Happy Birthday Henry! Saturday, January 31, 2009

Happy Birthday Henry!
I love you.

Spottt Friday, January 30, 2009

I'm trying out Spottt.

It's sort of like Entrecard in a way, and you get free links when you display links on your site. I like it a lot better than Entrecard since it doesn't take too long to load, and the pictures are quite nice. I got to upload pictures of me and the kids as the display on the button, and I just love looking at my Spottts.

I hope everything turns out well with Spottt, as I'm really working on generating more traffic for my site.

What's Up with PayPerPost? Wednesday, January 28, 2009

I don't know if it's just me, but I've been getting some weird opps over at PPP. Not that I'm complaining, but it's just that I'm weirded out with opps that pay $2.50 for 100 words with a link, and there was even one that charged less than a dollar for 200 words! WTF?!?!

But there were other opps that paid less than a dollar, but there's no minimum number of required words - so pretty much a one liner would do the trick, and I'm fine with that. BUt 200 words for less than a dollar really left me shocked.

Oh well, just wanted to let the rest of the blogging world know.

Happy Chinese New Year! Monday, January 26, 2009

Happy Chinese New Year!

For Twitter Users Sunday, January 18, 2009

Hi Twitter users! Please visit ted on twitter. I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Taken Sunday, January 18, 2009

Henry and I just finished watching this movie right in the comfort of our living room. The title is Taken, and it stars Liam Neeson. The story is about a dad who has a 17 year old daughter who is kidnapped in Paris. Liam Neeson is a former CIA who is very skilled in hand combat and is a no-BS type of person.

He follows each lead he has leading to his daughter, and killing everybody that stands in his way. Eventually he is reunited with his daughter and is able to take her home.

I won't be divulging any more details of the movie to avoid future spoilers, but all I can say is the movie is great. Liam Neeson had this expression on his face that seemed like nothing could surprise him. Plus, when he killed the people responsible for kidnapping his daughter, it sent me in an upright position rooting for him. I actually liked the carnage because should anything similar happen to my kids, I would probably end up doing the same.

Do watch Taken, it's a great movie. The storyline is fast but enough that you'll get the details of the story, and it's not boring - no long talks, no excessive crying drama scenes, instead you'll get a full action packed story that touches your heart.

While we were watching, Henry commented that Liam Neeson's character seemed to have no care for his own well-beiing, the way he went for the kidnappers. I said, "It's because his daughter means everything to him. Without her, he's got nothing to lose."

Show your blog at Acobay today! Sunday, January 18, 2009

I just stumbled across a new social network called Acobay, and it's absolutely fun! All you'll need to do are:

1) Go to http://www.acobay.com
2) Have a look at About page so you get to know what Acobay is (http://www.acobay.com/about)
3) Register a user account.
4) Share your blog as a stuff under "Anything" category
5) Add as many stuff as you like to My Stuff. Doing so will build your network at Acobay.

Of course, the more stuff you share and the more people you connect with means more visits to your blog! You can connect with people in different ways - be it the car you drive, places you've been to, movies you've watched, and so on. The concept is really original and innovative, and I'm already going off to share more stuff at Acobay! See you there!

New Moon - The Novel Sunday, January 18, 2009

I just finished reading Stephenie Mayer's New Moon, the author of Twilight. The story revolves around Bella Swan, Edward Cullen, and Jacob Black. It's sort of a love triangle between the three of them, and in this novel, Edward decides to leave Bella for her to enjoy a normal human life.

Since Bella is literally crazily, head over heels in love with Edward (and who wouldn't be?!), her life is literally left a mess when Edward decides to leave her. As her dad Charlie aptly put it, "It was like night of the living dead." Bella would have nightmares every night and wake up screaming, and also threw herself into doing crazy things just so she could hear Edward's voice in her head. So you could pretty much say she was having delusions and hearing voices.

Her childhood friend Jacob Black who's always been in love with her, helps her climb out of the hole she's crawled into, and Bella finds herself falling in love with Jacob. But she has this nagging feeling that she's just settling for the person who's available, and she doesn't want Jacob to love her because she sees herself as a wreck.

Bella is visited by Laurent, a vampire from Twilight who wants to kill her, and she is saved by Jacob and his pack who turns out to be werewolves. Alice, Edward's sister who can see the future, suddenly drops for a visit and puts Bella's life into a spin again. Since she saw Bella jump off a cliff when in reality she was just cliff diving, Edward decides to go to the Volturi, a really old clan of vampires, and requests to end his existence. In a mad dash, Bella and Alice save Edward from the Volturi and leave Jacob behind. The Volturi agreed to free them but under one condition. Since Bella already knew too much about their existence, she would need to be turned into a vampire.

The lovers are reunited, with Jacob busting Bella's motorcycle to her dad, under the hopes of getting Bella grounded so that she wouldn't have time to spend with Edward. Jacob didn't know that Bella was already grounded, which was also the reason why she couldn't visit Jacob anymore. I liked the part when Edward said his thanks to Jacob for saving Bella several times when he wasn't around, and the entire Cullen family are back and Edward swears to never again leave Bella.

Of course, Bella and the entire Cullen family are aware of what the future holds her. They can't escape the Volturi who would eventually come looking for them and see if Bella was already turned, Victoria was still hunting Bella, and Jacob is still hoping that Bella would love him back. So there, I guess that's enough spoilers already.

What I did not like about this book is how Bella decides in a snap to leave Jacob behind and choose Edward again. All of the feelings she's held for Jacob are forgotten in a flash and she goes back to her dreams of being part of the Cullen family and to hell with everything else. I just can't believe how easy it was for her to welcome Edward back into her arms after everything she put him through. Oh well, I guess love really does make people do crazy things. I'm looking forward to reading the 3rd book in the Twilight series and we'll see what happens then.

On Web Hosting Reviews Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Have you guys heard of green hosting? It's a totally new way of web hosting which also considers the environment in doing so. Green web hosting is great for a lot of obvious reasons. Similar to when your office uses recycled paper, you'll feel good about your role in saving the Earth, since green web hosts use alternative/renewable energy, plant trees, recycling waste, and purchase renewable energy credits to power their data centers.

I'm seriously considering buying a domain for all of my 4 blogs, but I am unsure what web host I would choose to host my blogs. I would still be using the Blogger interface I have grown so accustomed to, but to have a .com of my own is something that I guess I should have done a year ago.

This site I came across, called Web Hosting Geeks, reviews and rates different web hosts. There are reviews of the top 10 web hosts for multiple domain web hosting, best budget hosting, and other classifications of web hosts and their corresponding reviews.

So if you're looking into getting your own domain, do check out the reviews at Web Hosting Geeks. Everything you need to know about a web host - cost, customer service, technical support - is right in your fingertips. So read what other people have to say about a certain web host before you put your money into it.

10 Best Moments of the Year Tuesday, January 13, 2009

For today, I wanted to list down 10 best moments of 2008. They're not in any particular order, so here they are:

• Henry and I celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary
• Keisha celebrating her 5th birthday at Star City
  
• Nicole turning 1
• The surprise birthday party my sister and I planned for our mom
• Me turning 25
• Christmas where I bought lots and lots of presents for my family
• Our company Christmas Party at SMX Convention Center
• Being promoted as QA
• Buying a new ref
• Buying a new LCD monitor

So that's it! Some of these events are memorable for me because they're things I've always wanted to do, or things that I've always wanted to buy. And some are moments that mark milestones in my life.

How about you guys? Can you list 10 of your best moments for 2008?

SpitzTunes -- Happy New Year! Sunday, January 11, 2009

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Thursday, January 08, 2009

Now this is a great movie.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett where a man is born old and ages in reverse. Imagine being in your 50's and looking like a teenager.

I really pity the life Benjamin Button lived. He never got to enjoy his childhood because he looked old, and when he was getting older he was looking more and more younger. He saw how the people around him were getting older and dying but he was in reverse.

He and Cate Blanchett eventually have a daughter whom Brad Pitt chooses to leave because "she needs a father, not a playmate." He eventually returns, but under different circumstances.

The story is told from the journal of Benjamin Button, whom his unknowing daughter reads out to her mother's deathbed. I loved how the movie progressed in story, and how Benjamin began to lose everyone around him, and how he kept looking younger and younger and younger. Imagine Brad Pitt in his teens. Yum.

With everything said, this is a movie that you really should watch. I won't spoil the ending for everyone who hasn't watched the movie yet, but really, go watch it.

The Day the Earth Stood Still Wednesday, January 07, 2009

I've loved Keanu Reeves ever since Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, not to mention The Matrix, so it was but natural that I wanted to watch the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still.

The movie starts in 1928 with a guy who looks a lot like Keanu who's in a sort of what looks like a snow storm. He finds a big sphere, bigger than himself, and manages to crack the surface and puts his hand through. The man finds himself waking up, the sphere gone and a scar that looks like a circle in his hand.

The movie then moves to the present with Jennifer Connelly (whom I also liked in A Beautiful Mind and unfortunately, only in that movie) who is a doctor being taken by military personnel along with other people - other doctors, engineers, all seeming to play a role of somekind. As it turns out, there's something big that's going to hit the Earth and just might cause doom for all mankind. To everyone's suprise, instead of the monstrous impact everyone was expecting, a sphere lands in Manhattan and Keanu is in it. He apparently wanted to know whether humans could change and stop destroying the planet. If not, he'd just destroy mankind instead.

How and what and if he changed his mind will be up to you to find out if you watch the movie. However, I disliked the movie and thought of a lot of loose ends. For one thing, who was the guy back in 1928 who looked a lot like Keanu? Was it him? If so, how did he become an extraterrestrial being? What happens to all of the species that were in the other spheres that took off? And what happens to Keanu?

Effects - wise, the movie is fine, but it's just one of those movies you can't make me watch again, even if you force me to. Or bribe me to. I honestly didn't find any juice to the movie, aside from the expressed notion that we are the ones who are causing all the damage to our planet, and we really should change our ways.

Twilight - The Movie Monday, January 05, 2009

I've been in love with Twilight the movie ever since I saw the trailer, and even more when I saw the movie. Right now, I'm reading Twilight the book, but to be honest, I sort of like the movie better. I've been reading the first book and as expected by many books - turned - to - movies, the story in the book is different than in the movie.

Story - wise, I have nothing to complain about the book nor the movie. But what I do have to comment is Stephenie Mayer's style of writing. Is it just me or is it that the way she writes did not move me the same way other novels I've read before had? I was looking to create a mental picture of some scenes in my mind with her words, but I was unable to do so. I didn't even raise any goosebumps in the parts that were supposed to be romantic. But I do give her credit for coming up with a story that was welcomed by many.

So there, I'd still read all four novels and wait for Midnight Sun as well, but I'll be looking forward to the movies more.

New Year's Resolution Sunday, January 04, 2009

I've always thought that New Year's resolutions were for people who wanted to do something but just couldn't get around to doing it, so they're using the new year as an excuse to finally do it. But the optimist in me (whoa, there is?) just finally decided to jump into the wagon with everyone else and decided to make a New Year's resolution for myself. It's actually pretty simple, but it's pretty hard.

1. and only 1.
I resolve to lose 43 pounds this year.

Yeah right. I've been telling myself this for months and months already, but hey guess what? Today is the 4th day since New Year's Eve that I haven't eaten any rice yet. I've been feeding myself wheat bread, oatmeal, fruits, and other sorts of food people who are supposedly on a diet eat. I resolve to lose 43 pounds because right now, I weigh 143 pounds, or 63 kilos. I'm only 5 feet, so I'm already overweight for my height. I used to weigh between 90 - 100 pounds before I gave birth to my eldest Keisha, so I am hoping that I'll get that weight back.

To be honest, I'm constantly hungry, but not hungry in a bad way. What I'm feeling is sort of an un-satisfaction of sorts. I guess being used to rice since I was born and suddenly taking it out of my diet is a challenge. But I will be firm in doing this and weekly, I'll monitor my weight and see if this torture I have voluntarily enforced upon myself has any effect.

So there, wish me luck!

A New Year, A New Blog Thursday, January 01, 2009

Hey everyone!

We've decided to start a blog for Nicole. We thought this new blog would be great way to start the New Year. So here's to Life with Nicole, and expect more posts and pictures in the coming days. Don't forget to drop by Rant and Rave, Something and Nothing at All, and Life with Keisha!

Cheers!

Happy New Year everyone!

Happy New Year! Thursday, January 01, 2009

Happy New Year to everyone!
May this year be a great year for all of us.