Get Hosted

I have been contemplating on getting my own domain and getting a web host. I spend some minutes going around sites which offer web hosting. Sometimes it gets too tiring to search especially when one, like me, maximizes time while online. It helps to have a directory of web hosts one can choose from.

It's a good thing there is a a guide to web hosting that in one click one can have a list of hosts to choose from. Explore http://www.webhostingchoice.com to experience the ease of choosing what web host will suit you. It is very convenient to see all the significant details of the different web hosts in a very organized manner. There is also a plans directory where one can check provisions for specific features. Another plus point is the Learning Center navigation where one can learn the basics of web hosting. Great for newbies like me.

Going to http://www.webhostingchoice.com makes your time more productive while in deep thought of what web host to finally sign up.

This is a sponsored post.

A Fun Mess

My parents and the rest of my family living in another country love sending us packages of just about anything every now and then, mostly gifts for my daughter. One of the holiday presents my mom gave to my daughter is a scrapbook set. My daughter excitedly opened them upon receiving them. She eagerly cut, pasted, designed, stamped and what-have-you the pages of the scrapbook. It was a little messy on the table but it's fine with me. She's enjoying these kinds of activities and I encourage it. It helps bring out her creativity. :)




See more messy stuff here. Happy photo hunting! :)
I'm off for some groceries and meeting some friends after. I'll continue going around the messy photos later tonight. :) Have fun!

I Belong!

And so now I am counted as one of the bloggers who wants to grab opportunities while enjoying blogging. Why not? I have been contemplating on this since last year but it's only now that I have finally sit down and understand all the guidelines that require to sign up at PayPerPost.

I often see PayPerPost badges in most blogs. This partly encouraged me to try it. And as I read the guidelines, I see clearly that PayPerPost is committed to both their advertisers and the bloggers that sign up. To immerse myself more, I also went through the site's word of mouth ethics. As it points out, "it aims to protect both the blogger and the company from giving anyone the impression of a conflict of interest or the appearance of impropriety." It is a win-win situation!

I have made a pact with myself not to make monetizing my blog a burden nor feel the pressure of posting. I want to enjoy what I post. Signing up at PayPerPost gives me this confindence of choosing from the opportunities I feel I can very well relate to. Thus writing and posting about them comes off as a fun activity. At the same time I am able to give good information to my readers about a certain product or service.

Now what am I going to do with the money that I am going to earn from PayPerPost? Extra money is always welcome. They can either add to my monthly savings or I can use them for some shopping money or unexpected expenses like projects my daughter suddenly asks for school. I am pretty excited about all the opportunities that I can get from PayPerPost. I bet you would want to try this too after reading this. :)

Far from the Madding Crowd

We went to Olongapo last Friday and had an overnight stay at Subic. Subic is a forested area where monkeys are free to roam around the stretch of the road. Warning signs are up so that motorists are aware to give way to the monkeys when they cross the road. Also, monkeys are not to be fed by passersby.

The monkeys are cute actually. Most of the people slow down to take their pictures. The monkeys tend to show off and some go even near the cars. I don't want them jumping on me so I took their pictures from afar and with our car windows up. :)



A break from the city traffic.

See the monkeys along the road.

Sitting pretty. :)
I do not observe Christmas but boy I have been busy since the start of the holidays, how much more those who are all agog for the Christmas eve. :) If you need to relax from all the hustle and bustle, you can check out Weekend Snapshot participants.

Happy Holidays! :)

Merry Lights

I was out of town and got back a few hours ago. I've to run to another activity after arriving home. Would I miss photo hunt? No, especially I like the theme for this week - Lights. So many lights wherever I go. It's the holidays. I took light here as brightness or illumination. Oh so many of them. :)

Oh, it's a humungous tree! I'm not sure how tall it is but it seems like as high as a five story building.


Even the road leading to the tree is well-lit. The trees are screaming with beautiful lights.



You may visit other photo hunters if you want to see more light.

Movie Talk

I have been meaning to catch up with the movies I have missed since God knows when. My top of mind movies I've watched this year(no editing, just what comes to mind as I post this) which I'd like to share in my Thursday Thirteen community.


Some are new, a few are old, some I have recently watched, some I have watched several times.

1. Ratatouille. So far the most enjoyable movie I have watched this year. I thought it will be just one of those movies only children as young as my daughter could enjoy. I specifically love the scenes in the kitchen.

2. 1408. It stars John Cusack. It stops there. He is the only saving grace of this movie. Weirdness beckons so one night I asked hubby to watch 1408 before we sleep. I'd like a little scare. Duh. Major disappointment. It's supposed to be a psychological thriller. It dragged and dragged until I gave up waiting what is going to happen next.

3. Disturbia. Now that's one good movie. It gave enough suspense to keep me at the edge of my seat. Shia Lebouf is a refreshing sight on the big screen. He carries the role of a goofy but well-meaning young man very well in most of his movies. This movie, though under the suspense genre, is actually light. It could have been one of those Disney movies that can be finished in 30 minutes.

4. Bratz. We were supposed to watch Nancy Drew but it was not anymore showing in Trinoma. We opted for Bratz. I didn't want to watch this thinking it will all be about gadgets, make-up and boys. Not good for my daughter's young mind. Haha. But since I am with my daughter anyway, why not. I can just butt in when a scene needs some parental guidance. Surprisingly, the Bratz' talents were highlighted and not just their different fashion sense and their girly-girl antics.

5. Hair Spray. I love, love Nikki Blonski! She's so alive! John Travolta, as usual, is at his best though too much prosthetics kind of mutated his facial expressions. But for a straight man to act a woman's role convincingly is one great accomplishment.

I have no idea until this move that X-men's Cyclops, James Marsden is such a good singer and dancer. Christopher Walken danced in this movie. Michelle Pfeiffer is still gorgeous at 52. And of course, there is Zac Efron. The boy is growing up to be a fine, young man.

6. Transformers. I am not fond of robotics. My husband has to drag me to the theatre to watch I, Robot. It wasn't bad. I have to say the same thing about Transformers. The trailer of the movie was enough to excite me. The movie did not disappoint me as it gave excitement scene after scene. I specially like the scene where the Ottobots were trying to hide from the bushes and walls of Shia's house. As if they can hide.

7. Snatch. Snatch is one demented movie that I like. Guy Ritchie. I like it when characters interconnect and the story unfolds with each one having to do with another until the story ends.

8. Super Bad. This is like watching Saturday Night Live with the two cops around. If you want some funny movie on teens' escapades, you can grab a copy and laugh your heart out.

9. Spider Man 3. I liked 1 and 2 but I was a little bored with 3. This movie dragged a bit and reminded me more of Fantastic Four what with the Sandman as the antagonist.

10. Zodiac. A lot of people warned me this movie is very disappointing. But did I let them stop me from watching this? No. I actually liked it. I love how a man got so obssesed with identifying who the Zodiac is. I love how the suspense everytime a suspect floats. It's both interesting and disappointing to note that the identity of the Zodiac remained a mystery.

11. High School Musical 2. I like the first one better.

12. Fantastic Four, Rise of the Silver Surfer. Unlike Spider Man, I enjoyed this movie. Maybe because there are no expectations. The movie is short, fast-paced. I know that it's going to be like eating popcorn, there's nothing much to it but it's fun to just munch it.


13. A Street Car Named Desire. I know Marlon Brando from The Godfather. I know him because of all the accolades given to him. But watching this circa 1950 movie convinced me all the more Marlon Brando is such a class act. Brad Pitt can very well take a back seat had Marlon Brando been born in Brad's generation. Oh yes, I talked about Marlon Brando and not the movie. I was so impressed with him in this movie.

To visit other Thursday Thirteen participants, click here. It's the midweek and the holiday rush is so much felt. Enjoy your shopping! :)

Small

What are small, red and oval, some are seedless, some are not. They have this crunchy texture, a little sweet and a good substitute for chips and fries to indulge while deep in work or having your movie marathon.

Of course, no brainer, grapes they are. :)



I want some more so I opened another pack. Delicious.


The picture below is berry-like. My hubby took a shot of this from my Aunt's collection of plants. I'm not really sure what they are called but they look cute in their bright red color. They are small but really eye-catching.


Hope you enjoyed these pretty little things. I'm out the whole morning for a church activity. I'll go around photo hunters later. Enjoy the photo hunt! :)

More Blog Badges

They say what goes around comes around. Look here, I've got badges once again. Blog awards have been going on in the blogosphere and I'm glad to say I've been getting some of them. Thank you very much. :)

This is long overdue but I'd like to thank Julie for giving me my second I Love Your Blog Award. She said "you may not post that much but I can sense you would, when given more time. It is nice to wait for your posts." That felt good. :)


Liza handed me this award.


Bodacious. Iluvet! It's the first time that I encountered this badge. I want to blurt out, "Cowabunga!". Thanks, Liza!

And the next badge I got from Jessie because I commented on one of her posts. Thank you, you're such an appreciative person. A welcome surprise too because Mayi gave me the same Friendship Award.


I'll spread the love and give away these awards too. There are a number of blogs that I love. More often than not I am a silent lurker. I guess I need to comment more. I'd be more open in appreciating posts which I truly like.

I fancy food blogs. I love going to blogs with loads of photos and information about food. Some of the food blogs I frequent are Eating Asia, 80 Breakfasts, Market Manila, Baking Bites, The Girl Who Ate Everything, Chocolate & Zucchini and The Traveler's Lunchbox.

And for the Bodacious blogs, I'd like to give this to Toni. Hers is one of the remarkable blogs that I read. One thing that makes Toni stand out is her sincerity in relating with the visitors in her blog. She's one blogger whose posts radiates positivity. She's a natural.

I'd like to hand this award too to Manilenya. I love her posts for their honesty. Astig! :D From her posts, I could feel she is a very down to earth person with a great sense of humor.

This blog award is perfect for ECL, Eastcoastlife. ECL's posts tells me love life and laugh more. She's a good storyteller and one bubbly person. :)

For the Friendship Badge, let me hand this to Rachel, Feng, Julie, Chats, Salen, Cess. I've met them personally and I could say I feel really comfortable with them. They are nice people and no hang-ups or pretensions. Cowgirls if I may say. Is that word still being used? Haha. One thing we have in common, we are great Pinoy Mommies! :)

I'd like to give the Friendship Badge also to some of my peers in our usual photo hunts and weekend snapshots - Natalie, Carver, Sandy, Gbex, Tricotine and **"Liza"**. I thought memes are just memes, you do them for fun. That's fine, great in fact. But as I continue doing the usual photo hunts, I get to discover new people and I learn interesting snippets of things about them through these weekend staple of mine - going through blogs for photo sharing.

I have to say I get inspired even with the simplest post of how a person's day was or how they had bonding time with their family. Or how the night out with friends went through. Some blogs just make me smile. I love blogging and the bloggers which make blogging worthwhile! :)

I still have tags to do. I'll do them after the weekend memes. :D

Long Walk, Long Strand

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go. I'm standin' here outside your door...If I may borrow these lines from Jewel's song, Leaving on a Jet Plane. We're not leaving here through a jet plane but through the resort's service vehicle.

This was taken from Dos Palmas, the beautiful resort in Palawan. It's early in the morning on our fourth and last day of stay. Baggages were positioned in front of the beach villas so the drivers can pick them up and send them ahead to Puerto Princesa where we are booked in another hotel for the Underground River trip (more on that in another post).


It's a long road from the beach villas going to the resort's reception area. Plus the fact that baggages are heavy with all the souvenirs we bought from the island, I wouldn't want that long walk.

In an unrelated story, fettucinne noodles are somewhat long which makes it a mess sometimes to eat it. I'm teaching my daughter to cut them first and twirl the fork so the noodles won't slide in her fork.



I'll be out after this post. I'll be going around long posts later. :) Happy weekend! :)

Messy Mesa

We had dinner tonight at SumoSam after going around Power Plant to buy my daughter something she needs for school tomorrow. We were so hungry that we finished off our food hardly talking to each other. And what a mess the table is after.

Red

I usually munch on something when deep in school or office work. I veered away from junk foods and started on munching on fruits and vegetables. Red apple is a favorite. Take a bite. :)



Check other REDs here. :)

Hot Cruise

I'd take this week's photo hunt literally. What's hotter than the sun, tell me? :) These were taken during our Sunset Cruise at Subic going to Grande Island. It was a great show of nature.









To see what else is hot, please click here. Happy photo hunting! :)

Overlooking

These pictures were taken at Mines View Park, Baguio City on a Saturday more than a month ago. I took fancy capturing the view of the mountains with the young couple having some sweet moments together.




This was also the day where I did some panic buying of vegetables since they are cheaper and fresher in Baguio. There were some excess broccoli and cauli flowers but they were put into good use before getting stale. I shared about it in a post on Pancit Bato.

You may visit other Weekend Snapshots participants here.

Flexible

I was thinking of what to share for this week's Photo Hunt. It has to be flexible. I thought of rubber bands, my daughter's ballet shoes...I thought of posting spaghetti noodles. My husband recommended his map light in his car, it has a flexible body. Hmm, it doesn't sound interesting to me, haha.

I settled to our hot air balloon pictures no matter how much my hubby talked me out of it. He said these balloons expand but they are not flexible. :D It used to be that it's only me and my daughter decide what pictures to share. Now it has become a family affair. :D






These pictures were taken at the 11th Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta early this year, held at Clark, Pampanga. Suddenly a song enters my mind as I post about this..."up, up and away, in my beautiful, beautiful balloon...". Was this from the Bridgette Jones's Diary soundtrack? Anyway, there's another balloon song when I was in college, 99 Luftballoons by Nena. I love this song back then.

One has to get out of his comfort zone and be flexible and try more adventurous undertakings like riding a hot air balloon. Now that strengthens these hot air balloons' connection with Flexible. :)

Check out other Photo Hunt Flexible participants here. I'll be going around PH participants later, Mommy duties beckon at this time. :)

Plated

There are two picture memes today. One's for Weekend Snapshots and one's for the monthly Pinoy Moms Network sharing of family pictures based on a theme. I wouldn't pass up any of these two so here goes.

See the picture below? Can you tell what it is? It's one of the street foods famous in the Philippines. Street foods are those peddled by ambulant vendors or from an improvised stall along the street but of course. The reputation is not so good in terms of cleanliness in preparation and merchandising but there are some who just cannot resist having a bite. Better to prepare it on your own.



This is "tukneneng" (hard boiled egg with orange batter coating). The coating includes flour and chicken cubes. I didn't know chicken cubes are also used for this tukneneng food. According to the neighbor at least that's what she does to make it more palatable.

Over the weekend, my husband ordered this from a neighbor who distributes different kinds of "street foods" to different office canteens in different business districts. Definitely the preparation and handling are HACCAP (Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points) compliant. :)

**********
What's plated in the house? Lots. But this one's from a lunch-out with hubby and daughter at Teriyaki Boy a few weeks ago. Teriyaki Boy is one of the fast-casual restaurants that offer really good service and good food.

My favorite dish here is Gyu-Saikoro steak (diced-cut beef in teriyaki sauce and bean sprouts). Now you see it....


Now you don't...


Here are the mommies with their Plated entries:
Pinayhekmi: Scrambled eggs
Ruth: Filipino breakfast
Lynn: Tukneneng
Mommy Chi: Fried rice and beef stew
Ajay: Because pancit is my favorite dish
Julie: PinoyMomsNetwork Fam Pics 3: Plated (On a Plate)
Connie: Chopsticks on a plate
Cookie: PMN Fampics Series 3 : Plated
KK: Eclectic taste
Feng: Plated on a operating table
Raqgold: Schlachtplatte
Vicky: What's for tea?-Lean Pork N Cabbage on Stripey Plate
Rach: My plated collage

The Brat Pack

This is all about movies. We had lunch today at Bubba Gump, the restaurant Forrest Gump inspired. As expected, the movie Forrest Gump is being played on a loop. Hubby was telling the gist of the story to my daughter. I said it's a long movie, about 3 hours. I don't watch a movie for the second time unless I like the actors and the story. Those are my criteria.

Segue to what is my most watched movie. It's one from the 80s. And then my mind started reminiscing the movies which made it big during the 80s and the 90s.


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Pretty in Pink. This is my most watched movie from the 80s. I love the soundtrack - OMD, Howard Jones, Suzanne Vega, Psychedellic Furs, INXS, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Smiths. I have memorized them all.

I love the story. I was in my teens then, can't help but fall for rich-boy-poor-girl-with-a-weird-bestfriend kind of movie. Andi, Duckie and Blaine. Only Duckie (Jon Cryer) is visible nowadays. He has a sitcom with Charlie Sheen called Two and A Half Men.

The Karate Kid. Who didn't fall for the lanky Danile Larusso played by Ralph Macchio and the lovable Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita). What kid in the 80s does not know "wax on, wax off". But whatever happened to Ralph Macchio?

Sixteen Candles. Another John Hughes and Molly Ringwald movie. I am not a fan of Molly but it happened that her movies were the movies of my generation. Sixteen Candles tells of what preoccupies a typical teenager, at least back in the 80s - unrequited crush and her 16th birthday which her family almost forgot. Great plot, huh.

St. Elmos' Fire. I am wondering now why I liked the theme song. If you don't know the theme song, better that way. :) Coming of age movie, a welcome-to-the-real-world-after-college-graduation kind of movie. Think F.R.I.E.N.D.S., only this batch take themselves so seriously.

This stars the 80s Brat Pack - Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Alley
Sheedy, Rob Lowe, the pretty face Andrew McCarthy. Demi Moore seems to be the last woman standing in this pack.

The Breakfast Club. Another brat pack movie and the story happened in one day in a detention center.

The Outsiders. The movie which started it all - the young guns of the 80s - Tom Cruise, C. Thomas Howell, Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez. And yes, someone from the 70s, Leif Garrett. The Outsiders is reminescent of West Side Story, a gang war from different socio-economic class.

Risky Business. This is the first movie of Tom Cruise which I have watched. I liked him instantly. Major reason for watching this I guess was Tom Cruise singing in his underwear. Old Time Rock and Roll by Bob Seger? That's what I remember.

That particular scene was spoofed several times, even ALF (remember the Alien Life Form sitcom?) spoofed him.

Top Gun. What can I say? This movie catapulted Tom Cruise's career to superstardom. Killer grin, that's the main reason.

Singles. Early 90s, just when grunge is starting. I love the soundtrack too - Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. One of my favorite books, The Fountainhead, was part of the movie's poster. Stars Matt Dillon, Kyra Sedgwick and Eric Stoltz.

Reality Bites. Best movie about Generation X I have ever watched. A Ben Stiller movie which stars Ben Stiller, Ethan Hawke, Winona Ryder, Janeane Garofalo. From the plot summary of IMDB, this best summarizes the movie, "materialism or philosophical musings"? Gen X angst, you know.

I love the soundtrack of this movie - Stay by Lisa Loeb, U2's All I want is You, School's Out by Alice Cooper, a few songs from Crowded House, Salt-N-Peppa. My Sharona by The Knack was used in this movie.

There are a lot of movies then and now that I love. These ten are not the best and they aren't exactly my favorites. But they were top of mind when I was thinking of retro movies. They were some of the movies which dominated the era, some will just make you cringe. :)