Eye on the Philippines (and other stuff)

Eye, eye, eye


Over the last several days, people in the Philippines were tweeting up a storm about the weeklong special CNN is doing starting April 30 (local time). The Philippines is the latest country to be profiled in this weeklong special, that takes a look at the cultural, economics, what they're doing right, etc, so it's nice to see overrated huge publicity on it.


The last 3 days however, thanks to the Pinoy hospitality, Anna Coren is back on Twitter after 1004 days, albeit she only sent 4 tweets, 2 of which are irrelevant off topic to what is presented here. Anyway, every reporter in the Philippines had to take a picture of her, and had to post it on Twitter, and had to make more publicity. Sounds fair enough. But Anna's focus is on the special (and that's why I like her)


Tweetdeck observations time


Also, besides that, I have 20 columns on my Google Chrome Tweetdeck, which explains my personality. Columns 18 and 20 have been suspiciously been active, while Column 19 regain conscious. Columns 5, 6, and 17... not so much. Column 1 is my feed, columns 2 and 16 being my mentions and interactions, column 3 is my favorites, columns 4 and 12 are for the Eurovision Song Contest (4th year I'm following it), columns 7 and 8 are mostly financial tweets, column 9 is my DM inbox,  columns 10 and 11 are mostly war tweets, column 14 is my Facebook feed, and columns 13 and 15 are empty. Pretty much I am boring.


What? Loreen's getting 12s left and right? Since when?


On the Eurovision front, Loreen from Sweden is getting 12 points left and right. Amazing. It's like Alexander Rybak in 2009 except I'm enjoying this one (Loreen that is). Other favorites (all of which are boring except Russia and Italy) are having a hard time keeping up with Sweden, so Stockholm 2013 it is.


We only go 4 columns at a time.


That's 5 pages for the math-illiterate


Those are just my thoughts right now and if there's anything else that comes up, it'll be there.

Playing the "The Feed is Down Again" Game

Most of us CNN Fans want to have CNNI available anywhere. That's why we have online streams, so that when we are away from our TVs, we can have access to it online.

We scrambled in May when Justin.tv took it and several news channels out (even ignored my request to keep it on), so I had to turn to Livestation. In the same period, Rent-A-Drone went live with a whole bunch of news channels, and even offered CNNI, so I was relieved.

Well, for the last 5 days, it constantly went down, in the same hours, from around 6 to 12pm EDT. This doesn't surprise me, because rent-a-drone likes to time out on me, sometimes after a few seconds, sometimes after a few hours. Rent-a-drone.org is a total piece of shit, and it will always be a piece of shit. Why? It times out on you without warning, the feed goes down constantly (and don't tell me CNN Europe is having problems, because they're not), and honestly, it's hard to use.

I recommend LiveStation because all others are plugged into the old Justin.tv and have not or did not care to update. Rent-a-drone.org has lost a viewer.

John King OVER CNNI Equals Fail

I have two CNNI feeds: the North America feed (which I have on my TV) and the Europe/Middle East/Africa feed (which I watch on my PC), and last night, just as I was gonna watch World Business Today, the debate comes on on the EMEA feed. This was my worst nightmare, a debate which carries no merit simulcasted on the EMEA feed while everyone else (including the North America feed) airs WBT, which has a lot of merit. I was stunned. However, I did get to watch WBT on my TV, but I still need it for capping purposes.

I am asking those who got and taped WBT (Asia Morning Edition from June 14, 2011) to send it to me at dezbee2008@gmail.com. I have asked my fellow forum members nicely and NOT ONE person came back with an answer, so I'm asking you to send it in. I could've done my capping if it wasn't for John King and his ridiculous Republican debate. That still has no merit and that's because I hate everyone who debated.

But guess what, WBT is also in hot water with me. Sometime two weeks ago, we saw the likes of Maggie Lake, Charles Hodson, and Andrew Stevens together for the last time before Andrew went off to Singapore. No problems, right. This week, he's in Indonesia covering the World Economic Forum and other economic topics concerning Indonesia. This is why I was desperate to watch last night: He's only live on the Asian morning edition, and the two other morning editions (Europe and US), he's on tape. That is a MAJOR FAIL!!!!!! I was expecting a lot of live shots on all three editions, why reduce it? Are they trying to pull off that Eye on India stunt where they took him out completely? This is the second time CNN is shortchanging him, and I swear that the next one he does, I'm not even gonna put my expectations high because I will get disappointed again.

Way to go, CNNI EMEA, for favoring John King over WBT, and way to go, WBT, for making the Asian morning WBT the only opportunity I will get to see Indonesia live. F- for both of you.

P.S. On a lighter note, I switched over to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC as a consolation for my lost viewing time on WBT and I'm hooked. Rachel is hilarious.

CNN Flashback: The Hong Kong Rock Band

14 months ago (aka September 2009), Kristie Lu Stout did a piece on the worldwide release of the Beatles Rock Band game. She and 5 of her colleagues tried out the game as part of the story. Did we all...

A) believe that what Anna Coren lacked in dancing, she made up for in singing

B) thought Kristie Lu Stout and Eunice Yoon rocked out the guitars (but are mixed as to who's better)

or

C) felt captivated by Andrew Stevens playing the drums like a kid

If you answered C, you can't get that smile off your faces.



Anyway, since it was 14 months ago, this would be long and gone, but sometimes, we like to look back on some of the favorite moments of CNN and this happens to be one of them.

GO STEVENS!!!!

Oh dear, is that what they called him? For real?

I've watched this video, like, 40 times in the past few weeks, and each time, I couldn't help but to laugh, not because of the hilarity that have ensued, but because of the egging (not literally). Once again, Andrew is a guinea pig.