ALLAN THE MAN

With two international training trips under its belt, the Philippine national men’s basketball team is confident heading into the FIBA Asia Championship on August 1.

“I think we made a lot of positive steps and we are closer to being ready today than we were a month ago,” said Rain or Shine forward Gabe Norwood, a veteran international campaigner who also represented the Philippines in 2007 and 2009.

Leading telecommunications company Globe Telecom will be the official technology partner of the 2013 Ironman 70.3 Philippines, the country's premiere triathlon event scheduled on August 4 at Shangri-La Mactan Island Resort in Cebu City.

This is the fifth year that Globe will provide high-speed broadband internet service in support of Ironman 70.3 Philippines.

Only God Forgives is a 2013 French-Danish co-production crime thriller film written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, starring Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Vithaya Pansringarm. The film was shot on location in Bangkok, Thailand.

SYNOPSIS: Julian, a drug-smuggler thriving in Bangkok's criminal underworld, sees his life get even more complicated when his mother compels him to find and kill whoever is responsible for his brother's recent death.

The Purge is a 2013 American science fiction/thriller film directed and written by James DeMonaco. Starring Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey, the film is set in the year 2022 when the United States has become "a nation reborn", with crime and unemployment rates hitting an all-time low.

SYNOPSIS: A family is held hostage for harboring the target of a murderous syndicate during the Purge, a 12-hour period in which any and all crime is legalized.

Fresh from a whirlwind scouting trip that took him to two Asian countries, Gilas Pilipinas assistant coach Norman Black has listed defending champion China, Iran, and South Korea as the three teams to beat in the FIBA Asia Men’s Championship in two weeks' time.

The multi-titled coach travelled all the way to Guangzhou, China for the Fiba Stankovic Cup, primarily to take a closer look at the Chinese team under renowned former Greek national coach Panagiotis Giannakis.

The winners for the Yahoo! OMG! Awards 2013 were revealed on Friday, July 19, at the SM Mall of Asia Arena hosted by Edu Manzano and Billy Crawford.

Yahoo! OMG Awards gave recognition to the emerging stars, favorite celebrities, and popular programs in music, film, radio and television. This year's 106 nominees across 22 categories were arrived at based on the most-searched topics or personalities on the local Yahoo! search engine.

BlackBerry’s CEO Thorsten Heins announced that the popular BlackBerry Messenger will be available on Android and iOS back at the BlackBerry live 2013 conference. We then had a tweet from the BlackBerry Worldwide tweeter account stating that the app will be available on June 27.

Unfortunately, the account didn't turn out to be an official BlackBerry affair and the BlackBerry Messenger for the Android and iOS did not make its appearance on the suggested date.