Posted by Vic on Oct 4, '08 1:01 AM for everyone Video for outgoing DLSU player Jvee Casio, presented at the Gang Green Appreciation Dinner on October 3. Images and slideshow created by Vic and Cyn Icasas. Special thanks to greenarcher.net for the use of the Jvee salute photo from UAAP Finals Game 2. EDIT: Use this alternate link if you want to view in QuickTime and/or download the video to your computer. http://gallery.me.com/vicicasas/100009
Download this and other original video files with Multiply Premium.Posted by Vic on Sep 25, '08 6:47 AM for everyone
Am writing this from my laptop in Singapore, over a thousand miles away, and I feel sad not only because we lost but that I couldn't be there to photograph this year's Archer team one last time. Good luck to all the players who are moving on (especially Jvee) and congratulations, to Ateneo, the Season 71 champions!
Watch out for us next year ! Animo La Salle!
(P.S. And this Sunday ... Animo McLaren...)
Posted by Vic on Sep 22, '08 1:37 AM for everyone |  | Ateneo def. DLSU 69-61 to take Game One of the Finals. |
Posted by Vic on Sep 16, '08 5:24 AM for everyone
The countdown to the championship continues - do we have what it takes?
We've got the focus.
 We've got the intensity.
 We know how to have fun =)
Let's go, Archers! Animo La Salle!
Posted by Vic on Sep 14, '08 9:29 AM for everyone | | DLSU def FEU 67-62 to enter the Season 71 Finals against Ateneo.
Hold on to your seats, folks, here we go! |
Posted by Vic on Sep 13, '08 12:23 AM for everyone | | DLSU defeats FEU 61-59.
Cyn and I send our sympathies to DLSU Assistant Coach Jack Santiago - we found out that his father passed away that night, at about the same time that La Salle won the game. |
Posted by Vic on Sep 9, '08 12:26 AM for everyone Here's something to keep my Multiply readers entertained while I eventually get around to editing my DLSU-Ateneo game photos. I had to work that day, so I only arrived at Araneta at halftime, and unfortunately don't have that many images to share. And besides, the stats don't lie, not too many people check my site out after a DLSU loss. Heh. So ... on to the video. Tiger, Tiger, the golf world is so boring without you around. At least you're churning out some entertaining ads while you're on hiatus. If you think this is CGI trickery, here's a link to the behind-the-scenes shoot: Behind the Scenes
Download this and other original video files with Multiply Premium.Posted by Vic on Aug 29, '08 6:11 PM for everyone Yes! The 8th time, in the 8th month of 2008. No, we're not talking about Michael Phelps.
Am extremely happy to announce that my company, Hit Productions Inc., won an unprecedented eighth Audio Production House of the Year plate last night at the Advertising Agency of the Year awards ceremony held at Greenbelt 5 Fashion Walk. We've been dominating this category since it started 11 years ago but believe me, we're still going to be trying hard for number 9 in '09.
Best in the business, baby!
   
Posted by Vic on Aug 28, '08 1:00 PM for everyone | | La Salle defeated UST 81-79 in what is undeniably the most exciting DLSU game I've seen this season. It had all the right ingredients - a statement dunk by Rico off an alley-oop assist from Bader, yet another timeless Jvee performance, and a classic ending that we'll be talking about for days.
It was made even more interesting by the fact that Coach Franz Pumaren literally tried to help "call the shots" for his players and staff by way of assistant coach Cholo's Nokia cellphone, seeing that Franz was in Iran with the RP Youth Team.
But for all intents and purposes, Coach Jack Santiago was running the show, and he even remarked in the dugout afterwards that he was tossing and turning til 3 or 4 in the morning from sheer nerves just thinking of today's game.
We could have put this game away easily. The Archers had atrocious free throw shooting (something like 19 of 37 if I overheard correctly) including two key shots by Barua that could've sealed the deal. Slowly but surely UST crept closer and closer and ultimately tied the score. And Jvee Casio and Jervy Cruz traded huge baskets like boxers in the ring - Jvee is incredible, can I just say that? Knowing Casio is leaving the team next year makes games like these even more special.
Finally, what an endgame, kicked off by a bizarre timeout by UST coach Pido Jarencio (was he even aware that there were no timeouts left for La Salle?) with only 5.5 sec to go that gave DLSU a sudden and unexpected chance to regroup.
As the whole coliseum yelled its collective lungs out, LA Revilla absolutely blitzed down the court and attempted a layup under heavy defense, and I assumed (as almost everyone else in Araneta did) that when his shot failed to find its mark, we were heading into overtime. But Revilla actually ran down the court so fast, he left Maui Villanueva just enough time (a few tenths of a second!) and in perfect position to scoop up the rebound and put it home for the win. Man, as everyone rushed the court it felt like the Season 70 championship all over again.
What do you know. I actually wrote an entire recap for a change. My wife is out of town and couldn't shoot the game with me, so Cyn if you're reading this, well, that's what you missed haha!
Enjoy the pics. |
Posted by Vic on Aug 25, '08 11:27 AM for everyone | | FEU def. DLSU 83-75. |
Posted by Vic on Aug 16, '08 11:30 PM for everyone | | DLSU def NU 79-67.
I guess it's a testament to the faith I have in our team that even down by 11 at halftime, I didn't feel the slightest bit worried that we were going to lose the game. I mean, cmon, it's DLSU! (and, umm, hey, it's NU!)
Highlight of the game was probably Ferdinand dunking off a great pass by Jvee. I went up to Ferdinand after the game and said "Dude, the next time you plan to do that, tell me before the game so I have the right lens on my camera!'
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Posted by Vic on Aug 12, '08 1:00 AM for everyone Wifey's game pics are up!
Enjoy her gallery - good stuff. Posted by Vic on Aug 7, '08 8:03 PM for everyone | | DLSU def UE 70-61.
Now that's more like it ... this is the kind of game we should have had against UE last weekend. We played very well and you could see from UE's body language that they just weren't there anymore.
And a monster game by Jvee ... I constantly remind myself how lucky I am to see such talent up close. Good one, bro.
Enjoy the pics.
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Posted by Vic on Aug 3, '08 12:36 AM for everyone | | UE def DLSU 68-62 in an injury-marred game for the Archers. |
Posted by Vic on Jul 27, '08 12:08 AM for everyone Posted by Vic on Jul 24, '08 10:24 AM for everyone | | I wasn't sure whether or not to worry about the outcome of today's game since Adamson was coming off a surprise victory over UE last Sunday.
Oh, such little faith.
DLSU defeated Adamson 76-61.
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Posted by Vic on Jul 20, '08 11:01 PM for everyone 
... we win!
I've been away from racing for about five months now. The last time I was in a kart was the Thailand 24 Hour, and after that race, Cyn and I decided to take some time away from the sport. But we couldn't resist the opportunity to run one last major race for the year, namely the Manila 701 at City Kart Racing in Bicutan.
The concept of this race is simple: first team across the line after 701 laps of racing is the winner! Last year, my team finished in 2nd place and the race took about 14-16 hours, so we were determined to try and go for the outright win this year.
There were 11 teams entered in the race, most of whom were running 6 to 8 drivers each. The minimum allowable number of racers per team was 4, so my Finnish racing buddy Pasi Riipinen (we go back a long way) and I decided to run a lean mean fighting machine by tapping only two other fellow endurance racers, PLDT exec Jovy Hernandez and Dutch teenager Julian Van Heeswijk. Julian had just come off a flight from Europe earlier that day, so that explains his glassy, dazed look in the photo. Haha!
And of course the team wouldn't be complete without our extraordinary strategist and team manager, Cyn - she's been managing my endurance race teams for so long now that she actually had free time to relax and edit her UAAP photos in between calculating fuel stops and driver changes and manning the pit boards.
It was a pretty eventful race - after starting a bit past midnight on Saturday, our team was running in a strong second place for about ten hours, and we were driving flawlessly but not enough to close the gap between us and race leader Team Nobac, spearheaded by their secret weapon, a seasoned 13-year old (!!) karter named Robbie Benito who drove like a bat out of hell.
However, at around 11 am Nobac ran into technical difficulties with the race transponder that signals their laptimes and standings to the main computer. As Nobac struggled to sort the confusion out with the race director, to add insult to injury the drive belt on their engine snapped and they then had to pit for a spare kart while their main engine was being repaired.
This was an opportunity we couldn't pass up and so we pushed even harder for the remaining 180 or so laps until we crossed the line early Sunday afternoon, barely 18 seconds ahead of Nobac.
A great victory and enough to keep me happy for the rest of the year.
My helmet and suit now go back into storage. I'm getting too old to be dueling 13-year olds.
Posted by Vic on Jul 20, '08 9:44 PM for everyone  I wasn't at DLSU-NU (I was resting up for my kart endurance race, which I'll blog about later) but boy did Cyn do a great job of covering the game. Fantastic shots.
Posted by Vic on Jul 17, '08 10:36 AM for everyone | | Another exciting game by the Archers - they really know how to keep people on the edge of their seats til the last second.
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Posted by Vic on Jul 16, '08 4:03 AM for everyone
Gilbert Arenas blogs about his Manila trip and has nothing but praise for the Philippines and Filipinos. The Manila portion excerpted below:
Manila
Then we stopped in Manila. It was a different world. I’ve never seen fans like that in my life. These pictures can’t even do justice to what was going on out there. I had a reception at a small, little venue to welcome me to the city and there were 200 people there.
One thing I want to say about Filipinos: they’re very warm people, very good-hearted people. Like,everybody was nice. You know, you meet nice people, but a whole country of nice, genuine, warm-hearted people was unbelievable. These are diehard fans.
I really didn’t know if I was in Game 7 of a playoff series, I couldn’t tell the difference. Everywhere I went it was just bananas.
I also want to give a shout out to my man from Maryland who flew from MD to the Philippines and told me the reason he flew all the way out there was to get autographs from me because he knew I was going to be there at that date and time.
I did a couple mall tours. I also helped a kid with his wish. It was in one of the poverty areas in Manila and there’s a group called GK that builds homes for people all over the world. They helped this community out by putting people in homes. I guess a couple weeks before we got there, a hurricane hit and destroyed their community and GK helped build it back up.
One little kid who lived there wanted a basketball court for his community so all the kids could play so I donated – with the help of GK and adidas – a basketball court to that community and the kid was very happy.
You have to look at the Agent Zero posters they had out there. They put me in a cape at one of my last events in Manila. It was at one of their biggest malls and they were predicting it was going to be crowded. I mean, crowded to me is a Saturday afternoon at the mall where you have to wait in line for 10 minutes to pay for your jeans. Their crowded was probably four or five thousand people in the mall. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and I’ve seen crazy fans all over the world. It was like Golden State against the Dallas Mavericks with Game 3 back in Oakland. It was that type of atmosphere in the mall.
I was stunned.
They made me feel like an NBA star.
Any NBA players out there: If you’re having a bad day, or you’re having a bad career, go to Manila. They’ll bring your spirits up, trust me.
I felt like I just won the NBA championship, to be for real.
After we left the mall we were looking at pictures from the event a couple days later and we were telling ourselves, "Man, that was unreal!"
Plus, with the security I had, I felt like I was the President. I felt like I was Obama. I really felt like I was running in the presidential election, especially when I got to meet the U.S. ambassador out in the Philippines. We had a great time talking to each other.
We actually went to a college basketball game together. Their college game would be like if it was Duke and Maryland playing each other and you split the crowd in half, 50-50. One side of their gym was blue and one side of their gym was green and everybody was just yelling.
Backstage I met Manny Pacquiao, he’s the town hero. I have to be honest, they made me feel even bigger than him at the moment. I talked to him and he invited me to his November fight, so if I have time and depending on if we have a day off, I might go see that. Oh, I also met Jet Li in Shanghai, can’t leave him out.
On top of everything else in Manila, I stayed at the best hotel I’ve ever stayed at – The Peninsula. I was in the mack daddy “El Presidente” suite and was like the Fresh Prince with Geoffrey – I had a live-in butler.
One more note on Manila, just so you guys can get a picture of what kind of people they are and how much they adore and love entertainers and the NBA. Think about this: If you’ve ever been to a Beyoncé concert, or anybody’s concert in the states really, if they sell out an arena it will be 20,000 fans. Last year in Beyoncé’s hometown, Houston, she pulled in 12,000 people to her show. D.C. was her biggest sell, she put 18,000 people in the seats. Meanwhile, she was in Manila for two days to do two concerts and she had 85,000 people, two nights straight.
She couldn’t even do it in the arena, she had to do it on the lawn. Like, “Everybody, y’all just get in the grass, I’m going to perform.”
That’s how the people are out there.
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