My 41 year old baby brother in Missouri (I still call him baby brother because I took care of him) wants me to be his wedding coordinator for a church [tag]wedding[/tag] in the Philippines. My brother and his wife did not have a church wedding 14 years ago due to financial challenges. Now that he is a successful neurologist, he dreams of a marriage with God’s blessing. He has indeed been blessed through the years with 4 lovely children, a lucrative medical parctice and a devoted wife. I told him that weddings in the Philippines is not the same as it used to be. I started to look around for wedding fairs. The last time I attended a wedding bazaar was in 2004 for Lauren’s debut plans. Just looking at the prices for photography, venue, catering , cake and other perks for Lauren’s debut could easily cost 150,000 pesos ($2,500.00) at the least. My daughter dubbed it “A not so typical debut celebration” and happily, the total expenses were only 80,000 pesos ($1,500) for 100 guests. Divisoria is my friend. My brother was impressed that I coordinated a “sort-of-grandiose” celebration . But weddings are different! There are a 101 considerations. I told him that I would shop around for a wedding events coordinator who will coordinate with me.
I have been tagged by Niceheart to list down six weird things about myself. Yet another [tag]meme[/tag].
So here are 6 weird things or habits about me. Beware I am obsessive compulsive in most of these weird habits.
1. I like my books to be arranged neatly in the bookshelves from tallest to shortest. Mind you, the books have to be aligned in a straight line too. Something like this
Actually, when I trained our helper to fix books from tallest to shortest , she did an even better job. I think she became even more OCD than me. Or was it she got contaminated with my obsessive disorder?
2. I want my bedspread carefully folded on the bed with very little crease. I have to pull it together with my other helper on the other end to attain an “ironed look”. I drive my daughters crazy by telling them to do this. I’ve since left them to fix their dorm beds the way they want it to be but at home, I end up pulling it for that “ironed look” when they are gone. Something like this:
I never used to have this strange habit but like number 1, my helper did a better job and I got hooked on that no-crease bedspread look.
The only reason we watched Regal Film’s thriller movie, The White Lady was because Joel Nunez (writer for the movie) is a batchmate of my husband at the College of Law. “Let’s show some support to my friend’s endeavor”, my hubby goes. After watching Sadako in “The Ring“, no other hororr movie beats it. Scary for means literally holding on to your seat. Inspired by the famous urban legend about the ghost that haunts Balete Drive, “White Lady” has been reinvented and relocated to some liberal arts school in UP Los Banos. There, the school’s most popular students meet horrific fates one by one, realizing that they are the target of a vengeful ghost. “The White Lady” plot was predictable for me and the “computer graphics” needed a bit more tweaking. Some of the animated CG’s came out too stiff. I’m so out of the loop when it comes to young Filipino movie stars. I recognized Boots Anson Roa only. This new half-Korean starlet, Iwa Moto had too much makeup for a school setting but she played the bitchy role to the hilt. Now I can’t imagine how college students could be so mean. The plot reeks of high school’s mean Queen Bees. The urban legend “White Lady” in Balete Drive seemed more spooky than this remake. However, if you’re looking for entertainment, the movie gave enough of that .
It’s a rare occurence for me to watch Tagalog movies. I think the last Filipino movie I watched was Cesar Montano’s Visayan movie, Panaghoy sa Suba. Being a Cebuana, the Visayan dialect brought so much childhood memories. Every scene flowed smoothly into the next, thus allowing audiences to further appreciate the film’s captivating cinematography. Much as I want to support Philippine movie industry, the plot is just not interesting enough to hold my attention. During the mid seventies, Filipino films were at its best. Remember, Lino Brocka’s Maynila: Sa mga kuko ng liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Light) in 1975? The movie was picked by 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, a fantastic resource for film lovers. That’s how excellent the movie is. The acting was not that remarkable, but the simple plot and storyline made each character as memorable as the next. Those were the days when the plot was character driven . Too bad, the Philippine Culture and Information official website did not classify the movie as “World Class Filipino Movie” (as of 1997).
In this new millenium, which movie classifies as world class Filipino movie?
My purpose for attending the Sulong Negosyo at Market! Market! was to meet Lynn, the owner of Crazy Choco. She sells Chocolate Fountain and fondue set and I’ve been meaning to buy the latter. See, I took photos of her Crazy Choco booth in Fil-Negosyo Expo 2006 last month. Fortunately for her, two customers surfed my photo gallery and saw the chocolate fountain photo flowing with Belgian Chocolate. Yum. The good news was these gallery visitors bought from her. I was hoping she’d give me a discount on the fondue set which is priced at 1,200 pesos. So anyway, armed with my digital camera and fresh from my gym workout, I headed towards the exhibits.
The Sulong Negosyo at Trade Hall A, Bonifacio Global City is sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry. Over 100 exhibitors showed various products from all over the Philippines. When I saw the expo, I totally forgot about my purpose there . I was fascinated with the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME ) EXPO’s barangay/village fiesta concept that simulated a small community with a barangay hall where business name registration, business counseling and advisory services were undertaken. Even supportive banks. There was also a town plaza concept where video programs promoting the services offered by various institutions to SMEs can be viewed. There’s a seminar rooms where skills and managerial briefings useful to would-be and existing entrepreneurs are conducted . And lastly a commercial area (Pamilihan) was setup for participating SMEs to retail their products and/or promote their franchise businesses.
Today, the government is actively supporting our micro entrepreneurs with their One Town One Product (OTOP) .This was merely a concept when I worked for the Small Scale industry in the early 1980s. If you’re interested to start a business one day, one should attend Guide to RA 9178 Barangay Micro Business Enterprises Act of 2002 to be held on Friday , at 5:00 to 6:00 PM. This is a remake of previous laws in the past but the classification of a micro business’ asset has now been raised to 3 million pesos.
Research on small and medium scale enterprises development was my pet project before I settled down to become a mother and home maker in 1987. I can see that there is indeed some progress through the years. We can’t rely solely on overseas employment income to sustain our economy. Together with the development of Information technology sector, agro-industries, and our small and medium and micro-enterprises, our country’s economy will surely boom.
View the photo gallery of the Sulong Negosyo-SME EXPO at Market! Market!
The Jollibee Earthworm burger rumor is old news but to see the keywords in their website is news. View the HTML source of Jollibee Hamburger website. And what do you see?
META NAME=”object” CONTENT=”jollibee food corporation, earthworm, earthworm hamburger, earthworm hamburger issue, earthworm hamburger patties, earthworm meat, earthworm meat price, earthworm price, earthworms, earthworms price, eating fast food, jollibee food corporation, earthworm, earthworm hamburger, earthworm hamburger issue, earthworm hamburger patties, earthworm meat, earthworm meat price, earthworm price, earthworms, earthworms price, eating fast food, jollibee food corporation, earthworm, earthworm hamburger, earthworm hamburger issue, earthworm hamburger patties, earthworm meat, earthworm meat price, earthworm price, earthworms, earthworms price, eating fast food, jollibee food corporation, earthworm, earthworm hamburger, earthworm hamburger issue, earthworm hamburger patties, earthworm meat,………….”
Now I don’t know if their website got hacked or the webmaster purposely placed earthworm hamburger keywords . Whatever for? When I told my girls, they nearly puked .
Earthworm hamburger. Now before you go ewww….read this
J. Angelo Racoma entry on PayPal: One Great Way to Improve the Philippine Economy makes sense.
If only we had PayPal in the Philippines, then I think we would be able to open to the world better means to access to our pool of talent.
Having PayPal in the country would greatly benefit the following people:
Web developers, Designers, Photographers, Writers, Pro-bloggers, and virtually anyone else who can render services remotely while corresponding via the Internet. Their correspondents can pay simply by clicking a few buttons, and that’s it.
This would be a great opportunity for both sides, as it will open up access to the supply of good talent, and as well as open up access to those who are on the demand-side.
Some possible reasons that Paypal won’t deal with us are the following :
1. With regards to anti-Money Laundering, the Philippines is still in the list of non-cooperative countries.
2. Security issues in our banking system.
3. Banks asking for a big share in Paypal transactions.
Having an online business for global markets require a payment gateway. Paypal is known to have the lowest sales transaction but it’s not available in the Philippines. I can’t even get hold of a credit card merchant account in the Philippines’ financial institutions what with the exhorbitant rates and restrictions required. I availed 2checkout.com to resell my services . One can be a vendor with a $49 signup fee.
Technically, one can get a Paypal account if you have an accomodating relative in a paypal enabled country like the USA to do the paypal transactions for you. The problem is Paypal recognizes the Philippine IP address if you intend to login their Paypal website. This is not a long term soluution to having a paypal account.
What we can do is :
lobby for inclusion as a PayPal enabled country with our senators, congressmen or politicians.
Read other related blogs on the Paypal inclusion of the Philippines
Weekends are now reserved for the girls as it is the only time that they are home during the week. Today started out on a sad note. After reading twisted lies about a 6 year old incident, my husband and I were enraged. So? What more bad news can we get anyway? My husband and I resolved to let it go for now by watching a movie. And what better movie than Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest? Great escapism movie full of playful and dizzyingly entertaining adventure. What really comforted me tonight is the memory of my dad’s resonating laughter. The [tag]Pirates of the Caribbean[/tag] was the first theme ride I took in Disneyland with my daddy many moons ago. I still remember my dad’s enthusiastic face as he insisted on hanging on to the long queue of the theme ride. “It’s worth it…you’ll see“. Minutes after sitting beside my dad on the boat ride, I heard the thundering of a waterfall,and suddenly a plunge and a yelp of surprise escaping from my lips. AHHHHHH! Dad roared with that infectious laughter. He must have laughed so hard that he held on to his tummy. Dad practically enjoyed seeing my surprised reaction. And then came the second hair-raising plunge further into the depths of an underground grotto. More laughter! Haha, this time we laughed together. Being entertained by the movie and reliving the memory of my dad’s laughter brightened my spirits. Butch wants to watch it a second time around.
And what about the news we received earlier today?
Properly warned ye be… Dead Men Tell No Tales!
Aside from this blog, I maintain a few websites and blogs for pro-blogging purposes. Don’t get me wrong, I blog for fun and with a goal in mind but if one can make money on the side, it’s an added bonus. ( If you have no idea what a pro-blogging is, read “How Bloggers Make Money Online“.) I became a pro-blogger by accident only this year after reading up on Google adsense and reviving abandoned domains left behind by my daughter. To my amazement, I discovered that my daughter’s Photo Gallery (which she started in 2001) raked in a modest Google Adsense income. The photos in demand are mainly food and Philippine scenery photos. Our lonely overseas Filipinos must be missing our lechon (roast pig) , barbecue and other Filipino dishes. Comments like “I can just taste it” or “How can I order this lechon?” etcetera prompted me to launch a Pinoy Food Photo Blog and Manila’s Daily Grind (sights and sounds). Taking amateurish photos is also a passion which I took after my father. Oh how I remember him saying “kodak . kodak! Picture! Picture!” even if I haven’t even imbibed the breathtaking scenery of wherever we were travelling at that time. And because of the random photos that dad took, I learned to beam a “closeup” smile. A picture is forever so why not give your best smile. Sadly enough, I took after my dad’s obsessive photography and now my daughters do the same… posing their pearly whites in the best smile they can ever emote.
You will always see me armed with my Canon Powershot and my cellphone camera ready to take photos that amuse or entertain me. My photos have inside stories that I’d like to share. I am also curious if my fellow photo bloggers encounter the same experiences like me.
(enlarge)
At the Fil-negosyo expo, the owner (partly shown above) of the booth asks:
“What is the photo for?”
“Oh, this is for my blog.”
“What is a blog?”
“I write about things on the internet. It’s like a website.”
(How do I explain it in layman terms?)
“Oh, you’re a columnist”
“Sort of. I write in my blog.” (Stumped. Lost in explanation)
Lesson: Not many people know what blog means. So don’t try.
Sunday is supposed to be family day. But both girls were engrossed with their school activities. Lauren as Associate Editor of Katipunan Magazine needed to beat the press deadline while second daughter was rehearsing for her UP chorale group. Such is our empty nest but Butch and I turned our otherwise lonely day to a “couple time” day. Off we went to the Fitness First gym to burn some of our fats and acquire our endorphin fix. At 10:00 AM, the gym was pretty quiet which made it even more relaxing. We agreed to have a quick sauna and steam bath in preparation for our Goat Milk bath. Downstairs at the “Body Care” , our warm milk bath was ready. My husband thinks the milk bath is unnecessary . I gently threw sudsy water at him. Just relax , will you? This is to soften our skin in preparation for the body massage. Besides it’s complimentary so don’t complain. I read somewhere that Cleopatra bathed in goat’s milk daily, and it has been used for years to moisturize and soothe dry skin, as well as to heal eczema, psoriasis and other skin conditions.
Body massage was the next agenda and amidst the twittering bird and buzzing bee music, our bodies surrendered to the soothing pressure of the long, flowing strokes. I felt all the stress being flushed out of my system.
It’s past 1:00 PM and we’re hungry but we couldn’t wait to go home for lunch. At the “Pasto Cafe”, our light lunch consisted of a vegetali panini and the spicy Arriabata pasta . Watching my husband’s smiling face, I can’t help being happy for him. At least he’s learned to let go of rigidity . Learning to be spontaneous and fun takes practice. It’s something we forgot after grieving for years. I know this will be another difficult week as our son’s 13th birthday approaches on July 13.
Our day culminated in a Sunday Mass. The day is not complete if we don’t thank God for such a wonderful day. I am thankful that God continues to guide us in our road to recovery.
Today we pampered our body, our mind and our soul. Getting away from the children and devoting our day to each other gave us the opportunity to reconnect and de-stress. Love the second time around is indeed so rewarding.
Remember that tasteless Bayantel billboard ad photo which I blogged early June ? Surprise! The new Bayantel ad now shows a cute kid happily eating ice cream. Very wholesome ad that touches any mother’s heart. Awwww… It was my daughter who pointed the new billboard. I never notice billboards because I drive and they just distract me.It’s good that the Bayantel and their ad agency changed the billboard to a more PG rating ad. I know Bayantel read this entry because I had an informal talk with one of the brand managers a week ago during the VOIP convention. Whether the ad campaign was effective or not, I told them it doesn’t sit well with parents like me who are their likely customers. They called me early this week to try their Bayantel internet service but I told them I am moving out of Makati . Besides I have two internet providers already :Smart Bro and Destiny cable. Maybe I will try it out one day when I move to my new place.
See the difference from the previous ad?
BEFORE (June 2006)
NOW (July 8, 2006)
