the ultimate burger... Ridiculous Challenge

I chanced to drop by A. Venue yesterday for some chow and I found this place Burger Avenue.  They had some pretty heavy quarter pounders grilled to perfection there and so i ordered a cheeseburger.  Then I played around with my little kid and then I saw these pics on the wall.  It said 'the 'ridiculous challenge.'  Whooa!  This is the place!  They sell this triple decker of a burger which you have to finish in 5 minutes else you have to pay 255PHP.

If only I knew before my order was taken... I'll come back next Saturday.  Their burgers are ok.  Juicier than other fastfood shops, even Burger King.  The place is quite small though.  There's quite a number of successful challengers with their pics on the wall... but then there are more failures with their pics pasted in 2/3 albums.

the battle of the UMPCs (part 1)

the battle for being the ultimate Ultra Mobile Portable Computer (UMPC) is afoot. so far the big brands have dished out their versions. so far i think only the Asus and Acer are the worthy contenders.  MSI Wind and Lenovo's Idea pad follow suit and then there is Dell, Neo and some other not so well-known brands.  And lets not forget the ergonomic HP mini-note whose hype died when the hardware screamed Via chipset (instead of Intel Atom) and the software croaked Vista.

The Asus 1000h so far has the 'almost-best' keyboard with a functional and ideally-sized touchpad.  And at the time of introduction, it was the only umpc with a 6-cell battery translating into 8 hours battery but with internet it boils down to 4 hours.  The other worthy contender is Acer Aspire One which has better aesthetics and best keyboard, especially the full-size right shift key, the small directional keys is quite a big issue  The touchpad is a bit small though.  Since the Aspire One is a johny-come-lately it was able to come up almost right away with 6-cell variants of the battery.  Apart from that it comes in sleeker colors than the 1000h.  Between the two, i'd have taken the Aspire One although initial specs wasn't so enticing because it was sporting an SSD instead of a hard drive, plus I was pushed for time given my MBA deadlines.  And by the way, I'm comparing UMPCs with hard disks only.  Those with SSDs are a different animal.  The 1000h is a bit lengthier than the Aspire One thus it is able to sport a 'functional' keyboard.  The Aspire one though is a beauty to hold when closed since it almost like a thick notebook.  Almost all the other specs are the same.  The software can either be Linux or XP, and thank god not Vista!  I was able to fool around with the Kalyway distribution which installs Mac OSX Leopard in the Asus 1000h and all I can say is... WOW! It was a whole new FUNKY machine!  But there was sound issues, and the wifi needed a bit of setting up which was wasting my time.  Some guys in eeeph.com say that the iDeneb distro is better but still the same issues.  I haven't read about anyone in the Philippines working with OSX on the Aspire One.
 

Oh well those are the two top contenders for the UMPC  in my opinion. In part 2 I'll talk about MSI Wind and the Lenovo Ideapad.  Stay tuned!

we need jobs... more than MBA degrees

midnight just passed. the last day of mba classes just passed. 

16 months (approximately) of torture came to an end.  

but there are still some loose papers to finish.

i'm now basically a young mba graduate... without a job.  an uncertain future in a hopeless country.  months into the mba proper last year, we already knew the effects of the subprime crisis in the US.  we didn't really care much that time.  faced with the daunting tasks of passing our quanti subjects, mba was a far greater threat.  the world right now is focused on what the new US president will do. will he really create change...?

the world is getting smaller now.  we cannot disregard the speed of information which affects asia and rest of the world, and vice versa.  we must be responsive to global issues, opportunities and threats.  but what can this mba do?

ah... it's hard to start a fire.  my high school algebra  teacher used to say, "there are many ways in killing dogs."

and so why am i blogging again?  

today, i reach out again to the outside world looking for a job.  but more than a job, looking for meaning, more than the theories in the academe.  we live in an exciting time.  companies will crumble and sprout out.  old empires will give way to new ones.  evolutions and revolutions will strike like a fart wanting to escape.

hello world!  
 

the next 48 hours

after a long time of searching, after IPVG and Microsoft, my action consultancy (internship) started. well it started 3 weeks ago. i have a study with Global Business Power Corp (GBPC) about the power industry in the Philippines regarding the Independent Power Producer Administrator. so i had 3 weeks to study, and now i have 48 hours to finish my paper. :(
while my classmates are poring over our cases for the 2nd year electives. i have to consolidate... err write my report.
i've been absent from this blog for quite a time. the power industry has a lot of complications now especially with the deregulation ongoing. but there's a lot of opportunity in it as well. it makes me rethink if i really want to go to Singapore after b-school...

summer and a MS internship

so eventually I was able to find an internship/action consultancy. after 3 weeks of interviews, here come Microsoft. but still no terms of reference or contract yet. that part is a bit slow. so i'm still wary of what might happen.

so a mac user working for his internship in MS. unfortunately im not allowed to talk about the project outside of MS. there is a sense of secrecy for the project which is in the area of marketing.

i'm organizing the UP Social Dance Club's grand reunion this coming May 30th. It's been a long time since we ballroom dancers have congregated, danced and caught up on our life stories. our former club director, Tom Pena is also coming for a visit from UK.  So it all fits in. about 3 years ago, the club was dissolved in the university of the philippines and a new and similar organization was made, for reasons beyond ideas and egos which should not be discussed anymore. it also is a good time to celebrate a grand reunion since this is the year of UP's centennial.  there have been reunions in the past but it's always been by batches and some pseudo-reunions. hopefully there will be a big turnout on May 30th. many people have been hitched. a few have become mothers, and fathers. People have changed and gained weight or lost it. This will be a fun event. But i'm planning to make it just a casual night out of dancing... an lots of photos. I guess that will make it more dynamic, less fixed cost and no more waiting for latecomers so we can start the program. in the end, what's important is that we KEEP ON DANCING! 

the song of despair

it seems that an MBA is an anomaly. in the search for my action consultancy (internship), companies who should be bringing their cases/problem to consulting companies and paying roughly 100K-200K PHP(sometimes more) are employing MBA undergrads for 100PHP a day or 8 hours. it's demeaning considering my tuition here at AIM. at 100PHP a day, it seems like I am back at UP where i was a library student assistant... but with more brain work to be done.  

is this the case of all businesses right now? or is it only in the philippines? 

i wonder what will be the state of businesses when we graduate this december. most of my batch mates are contemplating to go abroad after the MBA.  this is brain drain all over. ah... why did the gunslinger cry at the watch tower?

the ballad of the forlorn mba

on account of being the last paper to be submitted, everyone is slacking off to catch their breath.  almost half of my batchmates have started their action consultancy or internship while the remaining ones are still looking for companies.  as for me, i'm slacking off for a few hours before i journey to my POTFin analysis of Apple Inc.  i actually found a harvard case as a model since organizationally, there is not much literature online.

its a sad thing that we AIM students are having a hard time getting internships even here in the Philippines.  I don't know if this will be the trend when we graduate. That is if we do graduate.  There are still some issues with the administration about the grades. but there is not much that we could do. so we focus on our action consultancy and then what? some might not be accepted back into the school?  the thing is, even with the problems with the current MBA16 batch, the administration has already decided to accept the next batch for this May. I wish them good luck.