President Barack Hussein Obama, 44th President of the United States of America

Just finished watching the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States.

Well, watch as best I could. Watching this momentous event online wasn't the experience I was hoping for. I'm now listening to commentators doing a post-inauguration dissection.

Transcript of the speech is now available online.

I am grateful to have witnessed such a momentous event.

These are interesting times indeed.

Watch Barack Obama's Inauguration Live Online

Hulu has teamed up with NBC Universal and News Corp to stream live President Elect Barack Obama's Inauguration tomorrow.

The embedded video for now is showing a count down before the big event.



You can also watch the a live feed of the upcoming inauguration on Joost .

[source: Silicon Valley Insider ]

Vamos Amigos Grille

Monday had never been my favorite day but today I had to get out early for some much needed to do errands. I found myself spending the entire morning at the northern part of the city and as I was driving along Cabaguio avenue, I chanced upon a new restaurant: Vamos Amigos Grille.

It was close to noon. I decided to stop by and check out their grub.

I went inside and was quickly greeted by one of the wait staff. I asked to see the menu. Before he gave me the menu though he enthusiastically informed me they had turo-turo and pointed at the table across the room.

Before going into the restaurant, I already have decided that I was going to try out their barbecued chicken. Out of curiosity, however, I ambled over to the table and peeked into each casserole. They had kare-kare, tinolang isda and two other viands.

The kare-kare looked kind of funny but I decided to order a serving anyway. After a second glance into the casseroles, I took my seat and looked over their menu. They have a lot to choose from but I just stuck with one order of barbecued chicken and one serving of rice. The waiter repeated my order back to me and then walked away.

The place was pleasant enough; it had a nice overall ambiance albeit the brown and yellow motiff. It reminded me of Merco. The high ceiling, as well as the ceiling fans and wall fans, helped cool the place down especially since it was a tad hot and humid today. For music, they were playing OPM over the speakers, titles from the Apo Hiking Society as well as songs like "Manila" and "Ang Boyfriend Kong Baduy".

Lunch was served 10 to 15 minutes later.

The portion of barbecued chicken thigh (53.00 pesos) was bigger as compared to those served by other restaurants. It looked nicely cooked, hardly any trace of burnt skin. A good portion of atchara came along with it.

The kare-kare (55.00 pesos) had an unusual hue; it was redder than what I normally would expect. Serving size was good for one person. I was given two pieces of ox tails and more than equal amount of vegetables.

Plain rice was at 12 pesos and garlic rice at 20 pesos. They had a their own specialty rice at 80 pesos. No unlimited rice here.

I tried out the kare-kare first.

The sauce was sweet, and it was a level of sweetness I wasn't used. It also had just a tad bit of peanut-y flavor to it. It was served cold, unfortunately, and the piece of ox tail I got didn't have enough meat to it. On the upside, at least the meat and skin had flavor and wasn't gamy at all, and the vegetables were fresh and crispy. The bagoong was good; it wasn't too sweet, it wasn't too salty and not overpowering at all. It was just right.

The barbecued chicken thigh was next. I teased a bit of skin and meat with my fork.  The meat was tender but the first bite tasted a little too salty. I didn't have the same saltiness afterwards. I think it was just a part of the chicken that had too much salt on it. As a matter of fact, though the meat was well-cooked (no hint of blood) and tender, it was a tad bland and there was a hint of rawness. The chicken was probably lightly brushed during barbecuing and nothing more. It's okay if you are the kind who prefers to get much of the flavor from your dipping sauce.

After finishing one cup of rice, one piece barbecued chicken thigh and a serving of kare-kare, I was full but not completely satisfied.

I'd recommend Vamos if you're somewhere near the area but it's not enough to make me go out of my way just to have lunch or dinner there.

Getting back in the saddle.

About 4 months back, I quitted blogging. I lost interest because of frustration and lack of time.

But this year, I'm going to try again.

Why?
One of the reasons why I stopped blogging was my realization that I was doing nothing more than just regurgitating. Just writing a short blurb and then a link. Ta-da! Blog post. There was little or no original content at all.

To change this, I've set a goal for myself. For every post I write every week, at least ten percent should be original and not just an echo and a link of some news from my RSS feeds. It will be a nice challenge I reckon since I have a hard time coming up with anything original.

Another reason why I ceased posting was the feeling of frustration for not being able to post something everyday. I would push myself to write but would invariably fall flat. This leads to felling frustrated which results to pushing myself even more which would then again lead to... Well, you get point.

If I can't blog everyday or every other day, then I won't. I've decided to do my blogging during the weekends except when there is some major event or announcement.

Didn't come up with this scheme before because I was too busy going out every Saturday night last year. Sundays would end up with me nursing a hangover.

Yet another reason is the distraction from all of the social networking sites that I am a part of. I spent too much time reading about what people were doing or clicking on every link that popped up, knowing that it would be something interesting or cool. I had to know who was viewing me on Friendster and read every inane bulletin, cursing at myself for reading such drivel later on.

Near the end of 2008, I felt burnt out. I stopped using Twitter and scaled down my use of Friendster.

But there also was Facebook and Plurk.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire...

This year, I'm slowly easing myself back into Twitter.

Wait, you ask, isn't that the exact opposite of what I should do?

Well, yes. I miss the Twitter community but I seriously need to do more scaling down.

One of the steps I've done is to un-follow some Twitters especially those linking to stories like iDigg. Major timesink.

I'll do more trimming off of my social networking just like how I'll be trimming off the fat and calories from my diet.

What now?

Scheduled writing, more originality, less social networking.

Check.

What else?

I'm going to revive my two old blogs and set up two more:

Brain On Ink or Boink! will be my general all-purpose blog. Kind of a wastebasket blog if you will.

Davao Mac User is about my experiences as well as anything of interest about a company I admire: Apple. I will be cross-posting my blog posts with the Davao Apple Community at Ning.com, a community aiming to bring Mac, iPod, and iPhone users of Davao together.

The other two blogs will be about atheism and about medicine with a skeptical twist.

I'm also going to learn how to mess with CSS so that I can add my own personal design to my blogs. Good luck to me on that.

So that's it. I guess you can call this my 2009 blogging resolution.

Let's see how I'll do at the end of the year.

See you 355 days from now.

100 Things You Should Eat Before You Die

Blogger dan at Foodproof posted a list of the 100 things you should eat before you die.

I checked out the list and these are what I've eaten so far:

1. calamari (almost every week)
2. pho
3. PB&J sandwich (still looking for the best PB&J out there)
4. hotdog from a street cart
5. steamed pork buns (isn't this siopao?)
6. oysters (who hasn't eaten them?)
7. baklava
8. clam chowder (but not in a sourdough bowl)
9. cognac (but no cigar. I don't smoke)
10. ox tail (we call it kare-kare)
11. single malt whiskey (thanks to my brother)
12. krispy kreme original glazes doughnut
13. sea urchin (not fresh from the sea though)
14. abalone
15. our own version of McDonald's Big Mac Meal (does this count?)
16. beer above 8% ABV (that would be Oettinger Forte: 12% ABV)
17. s'mores (but the commerical kind; not the kind from campfires)
18. durian
19. frog's legs
20. churros
21. snail
22. pocky (yan-yan actually)
23. spam
24. soft shell crab
25. catfish

I've only got 75 more to go but I'm whittling the list down to 99 since I am not even going near roadkill. That makes it 74 more to go.

What have you had so far?

Weed kills pain

Last week I mentioned that researchers are looking into Cannabis sativa as a potential to combat serious infections.

But that's not the end of it. Physorg.com reports that researchers are also looking into the possibility that receptors found in the peripheral nervous system can be used to stop pain.

CB2 are cannabinoid receptors that are activated by cannibis use. Drugs that has this properties are being looked into to provide pain-relief to patients with osteoarthritis or pain from nerve damage. An advantage of these cannabis-like drugs is that it won't have the same side-effects such as nausea and dependency which are found in drugs like morphine.

Go, weed!

New nephew

Born September 8, 2008, 5:45AM weighing at 7 lbs and 12 oz.

Weed against MRSA

WebMD reports that a researchers have found chemicals in Cannabis sativa may be used to combat methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA.

Staphylococcus aureus is a commensal on our skin. In about a third of the population, it can also be found in the nose and throat. Disease occurs when there's a break in the skin or mucosa.

MRSA is a variant of S. aureus which is resistant to penicillin and cephalosporins. This presents a problem for patients who have hospital-acquired MRSA since this makes infections more difficult to treat resulting in longer hospital stays. Complications include sepsis and pneumonia. MRSA causes increased incidence of morbidity and mortality.

There are five cannabinoids, chemicals found in marijuana, that researchers are looking into which may potentially be used in a new class of antibiotics.

Kill the buggers off while getting high. Niiice.

Please correct your my grammer

I try to be a stickler when it comes to the usage of grammar and spelling.

But whenever I am writing something I just tend to let my fingers fly on the keyboard. Alright, alright. It's more like I let my fingers waddle on the keyboard.

That said, I tend to make grammar errors. Spelling not so much. My Mac tends to put red squiggly lines under each misspelled word. But grammar is my weak point. I hope I don't make that too many mistakes.

Correct me if I'm wrong...

Sleep is the new sex. Or is it?

Is has been my usual Sunday evening habit to visit Drew Curtis' FARK.com. This and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart have been my only source of real news.

One of the links that intrigued me was a post by a woman who wrote that sex with her husband has decreased in frequency because of everything that has been going on outside the bedroom. Her husband confided with a female co-worker about the woman's lack of energy and preference to snooze it off, the co-worker said, "Sleep is the new sex." It would seem that the husband was ok with that and told the woman and she's happier now.

End of story.

Not exactly.

As in some instances, the jewel behind blogs is not the actual post itself but the comments.

Please check those out. In essence, majority of the comments says the same thing: your husband will soon screw someone else if you keep on sleeping.

Precious.

Comments

Been poised at the keyboard for almost a year now trying to figure out what to blog about. It's been a heck of a year (or two) for me. More so in the past few weeks. I think I might go back to blogging again. This is my catharsis. I wonder if it'll work?

While I was preparing to do another post I saw that I had two unapproved comments. One about calamares and the other about the obit I did on Steve Jobs.

Shame on me for not having approved those sooner.

I've been remiss to my readers.

I should appreciate them more since they've taken the time to read my sorry blog.

To my readers, I promise to be more vigilant when you post a comment and try my best to reply. I grateful that you took the time to visit Brain On Ink.

I'll try to post three times a week then we'll take it from there.

Arigato.

Taking a GLIMPSE at our Milky Way

Do you want to take a look at our own galaxy, the Milky Way?

Head on to and view the 390,000 x 6000 pixels or 180 x 2.75 feet mosaic of our Milky Way galaxy. The photos were taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope which was launched August 25, 2003.

GLIMPSE or Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire surveyed the inner Milky Way and the photo mosaic were taken from 111,000 different points on the sky. Photos were taken in infrared. A total of 444,000 images were created.

The GLIMPSE survey resulted in the cataloguing of 72 MILLION stars. It also resulted in seeing newly forming massive stars, finding new star clusters. It also allowed the studying in detail of several individual star forming regions, discovering a globular cluster and a whole lot more.

For those who like watching the heavenly bodies, I suggest you look at the full resolution mosaic image at . The GLIMPSE/MIPSGAL image viewer lets you zoom in close to things such as the remnant from a star that went supernova, the Black Widow nebula, and the birth of new stars.

Mac users might opt to choose Firefox over Safari when using the GLIMPSE/MIPSGAL viewer.

The image of the Milky Way and the multitude of stars contained therein is humbling. Makes you feel really small.

Worse superhero partner ever.