The blogosphere, especially in this side of the cyberspace, is all going ga-ga over a certain blog site put up by an Australian guy named Brian Gorrell. His blog tells one of those seemingly familiar stories of love gone horribly wrong, a guy ended up being screwed by his lover. (who's a guy, FYI) Only that this tragedy involved something to the tune of US$70,000. (that's around P2.9M in our currency)

So the affected party puts up a blog and decides to spill the dirt on his ex-lover and his circle of friends in the hopes of getting his money back.

Just so happens this lover and his circle of friends happen to belong to Manila's young elite. The ones you get to see in lifestyle and soceity sections of your newspaper and magazines.

Who would think that these people are coke addicts (not the drink but the drug) philanderers, and people-users?

Well maybe it's not surprising for some to find out. Nevertheless, everyone else is ganging up on these people collectively known as the "Gucci Gang."

For some, this thing has gone too far that we are now immersed into this cesspool of hatred which is unhealthy for all of us. While these people may be right about it, we have to understand as well where all this collective hate coming from.

For the general populace, the "Gucci Gang" represents the social problems facing our country. While many Filipinos are living below the poverty line and face difficulties sustaining their daily needs, the rich folk represented by these people are oblivious to this. All they care is enjoying just the good things in life: partying, travelling, shopping sprees. Even to the point of doing things like drugs and being involved in licentious affairs.

But no one saw this coming. Imagine, someone who is supposed to be "well-off" would have the nerve to steal from you a huge amount of money.

Or maybe his being "well-off" is all nothing but pretentiousness?

Ah, pretentiousness is a sin of these Gucci Gang folk as well. To the point that they begin to look ridiculous. Just take a look at this Wikipedia entry of a supposed Gucci Gang member who has no other claim to fame than being a cosmetics executive who always gets to be in a lot of high-profile parties and events. She thinks her bio is a encyclopedic entry already? Give me a break! I'd rather see Inno Sotto or Rajo Laurel get a Wikipedia entry than this...who-the-hell-she-is-anyway person.

While we're it, let's not forget to include some of the rich businessmen and politicians here in the country who are making a fortune out of our country's misery. And they get away with it...easily.

To be fair, not all of the rich here in the country are as bad as they areThere are a number of them who are actually low-profile but are active in social work and know of better things to do for the country rather than make the poor suffer. I just hope that their contributions to society will outweigh whatever ill their fellow rich folk heaped upon the country.

I hope cooler heads will prevail in the course of this issue. Let us not come to a point that we find ourselves crashing through Forbes Park and Dasma to kill off all the rich people living there, just like in thge days of the French Revolution.

I also hope in the end that Brian finds peace and justice in all this. Maybe not here in the Philippines (which at this point is not an option anyway) but in God's time.

And to the guilty parties, may this Holy Week be a time for you to reflect on your mistakes and do your best to make them right.

Then again, the Gucci Gang and their ilk may instead take this time as an opportunity to go somewhere like Boracay, so what's the use?

If you're one of those who want some bargain on recordable/rewritable optical media, memory cards, flash drives, and other tech gadgets and accessories of all shapes and sizes, chances are you have done some transaction already with cd-r king. With an ubiquitous presence now in the country, it's now like finding a Jollibee store in almost every corner. If you've been transacting with them as long as I have been, I suppose you understand the love-hate relationship I have with them. (bordering more on the hate I'm afraid)

First of all, allow me to extend my kudos to cd-r king for bringing the joys of recordable/rewritable optical media to the masses. Their contribution in the overall growth of IT awareness in the country cannot be denied. Thanks to their pioneering efforts, we would not have enjoyed the luxury of using these products at a time when their prices were too much for our pockets to shoulder.

Right now, while I still go to this store from time to time to buy things like optical media, photo paper, cables, or flash drives, I'm now feeling frustrated with the way things are going at this store these days.

I understand that some of cd-r king's secrets in its success today are not having expensive POS systems nor interior design in its stores. While I do understand the logic of it, I'm afraid that it doesn't hold true anymore as long queues of people go everyday to their small kioks/stores while the store is on an expansion binge of...additional small stores/kiosks. The fact also that they are now selling everything but the kitchen sink is not helping alleviate the everyday queue. I may not be a marketing whiz but in my opinion, a store with such variety of products being sold deserve a much bigger space and a POS system so customers would not have to wait long while the store attendants are busy with their calculators calculating  the prices and taxes. With the popularity of this store, I'm sure they can recoup whatever the amount shelled out for buying a decent cash register in their store.

Second, what's with the six-month warranty on products like flash drives? These products are important for some people for storage purposes. (albeit in a small capacity) I even know some computer stores esp. in Gilmore who sell these products at the same price, but with a one-year warranty instead. Going which store to buy for my next flash drive is a no-brainer for me. ;-)

Finally, I hope that some of the staff of cd-r king learn some customer service basics. I understand that the everyday queue of customers have taken a toll on them, but this does not excuse them for delivering crappy service. This should also serve as a wake-up call for cd-r king to upgrade their stores. They can hire more people or improve the service delivery. Just make our lives as customers of your store a bit easier.

From the Time Warner group (Warner, New Line, HBO) now going Blu-Ray exclusive, to the news of US retailers like Walmart and Best Buy dropping HD-DVD players which are not selling despite their prices going dirt cheap, news broke that main HD-DVD manufacturer/supporter Toshiba is now abandoning production of HD-DVD in light of these recent events.

Now with a clear victor on the horizon, the challenge now for Blu-Ray is to penetrate a wider market and be able to sell itself well as THE Hi-Def player to have in your home and make the consumer eventually have it supplant their DVD, (in some cases) VCD or (heaven forbid) VHS player. With HDTVs becoming popular now, and the rise of HD video and digital still cameras, the logical step now is step up a notch for the HD player to complete the so-called HD experience.

But before this can be accomplished, one thing Blu-Ray has to hurdle is the price factor. At present, Blu-Ray discs and players (including the PS3) are still too expensive for the average consumer, even as titles on the Blu-Ray format are steadily increasing. (including porn titles) While there's no doubt that these prices will eventually go down, this trend has to be accelerated further as the format war with HD-DVD has held back whatever technological developments it would have presented at an earlier time. 

One problem though is the fact that average consumers don't know/care of the difference between standard-def video on DVD et al. and that of the Hi-Def Blu-Ray. For them, all they want is a player to play movies and will not be willing to shell out so much just to experience the so-called HD experience, which to some consumers may come to interpret as a shameless marketing ploy. The format wars have also contributed to consumer non-committal at the moment as confusion has made many wary of supporting Blu-Ray a lesson learned from the last format war between Betamax and VHS.

Now with a clear victor, how will this affect the prices of Blu-Ray players now? How fast can the market adapt and adopt Blu-Ray? We will have to see in the coming months if we see PS3 prices going down to PS2's current levels, cheaper Blu-Ray players from China and the proliferation of pirated Blu-Ray copies of films (which will still be in existence despite the format's copy protection technology)

Till then, I'll just extend my congralutions for Blu-Ray's "victory."