Remembering 2018 - Top 40 things I learned in 2018 (PART 4)

Welcome back to the special year-ender where I jot down some of the top 40 things I learned throughout the year 2018 not just in news but also in cars, television, video games, sports, everything based on my interests.

Here we are, the last ten numbers of this year-ender. Let's end this right now!

10) North Korea changes heart - At the start of 2018, the world shocked that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un wanted to have summits with South Korea and USA. That sounds like a ruse but the historical Inter-Korean Summit between him and South Korean leader Moon Jae-in carried on and despite all the setbacks, the planned US-NoKor summit at Singapore carried on last June. So far, progress of North Korea's denuclearization remains slow for now.

9) FIFA World Cup Russia - In June of 2018, the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 event has became one heck of a rollercoaster sports fans got into. There has been some controversies, heartbreaks, sense of humor, upsides, downsides, it's everything this match had from start to finish. In the end, France wins the 2018 FIFA World Cup and that match became one heck of a controversy given Russia's drastic sports records that sparked numerous sports governing bodies but with them out of the way, it turned out to be the best World Cup in ages and the Les Bleus fought all the way to the very end.

8) PyeongChang 2018 - For almost three weeks of February, the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics showcased the world's best athletes competing in various winter sports in different venues stretching across the hosting South Korean county. It's not just about the spirit of competition but also the coming together of different sides torn between conflicts and internal affairs. At the end of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Games, the biggest winners are the Norwegians having dominated almost every single event of the Games than every other nation participated..

7) Motorsports in 2018 - From retirements such as Fernando Alonso and Craig Lowndes, to switch of teams for the next season such as Kimi Raikkonen going for Sauber, to surprise comebacks such as Sebastian Loeb in WRC, this year is memorable in the world of motorsports and that's more fireworks than killing Jean Eric-Vergne's "balls" in the pit lane after that historic 1-2 finish in Formula E. Cue laughing emojis.

6) Anime in 2018 - From new favorites such as Pop Team Epic, Cells at Work, Goblin Slayer, Golden Kamuy, and SSSS.GRIDMAN, to returning faves such as Cardcaptor Sakura, Attack on Titan,  and My Hero Academia, 2018 has been a big year in anime. On the children's side, it's been headlined with Inazuma Eleven's 10th anniversary, Yo-Kai Watch's 5th anniversary, and the road to Precure 15th anniversary. Not to mention that this year's shoujo anime lineup got dominated by pink haired ones like Aine Yuki of Aikatsu Friends!, Mirai Momoyama of Kiratto PriChan, and most famously Cure Yell of HUGtto Precure. In the tokusatsu side, we've been blown away by the heroic efforts of Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patranger, Ultraman R/B, and recently Kamen Rider Zi-O. Movies, the biggest hitters of 2018 are Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer, Mirai no Mirai, Pokemon the Movie: The Power of Us, and the most explosive of all, Dragon Ball Super Broly.

5) Video games in 2018 - While battle royale games dominated the video game genre for 2018, the biggest hitters of the year are the 2018 remake of God of War as well as Red Dead Redemption 2.

4) Entertainment in 2018 - Chinese version of Meteor Garden TV series, two main characters from two Walking Dead shows bid farewell, the arrival of the 13th Doctor, Alden Richards as a superhero, Maine Mendoza being "Daddy's Gurl", new ASAP format courtesy of Regine Velasquez-Alcasid after her dramatic network transfer, Marvel movies such as Black Panther, Infinity War, and DP2 reigned box office charts, Netflix cancelling Marvel series, Elseworlds crossover special, Mickey Mouse's 90th birthday, that's a lot to list or sum up about entertainment in the year 2018.

3) Big year for the 48 sister groups - The AKB48 franchise marks 2018 a big year because of popular additions to their 48 sister groups such as Vietnam's SGO48 and most famously, Philippines' MNL48.

2) Miss Philippines wins Miss Universe 2018 - December 17's Miss Universe pagent in Thailand made headlines because for the first time in history, a transgender was represented in this year's pageant and it's none other than Miss Spain Angela Ponce. Despite not being at the top spot, she really made headlines for being the first transgender to compete in Miss Universe and that really is a rule-changer the world's looking forward to. The biggest headline of the pageant is, for the fourth time, Philippines won Miss Universe as Catriona Gray takes home the crown, eclipsing the likes of Tamaryn Green of South Africa and Sthefany Gutierrez of Venezuela, especially Vietnam's H'hen Nie and Puerto Rico's Kiara Ortega.

1) Goodbye Broadway, Hello APT! - For nearly four decades, the longest-running noontime variety TV show in Philippine history, Eat Bulaga, has became the staple of every Filipino household with its rousing and engrossing segments with engaging hosts, including the so-called Holy Trinity of Eat Bulaga; Vic Sotto, Joey de Leon, and Senator Vicente "Tito" Sotto III. In anticipation of the program's 40th anniversary, Eat Bulaga has moved to the newest home studio, the APT Studios, located across the Marcos Highway, Cainta, Rizal, and opened its doors to all of the dabarkads here and around the world.

...and there we are. Another year passed, another year comes. The year 2018 has been quite a disastrous year for us all but despite whatever Murphy's Law throws on us, there has been some ups and positiveness that lead us to greater happiness throughout the year and as we approached to a new year, looks like Murphy's Law is starting to kick into maximum overdrive.

Think about this; the Brexit, the end of the Heisei era, this year is where everything changes radically and nothing in this world will ever be the same again. It's going to behave like...either Akira or Blade Runner. What? They're both movies set in the year 2019, which explains a lot.

As long as we are prepared for whatever Murphy's Law throws on us, we can still survive this brave new year ahead and whoever survives the year 2019 is everyone's guess.

May God bless the world and have a Happy New Year.

Remembering 2018 - Top 40 things I learned in 2018 (PART 3)

Welcome back to the special year-ender where I jot down some of the top 40 things I learned throughout the year 2018 not just in news but also in cars, television, video games, sports, everything based on my interests.

Let's get on to numbers 20 to 11 of the list. Ready? Okay, let's go!

20) Mercedes bids DTM goodbye - After over three decades of dominating the Deutsche Touring Meisterschaft, Mercedes-AMG bids Europe's popular motorsport series goodbye and what better way of giving the carmaker a proper sendoff is by having Gary Paffett dominating the season, which is also his last following his announcement that he'll be taking part at this season's ABB FIA Formula E. With Mercedes' departure from DTM, the remaining carmakers Audi and BMW are bracing for next season's turbo era as well as a joint race between them and the Super GT machines.

19) 4-peat and 4-game-sweep - Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers made history again as for the first time in NBA history, these two teams faced each other at the NBA finals for the fourth time in the row. No rival teams ever attempted this and with the teams became history makers but the biggest history maker of the NBA finals is the Golden State Warriors made a four-game sweep against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

18) Kings of the Ring - The Nurburgring made two headlines this year as the new Lamborghini Aventador SVJ smashed the production car record at 6:44.97, while the 919 Hybrid Evo set the fastest ever lap time of 5:19.55. Period.

17) FK8 Civic Type R vs. the world - The FK8-spec Honda Civic Type R made some headlines by smashing front-wheel drive lap records in Silverstone, Magny-Cours, Hungaroring, Estoril, even Spa-Francorchamps.

16) Carlos Ghosn arrested - Carlos Ghosn, the man who saved Nissan from the brink of bankruptcy and formed the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi alliance , made headlines of the world of motoring this 2018 for he was arrested by Japanese authorities over suspected under-reporting of his corporate salary by several hundreds of millions of yen. His arrest led to Nissan and Mitsubishi ousting him from his post and days later, he was arrested again for recent allegations of aggravated breach of trust earlier today, diminishing chances of his impending release on bail.

15) Roselia replacing two members - 2018 has been proven to be a tough year for one of the girls band from the BanG Dream! franchise, Roselia. Following last year's announcement that Yurika Endo will be retiring from her seiyuu career, her role of Lisa Imai will be succeeded by her replacement, Yuki Nakashima. Moments later, Satomi Akesaka announced her retirement as well from her Rinko Shirokane role due to hearing problems, therefore at the Vier concert, her replacement, Kanon Shizaki, was named.

14) 2018 US Midterm Elections - The 2018 midterm elections in America has been heavily dominated by female candidates who are either with or against the Trump administration following numerous issues facing America such as the migrant caravan, the troops pullout, the environmental rollbacks, the trade wars, the Mueller probe, every single issue that rocked the great nation. In the end of the midterms, Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives while Republicans retained their control of the Senate.

13) Toyota wins Le Mans for the first time - History has finally made at the 2018 24 Hours of Le Mans race, which is part of the 2018-2019 WEC Superseason as Toyota Gazoo Racing proudly waved the Japanese flag by honoring their first ever Le Mans win in history. The #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing TS050, piloted by Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso, Formula E driver Sebastien Buemi, and Kazuki Nakajima, made a historic victory at Le Mans while the #7 TS050 managed to place 2nd place with a lap behind it. This marks the second time a Japanese carmaker won Le Mans since the legendary Mazda 787B and the first time a Japanese driver became part of the Le Mans-winning team.

12) Ken Block's last Gymkhana ride - Celebrating ten years of the Gymkhana videos that burnt the internet like rubber, the latest installment of the Gymkhana video series, titled Gymkhana TEN: Ultimate Tire-Slaying Tour, sees Ken Block in his farewell tour by ripping the world in five different machines, including the new Hoonitruck, in five different locations from Sweden, Detroit, Mexico, Texas, and Los Angeles. Although this epic Gymkhana video is Ken Block's last, word from the mouth that the Gymkhana clips will move on at the hands of its new driver as demonstrated at the end of Gymkhana TEN.

11) Porsche's 70th anniversary celebration - 2018 marks Porsche's 70th anniversary and to commemorate this epic celebration, the German sports car maker went through exciting ways and means to demonstrate the best of Porsche such as taking the 919 Hybrid Evo for a spin round the world, bringing Porsche fans together, the Rennsport Revival at Laguna Seca, leading to the unveiling of the new generation Porsche 911 (992).

...to be continued in PART 4.

Remembering 2018 - Top 40 things I learned in 2018 (PART 2)

Welcome back to the special year-ender where I jot down some of the top 40 things I learned throughout the year 2018 not just in news but also in cars, television, video games, sports, everything based on my interests.

Let's get on to numbers 30 to 21 of the list. Ready? Okay, let's go!

30) The brawl at the FIBA Qualifiers - The 2nd of July at the Philippine Arena sees the unprecedented brawl between GILAS players and the Australians in the middle of the 3rd quarter of the FIBA qualifiers match. Although GILAS was defeated by Australia's Boomers, the fight seen round the world causes so much disdain to the world of sports and most Philippine basketball players felt ashamed by the reputation.

29) Thank you Voltron - Dreamworks' Voltron: Legendary Defender is one of the most-watched animated shows on Netflix and after eight seasons, the story of the group of Paladins protecting the galaxy as Voltron came to an end.

28) Goodbye, Adventure Time - After eight years and ten seasons, Cartoon Network's hit animated show, Adventure Time, has ended and the series finale, aired last September, sees Finn and Jake trying to prevent an all-out Great Gum War and save the Land of Ooo once and for all. We all going to miss the smash-hit TV series among with its colorful cast of characters in it.

27) Sinclair merger derailed - The controversial merger between Sinclair Broadcasting, which is one of the largest network company that controls local networks across the United States and also opposed for its pro-Trump agenda, and Tribune Broadcasting was derailed by the Federal Communications Commission following numerous opposition from activists against htis controversial merger and other companies dropped out from that matter.

26) US dropped out of Iran deal - US President Donald Trump announced his nation's dropout from the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal and began reimposing sanctions against Iran, a move that sparked fury from the European Union. Trump warned his trading partners that anyone making business with Iran WILL NOT make business with the United States.

25) No more Ford sedans - Ford officially announced that they are dropping out passenger vehicles from their lineup, with the exception of the Mustang, to focus more on their crossovers and trucks. In addition, they are dropping the number of core platforms to five flexible architectures.

24) Big name obituaries - The year 2018 bids farewell to the biggest names we know, including singer Aretha Franklin, Arizona Senator John McCain, former US President George H. W. Bush, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, SpongeBob creator Stephen Hillenburg, and so on, making the obituaries of 2018 too many to list.

23) Abe remains Prime Minister - Last September, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won his re-election bid as Japan's Prime Minister, making him Japan's longest-serving Prime Minister and realize his dream of reforming the constitution.

22) Vietnam's first carmaker - At the 2018 Paris Motor Show, Vietnam's first carmaker called Vinfast, made its world premiere with their first two vehicles, both based on BMW vehicles, such as the LUX A2.0 sedan and the LUX SA2.0 crossover.

21) Canonized as saints - Slain El Salvador Archbishop Oscar Romero and Pope Paul VI with five others are now canonized as saints during a Mass at St. Peter's Square since mid-October.

...to be continued in Part 3.

Remembering 2018 - Top 40 things I learned in 2018 (PART 1)

2018 has been quite a disastrous year for most of us, hence the main reason why the kanji for "disaster" was hand-picked by the Japanese but it's not just the floods, the quakes, and the fires that made this year disastrous, it's the fickle politics, obituaries, and some crazy moments that drove this world even madder than it is last year, but despite all the negativity occurred throughout the year, there has been some positive moments that made 2018 a great year for some.

So, with the year comes to a close, let's slow things down and jot down some of the top 40 things I learned throughout the year 2018 not just in news but also in cars, television, video games, sports, everything based on my interests, if you know what I mean?

40) Boracay closure - In late April, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte shut down the Philippines' popular tourist destination, Boracay, for six months because of the "cesspool" comments the strongman leader said a few months ago, prompting holiday makers look somewhere else to spend their summer vacation.

39) US Embassy in Jerusalem - Fulfilling one of US President Donald Trump's campaign promises during the 2016 elections, and despite the bloodshed in Gaza, the controversial move of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has been done and it's opened in mid-May 2018, fuelling concerns that the United States are tipping the Middle East into more worrisome effect. The embassy move tarnished the United States as the mediator between Israel and the Palestine State and there will be major consequences following the move.

38) General Data Protection - The new EU data protection regulation went in effect late May 2018, giving people from the European Union more control over how data is reached. Companies worldwide are getting express consent to collect personal info or face hefty fines. Following the implementation, The New York Times were one of the sites blocked in most European countries while Google and Facebook are accused for breaching GDPR laws following the infamous Cambridge Analytica incident.

37) Trade Wars - Once started as US President Trump implementing tariffs on imported steel and aluminum quickly escalated into an all-out trade war between the United States and China, two rival economic superpowers, which rocked world markets.

36) Goodbye, WUG! - Announced last summer, the Wake Up, Girls are saying farewell as the official website announced that they will disband by March 2019 after their final live performance. The Wake Up, Girls starred in two anime series, a film, and a WUG zoo spinoff.

35) The worst final race weekends of Danica Patrick's career - Female racing driver Danica Patrick bids farewell to motor racing following his breakout career in both IndyCar and NASCAR but her last race weekends in her career wasn't really the sendoff she wished for.  One, her final Daytona 500 race ended in a crash. Two, her final Indy 500 race ended in a crash as well.

34) The reborn American Idol - After years of hiatus, American Idol has returned in its new home, ABC, and in the rebirth of the hit reality singing competition, aspirants are energized to take on the competition but in the end, Maddie Poppe is named the winner of the American Idol 2018 finale. She's the first grand winner since American Idol went back on air.

33) Chief Justice Sereno ousted - Voting 8-6, the Supreme Court of the Philippines has ruled to oust Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno as head of the judiciary since mid-May 2018. The Court has granted the quo warranto petition filed against the ousted Chief Justice.

32) Hyundai's new fuel-cell crossover - Hyundai made a fuel-cell crossover that claims to be one of the most important breakthrough in the history of the rapidly-growing South Korean carmaker. It's called the Nexo and it's powered by an electric motor that churns out 154PS of power and 395Nm of torque, which is more than the old Tucson FCEV it replaces, capable of reaching a top speed of up to 179kph, similar as a Japanese car can go. Second, the Nexo's got three fuel tanks, capable of carrying 6.33kg/156.6L of total capacity, resulting to a driving range of 609km.

31) US Gymnastics doctor sentenced - In late January, former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to life imprisonment for abusing young female gymnasts who were entrusted to his care. The women who brought Nassar to justice became one of the driving forces of the ongoing #MeToo and #TimesUp movement and because they brought so much impact to the lives of female athletes, they even got a special award at the ESPYs.

...to be continued in part two.