pondering thoughts

Davao’s Premiere Hotel celebrates Kadayawan Fiesta at The Apo View
in cooperation with Ezzeya Fashion House, a stand-alone boutique solely by Dabawenyos Presents
“Kinabuhing Dabawenyo”
A Cultural Fashion Show. A Night filled with Historical Drama and Ethnic Rituals. A Rampage Of Davao’s Old and New Fashion. Also showcasing The Best of Ezzeya’s Easy Elegance Autumn-Winter Collection. Featuring the City’s Pride Bb. Pilipinas International 2007, Ms. Nadia Shami and Ms. Priscilla Mae Navidad of Pinoy Big Brother Teen Edition Plus.

Come witness the allure and glamour of Davao  on August 20, 2009, Thursday, 6:00PM at the Apo View Hotel Grand Ballroom. Tickets are sold at P600 with free dinner buffet. For More Information please contact The Apo View Hotel or call 0923-5006246.

Sponsored by:
Cortess Printing Corporation
Nature Spring Water
Infinite Models
Allan Alforque Salon
Leighton Photography
ACD Investigation Security Agency, Inc.
Sigma Legis of Ateneo Davao

Media Partners: Mix FM and M: Life & Living in Mindanao Magazine

Organized by: Aha! Advertising and Promotions

At long last my artbook, INSPIRATIONS: the Art of Paolo Ramirez is finally on sale! I’m so ecstatic to literally get my works to your hands instead of seeing it on your computer screens. With over 80 detailed pixelious digital artworks, I hope it will leave you feeling inspired!

This coffee table book is an excellent gift and collector item for those who appreciates and love art.

You can order it via lulu.com, just follow this link: http://www.lulu.com/content/645471

TO PREVIEW THE BOOK and for further information visit my website at: http://www.pbozproduction.com

For buyers in the Philippines: The first 100 people you’ll avail it get a free poster together with the book.

You can also email me at pbozproduction@yahoo.com for your questions regarding the artbook and or the services I offer.

I Hope you could get a copy of it!

Thanks very much!

Hello everyone!

Here’s my MULTIPLY PAGE: http://pboz.multiply.com

Feel free to visit and add me up if you already have a account there.

You can also check out some of my artworks there and the watch the preview of my artbook… so go ahead and enjoy!

I love music whatever genre as long as it appeals to me! I just can’t begin to imagine what I do without music because I know I might not be this ’inspired *’ if I can’t have a mood altering song or two to accompany me in the things I do. I just bought me a copy of Urbandub’s new album last Nov. 22 and I’m listening to it together with other songs like Kyla’s Heartfelt.

URBANDUB: Under Southern Lights

They’re back! Urbandub doesn’t disappoint and they have proven it in the past as fans feared that the band will loose its luster and sell out after seizing a major record label deal but fears were shattered with their successful ‘Embrace’ album under EMI Phil. The new album entitled, ‘Under Southern Lights’ is a metaphor for their hometown, Cebu and the ‘guiding light’ that is their family and friends as what Gabby Alipe said, the lead vocals of the band. They retreated back to Cebu just to write the tracks and let the creative juices flow and got back to Manila for recording of the album. I just love the music style of Urbandub, the heart-pounding head banging beats and the genius lyrical poetry that you can’t help but relate to. The Album boast 10 fresh tracks and includes a duet with lead vocals of Sinosikat in ‘Inside the Mind of a Killer’ which tells story of a couple who are at the end of their relationship first the blaming then the compromise to give it another try. ‘The Fight is Over’ tells the bittersweet fate of lovers that can’t be mended not even through time. ‘Cebuana’ is a song about finding new love. The catchy chorus of ‘Evidence’ is for someone who caught his/her significant other cheating and literally ‘in the arms of another’ (chuckles! karma!). The perfectly entitled ‘Anthem’ is just that, giving you a nice feeling of letting go and moving forward after a storm. The first single off the album is ‘Guillotine’ which is doing well in radio, they also shot a music video and will be aired soon. I like it that the songs plays around relationships and love in general which I think is has the potential to grab and reach wider audience.

KYLA: Heartfelt 

You have seen her awesome performance as she sang our national anthem with pride in Manny’s fight and now Kyla, dubbed as the Philippine’s R&B Princess, returns with her ‘Heartfelt’ renditions of classic love songs that you love but with a fresh and distinct touch that only she can provide. Kyla is not a stranger in the music business in fact with 6 albums under her belt, numerous awards and commendations, performances and TV hostings - she’s really one busy woman. As they say the lady is now a woman evident in the new sexy and edgier look and the kinds of songs she chooses. The Album has 16 tracks plus one alternate version of a song and includes one original ‘Someone’ an upbeat tempo track about someone asking those lingering hard-to-ask questions that sticks in the mind whenever you’re committed with someone. The carrier single ‘Love will lead you back’ updates a Taylor Dayne original with her soothing and soulful voice that pierces through the heart. My other favorites includes ‘Home’, Idol Elliot Yamin’s ‘Wait for you’, ‘With this Tear’, ‘I don’t have the heart’, ‘Last Chance’, ‘Always and Forever’, and ‘One day in your life.’ All in all, Hearfelt is not just great remakes with Kyla’s stamp on it – it’s Kyla growing and maturing in every sense of a Woman.

So if you’re a music freak like me check these two albums out and please buy the original copies not the one you find in streets…

* INSPIRATIONS: The Art of Paolo Ramirez 

It’s finally coming! The Wait is almost over - well that is for me and the others who are anticipating it hehehehe! Updates and new information to follow.

If you’re idle and have time, please take a look at my new artworks and the rest at my deviantart gallery: http://pbozproduction.deviantart.com

Anyway, if ever you were wondering why I devoted 3 artworks for Kyla (the other one is at deviantart, not shown above duhh), well that is because I’m a fan of her and her music. I brought her new album and all the songs are warming up to my liking… don’t get me wrong I do love it but just a few weeks before the release of her Heartfelt album, I saw the list of songs which are all remakes except one and there it was "Somewhere over the rainbow" hehehe I wasn’t sure if I’m going to like the song even if it was sang by someone I adore, but hey what do you know? I liked her version of the song thanks to the fresh musical arrangement and Kyla’s soothing voice - the classics sounds updated and soulful…

As for my very delayed artbook, A little more time and before you know it, it will be on your hands - a perfect coffee-table book.

Yes you heard it right! CORELWORLD is back bringing with it tons of cool activities such as:

• a On-the-Spot design contest
• Seminars and amazing Demos
• the formal launching of CorelDRAW Users Group
• a week long exhibit featuring the works of Kenneth Ong, Jobert Togonon, Paolo Ramirez (That’s me! hahahaha), and of course, Mr. Ray Rubio (CubePixel), the award-winning CorelDRAW designer who is responsible for this great event.
• Information on Corel Schools Integration Program
• and much, much more.

So mark your calendars, it’ll be on October 5-6, 2007 at the NCCC Mall here in Davao. See you there!

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Links:

1. "the prince" - my work-in-progress artwork as seen above: http://pbozproduction.deviantart.com/art/The-Prince-65754443
2. CUBEPIXEL Design Studio: http://www.cubepixelstudio.com

When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn’t make the darkness

go away. The bad things are still out there. The nightmares are still walking.

When we hold each other, we feel - not safer, but better.

"It’s alright," we whisper. "I’m here. I love you."

and we lie, "I’ll never leave you."

For just a moment or two the darkness doesn’t seem so bad.

When we hold each other.

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Excerpt from Hellblazer comics #27 which is one of my faves, written by Sandman Creator, Neil Gaiman.

Speaking of which, I was estatic a month ago when I came to know that for the first time, FILBAR’S will have a new branch here in Davao. For weeks and weeks I patiently waited for its opening. I occassionally snuck out of school (when I could) just to see if it’s open. It was even weird that when I asked the customer service of the mall about it, she was completely clueless she didn’t even knew that there’ll be a new store - when duh! she should have.

Anyway, all my waiting was wasted when just yesterday a friend of mine told me that it was finally open, Yey! well not really - in fact It was horrible. I mean you would have just mistaken it for another magazine store or something, selling local and US tabloid magazines and such. WTF?! Where are all the comics?! The collectables?! The action figures?! The graphic novels I long to have?! It should have been a specialty store for them. Except of course for a few number (and I mean a just a handful) of X-men comics and them sweet Neil Gaiman Sandman compilations (which I want to have), it was all garbage! Hehehe I wished I was back in Manila and I hope for the coming weeks, the "Filbar’s" branch here in Davao will house more and more items that made Filbar’s what it is and should be.

Just WOW! What else could I possibly say?! Visit the official movie site of BEOWULF to view the jaw-dropping, spanking new trailer! Starring Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s hot momma among others. Enjoy!

Link: http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/beowulf/

My ear is stuck listening on P. Diddy’s song, Last Night. It features vocals from Keyshia Cole which I think single-handedly sells the song, well apart from Diddy’s celebrity status of course. I love the meaning and Keyshia’s part:

If I told you once, I told you twice, you can see it in my eyes. I’m all cried out, with nothing to say. You’re everything I wanted to be. If you could only see, your heart belongs to me. I love you so much, I’m yearning for your touch. Come and set me free, forever yours I’ll be, baby won’t you come and take this pain away.

I need you, and you need me. This is so plain to see, and I will never let you go and, I will always love you so. I will… If you could only see, your heart belongs to me. I love you so much, I’m yearning for your touch. Come and set me free, forever yours I’ll be, baby won’t you come and take this pain away.

Well just watch it and you’ll know what I mean. Here’s the video for the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k7p06rNpEg

And here’s a talented girl doing a acapella of the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax4U5XTFPE4

I don’t like getting sick often.
Back when I was still in school I’ve no problem with getting sick heck I even pretended to have a fever just so I won’t have to go to class but now it’s different. I realized that your health is definitely your insurance so better invest on it. I consider myself fit and healthy though there are just these instances that I’m plague with sickness and it’s unavoidable, I’m not superman after all. It’s been like two week already of being sick and it’s really evident – I’m thinner than before the bones in my wrist is now visible. The first week I got a fever probably because of the rainy nights we’ve been having. So I diligently took my medicine and after that I was cured or so I thought. It wasn’t long that I developed tonsillitis and that’s not all, soon enough little white spots begin to pop out all over my tongue. I was freaked out, I mean WTF man, what the hell is this!?  It was very annoying and painful especially when food touches my tongue it was like sipping boiling hot coffee – awww! It was so painful to even chew yet alone swallow food, needless to say my diet was affected. I find it hard to ingest chucky food so I was constantly eating arozcaldo and plenty of water and what not. I asked my ‘nurse’ sister what will happen if I continue with this kind of diet, she said I would be like Palito – thin with bones protruding and the way I see it now it’s not that far of an assumption. My sister even joked around and calls my attention if she’s eating scrumptious looking food – just my luck! A few days followed and it got worse the soreness of my whole mouth has reduced my communication skills to that of a mute person. Well at least mute people know sign language, me I struggle to communicate with pen and paper. It was serious and even though I’m very afraid going on checkups it needed to be done. So my uncle accompanied me to the hospital. It was nerve wrecking, I don’t know why I’m a bit nervous with I’m in hospitals and clinics with doctors and nurses around. It was also very nostalgic, I remembered the time I was confined for pneumonia wherein I was literally on the brink of death if I was even admitted to the hospital a day late. Those were fun times heheh. When we got there, we scanned through corridors for the doctor’s clinic only to find that we would have to wait till 3pm for his arrival. The wait wasn’t really that long and soon enough the doctor came and thankfully we were first on the list. He was not that old as I imagined, in fact he was still young in his late 30’s to 40. He commented if I was really 23 heheh I figured he was just making me feel at ease. As he began to diagnose my condition I can’t help but feel uncomfortable as I surveyed his hip yet sterile clinic - I can’t wait to get out of here. But a few minutes passed and I was asking questions (trying hard to talk) to the doc regarding my condition and what should be done to prevent this to even talks of surgically removing my tonsils… After the checkup we were handed a prescription and let me tell you the drugs are very expensive another reason why we should not get sick (Clusivol – “bawal magkasakit”).

Now that I’m recovering I felt a tad relief and hope I won’t have to go through that again.
So what’s next? Well I need to eat more! I made a promise to myself that as soon as I was feeling better I’ll go food tripp’n and maybe a movie too.