Best of the Week: Clinton, the grand lotto, and the death of rock

Stud of the Week: Bill Clinton

MANILA, Philippines - The always charismatic Bill Clinton stopped by Manila this week, to deliver a speech on globalization Thursday at Makati Hotel. And as expected, men and women swooned over the still studly ex-president. Chief fan girls were Karen Davila and Maria Ressa, who incidentally, moderated the talk. While Davila excitedly tweeted Clinton’s words as he spoke, Ressa later tweeted that it “takes a big man to admit mistakes,” in reference to Clinton talking about his mistakes regarding Rwanda. All this, while the guy who introduced Clinton commended him for being a loving family man. “Loving” for sure (just ask Monica) but Clinton as the bastion of family values? Maybe not.

Leg Ham of the Week: Eva Longoria

If Pampanga’s Best is looking at the potential of the international market, they may have just met the ideal endorser for their meat products. Eva Longoria challenged Lady Gaga’s meat dress at the MTV European Music Awards this week, by pulling off a more-desperate-than-a-housewife stunt: bouncing to the stage dressed as ham. Looking like a giant pork hind leg, with her head sticking out, Longoria hosted MTV’s event in 14 costume changes. Lady Gaga however is reportedly not happy about the gimmick, saying Longoria can’t stop stealing her ideas. Longoria claimed the dress was homage to Mother Monster, and that she herself is a fan. Whatever, we just hope that if Charice ever gets to that level, she’ll wear bototays and corned beef.

Song of the Week: MJ’s ‘Breaking News’

What’s dead, pale, decaying yet still bankable? This week, Michael Jackson’s posthumous single Breaking News was released to mixed reactions. While MJ fans were typically enthralled, others were not as happy, tweeting their questions about the validity of the song. Either way, the King of Pop is still a lot of albums away from the late Tupac’s posthumous prolificacy.

Gadget of the Week: The PlayStation Phone

This one’s for the books: gaming giant Sony Ericsson is speculated to be cooking up the next big thing in portable gaming, and Apple better prepare for it. The gaming community is all abuzz as the PlayStation Phone (a cellphone and a PSP in one) is rumored to be launched by Sony come December 2011, just in time for techie kiddos to be hiding under their Christmas trees. Initial leaks describe the specs at 1 GHz QualComm MSM8655, 512MB of RAM, 1GB of ROM — all on a 3.7-4.1 inch screen. For all we care, as long as we can be Pacquiao on Fight Night while talking on the phone, we can forget all the RAM and the ROM and just enjoy all the gigglebytes.

Game Show of the Week: The Grand Lotto!

If you’ve been trying your luck standing in line at the ABS-CBN audience entrance for Win na Win! or at the GMA Drive for some sleazy easy money game show, then consider this: the country’s lowest rating game show is giving away the country’s highest jackpot prize ever. Yes, NBN 4’s nightly televised lotto draw might just be your next ticket to millionaire-dom as the pot for the 6/55 Grand Lotto reaches P400M—cold cash. Next draw’s tonight at 9, so you better run to the nearest outlet to place your bets. And since queues are outrageously long, you can think of what to do with the money while waiting.

Generation FB Award: The Philippines!

We may rank far below the 100th place in the World’s Corrupt-Free Nations List, but we certainly are making up for it in other fields. Did you know that Filipinos are the ninth happiest people in the world? Did you know that Pinoys are one of the most frequent video viewers on the Internet? Now get this: in spite of the poverty that has stricken our country (and that about 5% of the population is illiterate), 17.9 million Filipinos are Facebook users, making our beloved Philippines the 6th largest country on Planet Facebook. Ahead by 1.6 million users is France, while the US dominates the list. Asked to comment about this, P-Noy only said, “Stay out of my lovelife!”

Death of the Week: NU 107

Last Sunday, a few minutes before midnight, the eternal Huling El Bimbo played one last time on the 107.5 frequency, closing the book on the country’s first rock station. The sons and daughters of the NU movement, kids who found solace in the loud guitars and aggressive rhythms, trooped to the station headquarters in Ortigas, one last time. Those who couldn’t make it to the station, blared the last few hours of NU on their car radios and, curiously, Internet radio. In what is undoubtedly a sign of the times, a lot of the faithful who wanted to listen at home, could only stream it online, since a lot of them didn’t have radios anymore. Evidently, the video did not kill the radio star — the Internet did.