Thirty-first

One month down, eleven to go. The first month of 2010 have been very busy both at work and with my friends. This month was great and I am thankful that I was able to start my year on a positive note. Another thing I am thankful for is the downpour of writing assignments I've been getting every week. I still need to write two articles about life insurance quote and there are six more on queue.

Anyways, aside from the blogging tasks that I hope I do a lot of this year, I also want to learn how to make this:

Droll fest

Now, I don't really care if I'd be writing some boring news article about insurance quote, this Rolling Stone photo of John Mayer made my day! H-O-T.

Just one more day and I'll tear a page on my desktop calendar that says January. I started 2010 the best way I have started any year of my adult life. Been surrounding myself with the best people around for the past couple of weeks that's why I'll be ending this month on a happy note.

Birthday Gift

I love bringing home little gifts for my father. He has been a house husband for the past eight years and being good at that. He wakes up every 5am to drive me to the shuttle terminal and then takes care of my two other brothers before going to school and work. He also manages to help out the neighbors from time to time, making him the best one to come for help if there's something wrong with their sink or something similar. Taking care of us everyday makes him deserve little rewards, plus I really like seeing him so giggly everytime I tell him that I got him a pasalubong. His smile is priceless. Last Christmas, I was successful giving him the gift that he wanted: a new pair of leather shoes. He regularly serves as a lay minister at the local parish and he always wear leather shoes, hence the Christmas wish list.

His birthday is August, and I am thinking of what to give him. My mother suggested years ago that I should buy him a watch since he likes wearing one all the time. I was looking at this site where they sell the best replica watches. One design that caught my eye is the fake rolex submariner watch which looks fine for a replica watch. Other designs featured on the site would definitely knock off rolex and other expensive designer watches. Been browsing the site for a while now and I thought Do I really want to give my father a replica watch? It's affordable, yes. The quality must be not state-of-the-art, but it does look great. *thinks...

Anyways, I still have a couple of months to think and decide what gift I would give my father this year. A watch is an option, and another pair of jeans maybe...

A Page From The Past 02

Kid Makes It To The Top Of The World
By Maria Zobel Certeza
Philippine Daily Inquirer, August 03, 2002

A Page From The Past

Harry Potter By Two

by Luigi Baroa and Bhel Certeza (that’s me n_n)
The Philippine Daily Inquirer, January 26, 2003

Life Unexpected

I remember watching each and every episode of Gilmore Girls. The banter between the mother-daughter tandem of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, played by Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel respectively, is seamless, smart and entertaining. The lovely scenario of generation gap interpreted through the war of words between the two is really something to look forward to every week. But the fun ended which I believe was so soon some three years ago when the show aired its last season.

Life Unexpected, the new show from the same producers as Gilmore Girls, promises the same smart sarcasm that Lorelai and Rory had, and a lot more.

I read an article about Life Unexpected while researching about quick weight loss, sharing that this new series has a Juno-meets-Gilmore-Girls feel to it. Here’s a quick synopsis of the show from Variety.com:

About to turn 16, foster child Lux ("Swingtown's" talented Brittany Robertson) learns she must obtain signatures from her biological parents in order to become emancipated. So she hunts down her dad, Nate (Kristoffer Polaha), who is now running a bar, has a bit of a Peter Pan complex and is understandably flummoxed to meet the girl he fathered with the unfortunately named Cate Cassidy (Shiri Appleby) in high school.

Cate now co-hosts a local morning radio show with her boyfriend, Ryan ("Dawson Creek's" Kerr Smith), and she's equally flustered when Lux waltzes into her life. Yet the plans for a quickie emancipation conveniently evaporate (or else there would be no series), and Cate and Nate reluctantly assume shared custody of their long-lost seed.

Series creator Liz Tigelaar ("What About Brian") falls back on all the tired tropes of the genre, from the squabbling between Nate and Cate (nope, it doesn't sound any less silly that way) to Lux's alternating precociousness and neediness. What makes a family is a potent theme, but "Life" never gets much beyond glib banter and after-school special territory.

For all that, Robertson and the still-adorable Appleby (a graduate of "Roswell," which played on both WB and UPN) nearly save things with their moist eyes and innate likability. If only the show didn't keep stumbling into cliches like Lux's tough friends and Nate's disapproving parents at each new episodic turn -- or empower Lux to repeatedly lecture adults about the art of parenting, which will likely make anybody out of their teens want to throw up.

So despite its modest merits, "Life" ultimately spends most of its time paddling in the shallow end of the dramatic gene pool. And based on the CW's recent track record, that wasn't entirely unexpected.

Early Insurance

NC short term health insurance or other similar services might one of the things I should start securing. I am not getting any younger, and I am not seeing myself getting tied up soon. Better plan things ahead and secure my future, right? Starting an insurance account was suggested by a number of friends for the past three years, but only decided to really look in to it now. Hope I can get the one that has the best deal out there.

Glee Girls At The Globes

The recently concluded Golden Globe awards is most special for the whole cast and crew of Glee. The show and its cast were nominated in three categories; Lea Michelle for Best Actress in a Comedy; Matt Morrison for Best Actor in a Comedy and the show for Best New Comedy.

Here are the girls all glamed-up and definitely won't be needing a face wrinkle cream anytime soon. The two cast members who were nominated didn’t win, but the show was the night’s victor as it was honored as the Best New Comedy of the year.

Post-Meetup

I don’t really have that much expectation when I organized the UdD Tumblr Meetup. The Tumblelog is barely five months old and was only able to have 280+ followers before the meetup. It was the first time for me to organize a gathering such as that that I said to myself not to look forward to something huge, like everyone who follows the blog would come, things like that.

Only seven members made it to Saguijo, but it sure did made me happy that there are people who responded to the invitation. n_n

Armi, Pol, Ean and Carlos thanked me for all the effort I did for the event like sending and texting invites, preparing the list of the followers and giving out badges, not only to those Tumblr followers who attended, but also to the other fans who were there that night as well. The place was packed! The gig was scheduled on the 15th, but Up Dharma Down was only able to play around 2am which was already the 16th. Still, the volume of people inside Saguijo was the same as it was, and even more, when the event started at 11pm. It was great that the crowd kept the energy and sang along to every song that the band played that night…erm…morning.

Here’s one decent photo I have of the event. I took a couple of pictures, but most of it were blurred because of the lack of space to even move an arm.
 
This is Armi (who won't be needing the best fat burner anytime soon) doing the thing that she love the most, and the jam packed Saguijo.

Prepared

It’s tonight.

The Meetup I organized for the followers of the UdD Tumblelog will be happening tonight at Saguijo. I e-mailed those who responded to the RSVP and said to be there around 10PM. Thought of buying a clipboard to make it easier for me to get the attendees’ names and not forget anything like how I normally forget to take multivitamins.

Do drop by if you have time. It’s gonna be a great night of good music and good crowd at Saguijo. Php 150 gets you in with a free drink.

Badges

Organizing a Meetup sort of gave good pressure on my part. I was the mastermind of Up Dharma Down's Tumblelog that I thought of suggesting our first activity; an "eye ball" as they are fondly called in pre-historic times hehe. I e-mailed Tumblr about this Friday’s Tumblr Meetup at Saguijo. One of their staff replied and said they’re glad we’ll be having a Meetup and would send us their Meetup kit as soon as possible. Yes, you heard me right, Tumblr has an exclusive Meetup Kit (inclusive of pins, stickers, nametags and table markers) that they send out to people who informs them about gatherings sparked by Tumblr. Of course it would be impossible for the Meetup Kit to be in the mail anytime soon so I decided to design my own pin to give to UdD Tumblelog followers who’d be in attendance.

I created the design in between listing a few ideas on what to write about adipex p, and came up with a simple design. I looked for a printing company online and found one that makes them for only Php10 a piece. I sent them the designs yesterday and got the badges today. n_n

Posted this on the Tumblr site and got a few excited response.

Tumblr Meetup

Been really busy for the past five days organizing the Tumblr Meetup. It will be for the followers of the Tumblelog I created for Up Dharma Down. I guess it's now an official Tumblr page of the band since Armi, Pol, Ean and Sir Toti started following it. I was also browsing MP3 players in between sending e-mails and checking the RSVP page. My 5-year-old iPod nano had been very moody these past few months, spending most of her time on snooze mode and not giving me the chance to enjoy my music, hence the portable player hunt.

Going back to the Tumblr Meetup, I asked the ooompa-loompas to print pins for the Meetup. Tumblr will be sending their official Meetup kit, but it definitely won't reach us in time for the 1st Meetup, so I decided to design my own pin.

Do drop by if you have no plans on Friday.

Step Juan

Happy New Year! First post for the year 2010 :) How’s the new year going for you? Today was the first day of work after my two-week long holiday vacation. There were a couple of tasks from clients, like a 300-word article on Backwoods cigars, when I checked my personal Inbox this morning before breakfast. I also had a lot of e-mails from our boss about the developments of our current project in my office mail Inbox. Our team spent most of the day at the small conference room brainstorming about the new project we will be working on this year. We've accomplished a lot and we had fun doing it. I learned a whole lot of new things too. It was a great first day of work for 2010. :)

Anyways, I just got home, ate dinner and now doing my regular Tumblr dashboard browsing. I came across this post by one siegemalvar about his friend, Tomas Leonor. Leonor plans to do the unthinkable on January 11: he will travel from the top of Pagudpud to the tip of Sorsogon on foot for Cancer awareness .

I do not know the exact length in kilometers, but this brave man will walk for a total of 40 days to reach his goal of raising awareness for the Cancer Warriors Foundation, an organization that supports the needs of children afflicted by cancer. The post include a page scan from a magazine with a short write-up about Leonor. 

If you want to know more about Step Juan, and if you would like to support Leonor’s journey, siegemalvar and his friends are throwing a send-off party for him tomorrow, January 05, 8pm at The House of Runes along West Ave., Quezon City. A fishbowl will be passed around to raise funds for Leonor and his journey. Any amount will be appreciated. 

Great way to start 2010 on a good vibe. Spread the word.