I will be still and know You are God - Still Guitar Chords

Here's a great song by Hillsong United. I hope the guitar chords are spot on. Be blessed!

Intro:
F Am C G (Repeat)

Stanza Pattern:
C G Am
Hide me now
F D G
Under Your wings
C G Am
Cover me
F D G
Within Your mighty hand

Chorus Pattern:
C - G F G C
When the oceans rise and thunders roar
(C) F G Am
I will soar with You above the storm
(Am) F G C (Optional: C-C/B-Am-G-F)
Father you are King over the flood
(F) G C
I will be still, know You are God

Repeat Stanza Pattern:
Find rest my soul
In Christ alone
Know His power
In quietness and trust

Repeat Chorus Pattern:
When the oceans rise and thunders roar
I will soar with You above the storm
Father You are king over the flood
I will be still, know You are God

End with F - G - C

Google Adsense Celebrates 10th Year Anniversary With a Game of Pong

For those of you who might have missed it, check out the screenshot below of how Adsense celebrated its 10th year with its affiliates. I saw the game when I logged into my account on the morning of June 19, 2013. That means the Adsense program must have started on June 19, 2012.

The game triggers once your mouse hovers over the big number 10 with a party hat located on the bottom left corner of the screen. The number 10 then morphs into the paddle and ball you see on the left side of the screen shot, while another paddle materializes on the right side.

The upper and lower edges of the browser window serve as walls for the ball to bounce against, while the left and the right edges are the respective goals of the Player and the CPU.

As you can see, I at least won 1 round! Happy anniversary Adsense! Hope it doesn't take another 10 years before I meet my first payment threshold ^_^. (I know, I know, it's all about writing good content that's profitable too. Don't get me wrong, I am thankful for the opportunity to be part of the Adsense program when others are still waiting to get in. Again, thank you Adsense!)

San Antonio Spurs are the 2013 NBA World Champions

That could be the headline on sports news tomorrow and on the days to come.

For San Antonio fans, this could be the last time they will see their big three of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker in an NBA Finals. If the Spurs win, it will be the 5th title brought to San Antonio in the era of Tim Duncan. The other championship rings were in 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007. If Tim Duncan decides to retire after this season, a championship would be the cherry on top of the sundae - an excellent ending to a splendid career. Tim Duncan has achieved more than most power forwards.

Will Manu have another throw back game? Will he once again be the Manu of old? Fans of San Antonio hope so. After all, they know that Manu is also in his twilight years. This time, too, is probably the last time he can chase the NBA ring. So, in game 6 of the NBA playoffs, why not lay it all on the line, and play like there is no tomorrow.

Tony Parker may be injured, but at least he is playing for the team, and trying to be a factor. Will he have another heroic game, similar to Game 1 of the Finals?

As for the Heat, they seem to have lost the edge that allowed them to become the second team in NBA history with the longest winning streak. I'm not seeing the "closer" in LeBron James. Sure, he scored the most points in Game 4 for the Heat, but if you watched that game, it was Dwayne Wade who opened up the scoring flood gate which allowed the Heat to run away with the win.

Wade carried the Heat on his shoulders in their 2004 win. He too, is considered a superstar who might be entering his twilight years due to injuries. So while many may think that the Miami Big Three of James, Bosh, and Wade have plenty more championship runs in the future - and therefore - should just give way to the aging San Antonio Spurs Big Three, perhaps out of respect, they might have to think twice. If Wade is not healthy in the future, then this too might be Miami's last chance at a championship before rebuilding again. Allen, Miller, Haslem, Battier... these are all aging superstars.

Is James being to careful during the finals? Was last year's championship ring a fluke? He cannot do it alone, but if he really wants to do whatever it takes to lead Miami to another championship, he has a tremendous task ahead of him. First is winning Game 6 to force a do-or-die Game 7. And if he is somehow able to do that, then the second task is winning Game 7. Can they survive like they did Indiana?

But San Antonio has proven that they are difficult to beat back-to-back. And San Antonio has two cracks at this. Still, if I were Popovich and his men, I would end this finals as early as possible.

BPI Makes you wait in line for a long time

I entered the bank at around 1:31 in the afternoon and left the bank at around 2:43. That is more than an hour spent waiting in their queue just to make a simple deposit.

I would have thought that banks knew the value of time and wouldn't waste that of their customers. Apparently, I was mistaken.

BPI has been known to be an innovative company. Among the banks in the Philippines, they have been the first to adopt a touch-screen system for entering bank transactions, doing away with the traditional paper-based system. And while this new system may have helped the bank lower their costs for printing deposit and withdrawal slips, it has also made the wait time on their queues much longer, apparently.

I used to think that PNB was the bank with the worst queuing system. I used to spend hours and hours in PNB, just to make the same type of transaction. But even PNB has been able to improve their wait times to less than 30 minutes. And they are still dependent on a paper based system for registering transaction details.

Now, BPI not only has to deal with long wait times, but also overcrowding inside its branches. Having between 40 to 100 people inside a branch at the same time shouldn't be normal for a 100 to 150 square meter facility. A typical branch shouldn't have more than 20 customers inside all at once. There were several people coughing while waiting in queue. You can just imagine customers getting sick from viruses spreading in such a cramped space.

And despite efforts by the branch to make their customers comfortable while waiting, about 1/3 of the people waiting can't do anything but stand.

Instead of investing in pretty wall paper and posters, I think BPI should invest in improving its customer service experience. A person typically is able to withdraw money within 5 minutes. Why can't a simple deposit take the same amount of time? Why can't BPI invest in additional tellers when they know that their branch staff is undermanned? Only two people are manning their teller booths when their interior design designates that there should be 3 to 4. I pitied the Branch Manager since she had to take up some of the slack for the queue, but this clearly was not enough. If BPI wants to improve, each branch must be able to estimate the amount of transactions they will have in a day, and allot the same amount of manpower accordingly so that the transaction times will be consistent and within a maximum service level. A source of mine states that AUB have maximum limit of 9 minutes for a typical transaction. 

Perhaps BPI is already aware of this issue. Perhaps, they think that having a branch full of people improves the image of BPI - because the service must be highly demanded. But Metrobank, BDO, AUB, East West, etc. offer similar products and services and similar interest rates. And if a customer values his time, he would instead place his money in a bank that does the same. After all, time is money.  

The Alaska Aces are the 2013 PBA Commisioner's Cup Champions

The Alaska Aces swept Barangay Ginebra in the recently concluded best of five Commisioner's Cup Finals. The aces won game 3 with a score of 104 - 80. Rob Dozier was heralded as the Best Import of the Conference. But Dozier credited his teammates for the award. And rightly so, since for Alaska, the chemistry was evident between the team members the entire conference where the Aces stayed on top of the Conference standings.

Notable performances from the Aces players can be attributed to Calvin Abueva, Sonny Thoss, and JVee Casio. Abueva, despite being subjected to "The Jordan Rules" - tough physical defense - made famous by the Detroit Pistons, was undeterred in contributing well so that the team might finish off Barangay Ginebra. He relentlessly attacked the basket and showed no fear despite the opponents intentions of making him "hit the deck" and dive to the floor at every drive. Truly, man is fearless when he is young. But I hope Abueva takes care of his health since Alaska needs to have someone like him to stay competitive in the future.

Thoss was unstoppable in the second half and had his way under the basket. Cyrus Baguio and Don Don Hontiveros also contributed in terms of hustle and intangibles.

But Casio was the leader of this team, and made sure that the team was always composed and unrattled. He even caused a pull-up 3-point jumper that created a 4-point play in the 4th quarter. This led to Alaska's double digit lead and the Aces haven't looked back since that time.

Kudos to Coach Luigi Trillio who finally has a win under his belt. He had some semblance of Tim Cone when he was asking for the Technical foul after Cyrus Baguio was hacked. The commentators have also mentioned that aside from the new players - and trading LA Tenorio for JVee Casio, the familiarity of the players with the coaching staff and system allowed this team to quickly gel together despite being young and only playing with each other for a short time.

Once again, congrats to the Alaska Aces, winners of the 2013 Commisioner's Cup.

xtranormal: create 3D animation online

This is a sample of what you can do on the website xtranormal in a matter of minutes. It's probably amature-ish but I only spent 5 minutes making it. I suppose if I put in more time, it could have turned out better.

I think this kind of tool can be useful for people who want a quick sample of how their storyboard could progress if say, they were producing a show.

If you want to try creating your own story, to upload to Youtube or simply post on your own site, then xtranormal could just be the tool you need. There are several payment plans, but for someone trying it our, the free account will always be the first choice. Check it out!

Star Trek Into Darkness 2013

Warning: Spoiler alert! It is advised that you watch the movie before reading ahead.

So, should you watch the movie? The plain and simple answer is "Yes!"

Things I liked about the movie:

• Bringing back one of Star Trek's greatest villians, Khan played by British Actor Benedict Cumberbatch - the one who plays the main role of Sherlock in the modern TV mini-series revival of Arthur Conan Doyle's classic character
• A glimpse into what the world could look like two centuries from now. Star Trek has always been about potential technologies in the future. Today's tablets like the iPad and Samsung's Galaxy pad are modern realizations of tech ideas in Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). This movie shows us what fashion, cars, buildings, bars, medical facilities, and warfare could be like on Earth by that time.
• Showing us what the Klingons looked like during that time. Their ships look a lot like the TNG versions of the Bird of Prey. The Klingons in this movie seemed more organized and acted like a SWAT team compared to the portrayal of the Klingons in TNG where they even fight amongst themselves. And the Klingons in this movie surprisingly don't have long hair.
• I don't know if this is the first time I've seen a ship battle while travelling at warp speed, but that was cool. Wonder if things are supposed to get sucked out though...
• This is also the first time I've seen a starship crash into a populated city.
• Ambassador Spocks explanation of beating Khan before at a great cost. He was of course referring to his death in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. Just remember, this is an alternate timeline.

Things I didn't like about the movie

• using the Enterprise as a carnival ride - It seems that J.J. Abrams is running out of ideas on how to entertain us. Kirk and Scotty's race to the radiation room can be described as kiddie entertainment. I suppose we have to have that for a family oriented film. And I guess the only way to make a machine work sometimes is to beat the $h!t out of it. But really, there could have been other ways to make Kirk sick or radiation poisoning so that he can be revived later on by Khan's blood?
• explaining that they could not teleport a person because of  a lot of movement but being able to teleport someone in free fall during the first film - seems like a contradiction
• I'm not sure the Enterprise should be able to land on a planet, much more stay under the ocean. I think the Voyager was the first ever starship to have the capability of landing on a planet's surface. And the Enterprise does not have cloaking technology which would make them visible to the planet's inhabitants during descent.

Anyway, despite the things I dislike, the movie was entertaining. And with Superman and Wolverine nowhere in sight as of yet, this is the summer movie to watch at the moment.