Anything that pops in and that is worth immortalizing.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
We're Brothers Forever
While waiting for YouTube to send me my confirmation email, let me start writing this post. I missed Renaldo (or Reynaldo?) Lapuz' audition on American Idol. I only saw it on YouTube. And I was surprised to see other people "covering" it. So, I thought I'd share them with you, if you haven't seen them.
I was initially planning to embed the videos one by one but I thought I'd seen some blogs where they had some sort of slideshow at the bottom of the screen, allowing them to share a collection of videos in just one frame. So, here I am. I gave in and signed up for a YouTube account just so I could create a playlist. I'm just guessing that that's the feature I want. If not, well, it doesn't hurt to have a free account anyway.
Let me check my email now... brb.
k... I'm back. Here it is:
I hope it works. You're supposed to be able to hover your mouse over the bottom part of the window or just click the button right next to the Play/Pause button to see the other video "thumbnails". But I think they will just play in succession if you don't do anything.
This is just a sampling of what's out there. It's become quite a phenomenon... on YouTube at least. You'll see all sorts of covers... both serious and (very!) funny. They really cracked me up.
No offense to Mang Renaldo. I actually like the song. I can't make out the words toward the last part though. I don't think any of the above people do, either.
I'm quite envious, actually. People got to hear (and cover) his composition. Time to prep for next year's auditions. :)
Pardon the uncreative title. Serves me right for not posting more often. I end up posting about diverse stuff and not being able to come up with a good title to capture all of them.
Jed lost his first baby tooth the other day. And guess what, his tooth fairy(ies) was/were a little too generous. They didn't know that most other kids get just a quarter apiece. Lesson learned. ;)
Janelle has started going to preschool. One time, when I picked her up, there was this classmate who just started talking to the two of us. And he kept saying "he" when he was referring to Janelle. Janelle finally corrected him: "Actually, it's she". :)
Here are a couple more Janellisms.
We always forget that Thursday is her sharing day. Yesterday, when I picked her up, she said it was her sharing day. I said sorry and asked her what she had shared. "I shared my jacket." Hahaha! The teachers might have suggested it but it was really funny how she said it.
She didn't want to take a shower today. When her Lola said she'd tell her mom, she said, "She won't get super-mad." Yeah, just a little, sweetie. :)
Oh, and I now remember how she outsmarted me that one night. We were at the table having dinner and she was eating some salty food. And I told her too much of it wasn't good for her body. But during that time, she had just been advised by her pedia to eat salty stuff to retain liquid in her body. I believe that was when she was throwing up due to some virus. The thing was, we had forgotten about it. But she didn't. So she said, "But Daddy, Dr. xxx said I should eat salty food."
I think I now know where the Filipino word "tiyan" (tummy) might have come from - from the Chinese word "dantian", which points to some section in the tummy area. That's just my theory.
Here are some more:
1. "appear" - from "up here" 2. "bwisit" - from "b.s." (you know, the bad word) 3. "hirit" - from "hit it" 4. "susmaryosep" - obviously, from "Jesus, Maria, Joseph"
As you may know though, the Americans did get at least one word from Tagalog - "boondocks", from "bundok" (mountain).
Just wanted to make sure you notice our new family photo on the right. :) But that's about it for now. Sorry, my posts are few and far between. I cannot promise to post more often but I'll try (as usual).
Oh, I took out the link to Yahoo! Photos because it's no longer in service. Gotta find a new provider.
Oh, one more thing. Our friend Kristine recently forwarded me a link to a news article. Milla Jovovich just gave birth to a baby girl. They named her Ever Gabo. How about that? The comments posted by people were mixed. Some loved it. Others bashed it. The rest just didn't care. :) One interesting thing I learned, Ever is a common name in Latin countries. I never would have known. I've also confirmed that it is unisex. Some people even prophesied that it will become more and more popular in time. We shall see.
Oh, two more things. Hehe... Sorry, these things just keep popping in. Jed is being promoted to yellow-orange belt today. So I gotta hurry. I haven't taken a shower... too much information there. Janelle has started going to preschool. And she's doing mighty fine. She outsmarted me last night but I can't remember what it was that she said. I'll post again when I remember. I'm sure Jing or Mama does. I'll ask them.
Ever since I saw that Hubble Deep Field video (see my earlier post just a couple of days ago), thoughts about life on other planets have been "haunting" me. Gotta nip this in the bud or I'd go crazy. Well, I don't have to forget about it. But I definitely have to stop obssessing about it.
Anyway, so, I thought of googling UFO's and I found one very comprehensive site, UFO Casebook. It has links to photos and videos, among others. And one thing that really caught my attention was the recent sightings here in California. But from what I've read, it seems to be man-made. You be the judge. The whole story is on Isaac's site. It's a long read. I've only scanned some of it actually but it's really, really interesting.
On another topic, I recently found out about a Filipino horror movie being remade in Hollywood. Well, it's being shot in Canada and New York. I haven't seen the original (Sigaw) but some friends have and they said it was good. Here's a link to the director's blog. Yes, the same Filipino guy is directing the Hollywood version, Direk Yam Laranas... hehe... he doesn't want to be called "Direk", I've learned. Iza Calzado will be playing the same role she did in the original while Jesse Bradford will be the lead, which was played by Richard Gutierrez. I look forward to seeing this. I should see the original first. It should be fun comparing the two versions.
Warning: There's a brief comic intermission sometime around 1.5 minutes into the clip. I had to fast-forward to skip it so I'm not sure if there was anything objectionable. I doubt it.
Our planet, our solar system, our galaxy, are but teeny tiny parts of the universe. So, there's a strong likelihood that one of the other planets out there is like Earth, possibly way more advanced than us. While I was watching the video, I actually teared up when I realized that we could have gazillions of brethren out there, just like us. Isn't that a fascinating thought? It reminded me of the movies Stargate and of course, Contact. I wonder if psi can help us communicate with them. This interconnectedness among all of us should extend beyond the Milky Way. I actually honestly think we can communicate with them remotely. K... I'm going to stop right here lest you think I'm going crazy. I've read enough about "consciousness" these past few years that I could spend an entire day or more blogging about it. But I choose not to at this point. Let's not go there yet. :)
Oh, by the way, I also read about this new Earth-like planet encircling the red dwarf star Gliese 581 that was discovered just this year. So, I guess we're getting closer to finding out.
The Universe never ceases to amaze me. I hope It does the same to you.
k... The first P is Pops Fernandez. I saw her at Linens 'N Things yesterday. Jing didn't since she was at the cashier paying. We had eye-to-eye contact. I had been hearing three Pinays talking while I was looking at something... I forget what it was. Then, I looked up and right across from me was Pops, also looking at me, smiling. My face was like, "Oh, you're Pops". After a second or so, we both looked away. I bet she had been waiting for me to look her way. :) Yeah, I have that effect on women. I remember Harlene Bautista stealing a second look back in UP. Hehe... k... stopping the self-flattering now.
Pops looked real pretty and actually looked younger than me. I'm pretty sure she's a few years older. She looked real petite, too. I thought she was tall. I guess I'd look tall on TV, too. :) Makes me wonder (Maroon 5 song in the background) whether it was really her. She and Kuh will have a concert in Reno (I think) so it's highly probable it was her.
The second P is Publishers Clearing House, or PCH for short. I ended up buying a couple of items for Jed and Janelle last night and man, what burden it was! How do they expect people to put up with all those instructions? Well, I did but that's only because I really wanted those items. I had to put six stickers on six different places. Why oh why do we need those steps? I just don't get it, except maybe, to let people miss something and that would be ground for disqualification in the event that they win.
I have a third P due to the second one but I'll keep it to myself. :)
Oh, I do have another "P"... pocket. I have been shopping around for a front pocket wallet (I'm a recent convert) and ran into the Slimmy ones by Koyono.com. I'm thinking of getting the ViewSlimmy. Quite pricey but the reviews on Amazon are good. Nothing came up on eBay though. I saw some "ALL-ETT"'s on there but I don't like that look.(Update: I also just found walletbe.com. Now I can't decide.)
Peace (another P and last one for this post... ooh, there's another), Ever
09/05 Update: After much agonizing over the matter, I decided to get WalletBe (the classic one with the outer id). I kinda still like having individual slots for my cards. Plus, the founder of Dimo Gear himself, Mr. Dimataris, replied to my inquiries. I also had one very kind gentleman help me out by even taking a picture of the inside of his own WalletBe (same type I ordered) for me. I haven't heard anything from the Koyono folks. :( I'm still itching to try Slimmy though. Oh well. Maybe later.
09/06 Update: Koyono support has responded to my inquiry. Fyi, if they haven't updated their site, for the ViewSlimmy, you fold the bills in half, not in thirds. Must have been a copy & paste error from the SlimSlimmy page. Well, it's too late anyway for me, unless WalletBe turns out to be not right for me. They have a 30-day return policy. We'll see.
09/11 Update: I got my WalletBe two days after my order. Impressive, eh. It's good. I got rid of my Safeway card (since I can punch in my home phone number anyway) and the Blockbuster card (since they've gotten rid of the ability to trade online envelopes with store rentals, at least for the cheaper plans... like mine), among others. I also got rid of one of my ATM cards since I plan to close that bank account eventually anyway. What else? Ah, I had to part with the photos. :( That's the sad part. But I did make sure I had at least one photo of the four of us. So, I ordered a wallet size of a recent family picture.
My only complaint is the elastic band for the cash. It's not easy at all to stick the cash back in there. I always have to find a table to rest the wallet on. I don't know if I'll develop a technique in time. With the Slimmys, it looks easy. Oh, the card slots are tight but according to Dimo Gear, they should get looser in about thirty days of regular use.
That's about it. I got something to share today but I will add a new a post for it.
We just learned from my bro-in-law who's visiting with his family from Australia that today, Sept. 2nd, is Father's Day in Australia. So, Happy Father's Day to all fathers, Australian or not! :)
It's been a long time, hasn't it? As usual, my excuse is that there have been so many things going on. Life on earth is lightning-paced!
Nothing much. Just thought I'd post something since I added a link to Blingo on the left hand side of this page. If you use Google a lot for your searches, might as well switch to Blingo. It uses Google as the search engine. The twist is that, you may win a prize just by searching. Interested? Join now by clicking on the image. Every time you win a prize, I'll win the same prize. Same thing when you refer your friends. When they win a prize, you win the same prize.
We were at CPK the other day and Jed mistakenly said "California Pizza Chicken". Hahaha... Jing and I make that mistake all the time. I guess we're not the only ones. And I'm now surer than ever that a lot of people do. I wonder why we tend to say "Chicken" instead of "Kitchen".
Speaking of chicken, we were at Great America yesterday and had lunch at some Maggie's chicken house inside there. The fried chicken was supposed to be "famous" according to the big sign plastered on the front of the restaurant. But I didn't think it was any special. In fact, I like Chicken Joy from Jollibee better. I wondered whether there was a real Maggie. Maybe they just made her up to create the "old-fashioned homemade" ambiance. I did like the setting. We were by the window and took great shots, IMO, of them, once in color and again, in sepia. They looked great.
Speaking of pictures (nice segues today, Ever!), Yahoo! Photos is being discontinued... or has been. So, our photo galleries are probably down. I will look for a replacement provider.
My current favorite show, NBC's Heroes, had its season finale last night. It was good. It was sad that the Petrelli brothers had to die. Or did they? We'll see next season, won't we? My theory is that Peter will regenerate and Nathan let him go before he exploded.
I just have the following gripes:
1. Why couldn't Peter fly by himself? k... Someone said on one board that they thought he could only use one power at a time. That could be why. I wish it was more explicit because I'm sure other people are wondering about it, too.
2. Why couldn't Sylar stop Hiro? They could have just let Hiro kill him by surprise. That would have been believable. He could stop the bullets but not Hiro? Or maybe Hiro stopped time. If he did, it wasn't obvious.
3. Did Sylar come back to life and escape down the manhole? Why wouldn't any of them wonder where he was? I'm sure next season's first episode will explain it, too... I hope.
Can't wait for the DVD... and the next season.
CW's Smallville, another one of the few shows I regularly watch, also had its season finale last Thursday. Actually, I'm not sure whether there's a part two of the finale episode. Anyway, for the first time, we saw Chloe's power, which I think is reviving sick/dead people with her tears. But it seems to drain life off her. We also saw the "birth" of Bizarro. Who else would it be, right? Oh, and I don't think Lana died. The white (ice cream?) truck was there for a reason. Lana's learned a lot from the Luthors. :)
One very small gripe I have is that Lionel didn't know that the kryptonite would actually make "Bizarro" stronger. I thought he knew everything that Jor-El did, no? Maybe Jor-El didn't, either.
I just realized that I hadn't posted in a while. This is just to let you guys know that I'm still here. I haven't forgotten about our blog. It's just that there have been so many things going on. It's been crazy.
Oh, one thing that I should mention now before I forget about it (goes and changes title of this entry). We had a couple of birds that tried to nest on top of our fountain in our front porch. When we got home from South Lake Tahoe (where we met up with my college friend, Cynths and her family), we found twigs all over the floor and on the fountain, both on the top ledge and in the water vase (whatever they're called). We thought, either some kid(s) vandalized our porch or birds were trying to nest and got startled when the fountain turned on in the morning. The latter theory was right as the next day, the birds were back. The dad-to-be would fly away every time we opened the door to peek. But the future mom would just stay there sitting and staring back at us. She was so cute. I was even able to capture them on film and take pictures.
We couldn't decide what to do. I had to google about it and found opposing views. Someone mentioned the name "mourning doves" and I instantly thought, hmm, she did look like a dove to me. So, I searched for images and found that they were indeed mourning doves. Among other things, I learned that they're not very good at building a stable nest. That explains the twigs all over the place.
Eventually, my mother-in-law shooed them off and they never came back. I was kinda hoping we could make it work out. You know, they could pay us rent for the use of our porch... heh. Seriously, it would have been nice to host them. However, the place they picked would not be safe. The eggs or the chicks, once hatched, could easily fall into the water or onto the ground. They'd probably not attack us since, another thing I learned, they're not known to do that. I even saw some images by someone who was in the same situation. Unlike us though, he got to keep them in his porch and take pictures until the little ones were full-fledged. Very cute. I'm kinda envious.
Oh well, I did learn a lot about their kind. It was very interesting. Every time the male bird flew, I thought I heard him chirping. It was actually his wings "whistling". Although I didn't hear them sing their song that earned them their name, I heard a sample online. I thought, I'd heard it a lot in movies. Pretty cool, actually.
Man, I've been busy, busy, busy. So many things going on, both at work and outside. This is going to be quick. Let's see...
1. I passed Sun's SCJP exam. Yeah, I'm now certified by both Microsoft and Sun. The Java exam, although the coverage was narrower than Microsoft's 70-536, was actually tougher. In almost every question, among the choices were, "the code will not compile" and/or "there will be a runtime error". It's that picky. So, you really have to dissect the code to be sure. No wonder the passing is like what, 59%, I believe. They don't expect people to ace it. My score was 87% (if I remember it right) and I believe I had 9 mistakes (out of 72). Not bad, is it?
2. I'm now also a commissioned California Notary Public and a Certified Loan Signing Agent. Yeah, my non-technical alter ego. :) I've been busy preparing for my first loan signing, which I hope will happen soon. I didn't think the preparation was going to be a chore. But I'm now all set. There's just a couple more things I'm waiting on but they're not showstoppers. Bring it on!
3. Jed also has his own achievement. He's been promoted to Math 3. He's still in Grade 1, mind you. That's my boy! Oh, on Jeopardy, last week or so, he was able to answer another question. It was like, the part of the skull that houses the brain. He shouted, "Cranium!". And how right was he! While I knew "cranium", it didn't come to mind (no pun intended) at that time.
4. Janelle, too. She's now potty-trained. Yippee! Goodbye, diapers! Well, she still wears them at night just in case. Oh, she's got some funny moments. One early morning, we were in the kitchen. I asked her, "Why are you up so early?". And she replied, "I'm downstairs." Get it? Also, whenever she weighs herself and weighs more than last time, she would say "I win!". And that's because "win" is the opposite of "lose". She thinks losing weight is like losing in a game.
5. Speaking of weight, Jing has finally used the treadmill... once :) She's now also going to try to get back into the workforce now that my parents-in-law are here. Oh yeah, I had not mentioned that. They flew in January 12th. Anyway, you can do it, honey! I believe in you. :) (P.S. I'm referring to both the treadmill and the job hunt.) Btw, for some reason, whenever I lose weight, she also does. I exercise, she doesn't. I guess I'm exercising for her as well. Hmm, I wonder if I can make a profession out of that. Pay me to exercise for you. You'll lose weight. Guaranteed.
6. Where's George notified me that one of my bills got picked up again. However, as I type this, the site won't display the updated statistics so I can't go into the specifics. What I do remember is that the bill has gone to Iowa (I think) and it's now back in California. I believe I got the bill more than a year ago.
That wasn't quick, was it? k... time to snore. 'Til next update.
