing a lot of buzz regarding herbals and wellness nowadays most especially the boom of direct marketeers (I hope not racketeers). There are those that bank on the wellness products such as derma products that revitalizes skin and restores its youthful glory. There are also those that even market bio-pluto-nic scanners that they claim to be able to determine the status of your health and which 'products' you need to be able to enhance it. Then there are those that gets your genetic signature in order for you to know the defects in your genes and eventually determine which illnesses are you bound to get as you age. O well, people nowadays are just abuzz on how to improve their longevity without much care on how do these products exactly work (or do they actually work in the first place).

Just now, I have heard of another miracle herb, as if there are new herbs being discovered everyday like goji (sounds like o-gy, not that wholesome). This herb is being endorsed by none other than the fitness buff, Ms Dianne Castillejo. She even claims to drink 2 sachets of wheatgrass powder complimented with 3 tablets of wheatgrass. Now thats a lot of wheatgrass staff in the system. This one intrigues me, and ran up a little research on the potential benefits of wheatgrass.

Claimed benefits of wheatgrass:

1. Increases red blood-cell count and lowers blood pressure. It cleanses the blood, organs and gastrointestinal tract of debris.

2. Stimulates the thyroid gland, correcting obesity, indigestion, and a host of other complaints.

3. Restores alkalinity to the blood. (Sounds like Fern-C, do they have the battery lighting test as well? )

4. A powerful detoxifier, and liver and blood protector.

5. Fights tumors and neutralizes toxins.

6. Works as a sleep aide. (Call Center Agents aide?)

7. Enhances your bath. (Does it stimulate the vitals too?)

8. Sweetens the breath and firms up and tightens gums. (No need for Colgate?)

9. Neutralizes toxic substances/ heavy metals like cadmium, nicotine, strontium, mercury, and polyvinyl chloride.

10. Turns gray hair to its natural color again and greatly increases energy levels when consumed daily. (Natural hair dye?)

11. Lessens the effects of radiation. (Maybe protection from cellular phone, computer monitor and microwave radiation? )

12. Restores fertility and promotes youthfulness. (This one I like, revs up the 'drive'?)

13. Can double your red blood cell count just by soaking in it. (More blood, this might be advisable for anemics).

14. It improves blood sugar problems. (Diabetics heaven?)

Now the list above is not even half of the benefits being claimed by wheatgrass advocates. Are these all verifiable or are these just marketing heists? This really disturbs me though, tablets of wheatgrass costs around 1,000 - 2,000 pesos. This is both affordable and expensive. This is expensive if the wheatgrass tablets is another sugar pill. And this is affordable if this miracle herb lives up to its expectations of better health with just a pop of a pill. I guess in the end, it will be my decision, my money and my body.

The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) has hinted an idea of bloggers as watchdogs for the coming 2010 elections in the Philippines. Their spokesman, Mr. James Jimenez, appreciated the power and influence of blogs on the dissemination of information across different classes of our society, whose majority are now users of the world wide web. The COMELEC is urging the blogging community to collaborate with them in order to provide education on voters most especially that they are now adopting a fully automated elections. They are suggesting that bloggers should organize a network of bloggers, who would carefully watch and guard the process of the elections especially in the area where they are based.

This idea of bloggers as pollwatchers is a very good venue for the tech savvy youth in order for them to be able to contribute to the upliftment of our society towards a truly democratic nation, free of corruption and manipulation. This would give the sense of social responsibility most especially to the youth whose majority are eager to facelift the deteriorating image of our country. I just hope that the call of unity towards a clean and free society doesn't go unheard among our youth. Apathy is the greatest enemy that our youth is facing amidst the continuous abuse of several manipulative elites.

After heavily investing on 3G infrastructure and bringing services such as wireless landline, telecommunications giant PLDT (Philippines Long Distance Telephone) is not just about to sleep on its laurels. They are now exploring the opportunity of offering another potential cash making product. And this is through broadband internet via power lines. Yes, those power posts from Meralco which has been delivering us electricity for many decades now, could actually supply us with high speed internet. Amazing and very futuristic. Actually this trend is being pursued by a lot of countries around the world led by United States of America. The end idea of this all being able to model the whole electricity supply chain into a 'Smart Grid'. This is a complex structural model wherein our homes will be equipped with 'Smart Appliances', and monitoring systems and sensors in order to be able to save on the electricity being consumed by each household. Currently, PLDT is pilot testing the 'Broadband over the Power Lines' in the area of Malabon. They are laying the infrastructure to enable this over the area. I just hope that their offering of broadband would be much cheaper and much better quality than the broadband we are using at the moment, which means reliable uptime and cheaper cost. This would definite be a technology that will bring us growth and for PLDT more cash. Investing in Meralco and PLDT would be wise if this would go into boom in the future.