boo!

happy halloween!

crowd stand-out

lady in blue

four-minute fettucine

thanks to Michelina's fettucinne with creamy pesto, my hunger is gone within minutes.

3 movies and a funeral

i was able to watch three movies last weekend, all from different cultures, or at least the main characters are.

last friday we watched the Jet Li-starred, english-subtitled, chinese movie "Hero". i'm pretty sure this is the same "Hero" that was shown in manila cinemas years ago. i'm also quite certain that though i planned on watching it, i missed it for some inexplicable reason. i must say i enjoyed the movie because of the endless acrobatic fighting, but there is really nothing great about the script, as the whole movie can be summarized in a couple of sentences. i could say i got nothing out of this movie (and i'm not expecting one before i came inside the theater), except for some stupid questions. do the chinese really believe their ancestors(or at least their ancient heroes) could fly? and kill or defend against thousands of enemies alone? sometimes with chopsticks, scarves and fans as weapons? maybe not. i guess they are just rich in culture, and they allow fantasy to mix with reality to come up with a more interesting movie about their history.

saturday we watched a light movie "Bend It Like Beckham", which is about a young (east) indian lady who loves playing football(soccer). again there is nothing great in this movie, except you'll get a chance to peek at the rich, and still strict culture of indian families, even after migrating to another country. in the case of this movie, the parents don't trust and don't want their daughters to marry blue-eyed english blokes. i am not sure i heard someone from my country complaining about a member of their family marrying a white guy, or gal. i just don't know if the guy is from timbuktu or something =). but i love the wedding ceremony, the rituals, the dresses, the dancing and all. i'm not that familiar with india, so i am not sure if this is only particular to a certain sect or religion, but they have a picture of someone they call "babaji" in the center of their living room, whom they respect and honor so much, that they consult him of their every important decision, they ask for his forgiveness and for his blessings. this reminds me of a Manalo picture on every filipino home belonging to INC.

then last night we watched "In America", a beautiful movie about an irish family who just moved to New York. it is so touching and emotional, nel cried a couple of times. i was teary-eyed on the last part, to be honest. i admire the actors, although it's the first time i saw them, save Djimon Hounsou(Amistad and Gladiator). every character is full of emotion and the acting is so natural i feel like i'm just beside them witnessing all the hardship they are enduring. but one big impact this movie has on me is the realization on how thankful we should be for not having to experience a similar hardship settling in a new country. though some might say moving to Canada is not as difficult as migrating to the United States, it's also not as easy as one might think. we have every story to tell, mine not excluded. in fact if i could just improve my english and my writing skill, i should be able to tell mine in a story worth filming.

if you're looking for the funeral, sorry there is none. i'm just playing with the title =)

philippino?!

trying hard to be canadian? or pretending to be filipino?

at starbucks

where have all the coffee lovers gone?

scrabble

what nel and i do when we get bored watching tv (or while watching tv)

daily dose...

one of the photoblogs i regularly visit is Sam's DDOI, which is so nice someone decided to make his own version of it. check out this original composition and its mimicry. now i have my daily dose of imagery and my daily dose of laughter. man, i can't wait for their next installment =)

playground

107th street playground, weeks before the snow

nel's orange lilies

bought by nel at Save-On a couple days ago, all the flowers were just buds back then


we even made the camera watch while one of the buds blooms

winter preview starts (taken an hour ago)

october snow, what else proof do you want to believe that for most of Canada, half the year is winter?

memento reminds...

memento has something for all of us to contemplate on.

nel

unlike the Greek muses, she doesn't inspire me to master a certain art,
but her unselfish and enduring love have steered and guided me thru life's trials.
thoughts of her sweet smile of blessings motivated me in reaching my goals,
her encouraging words had propelled me into feats i never thought i'm capable.

you have six new messages!

after a well-spent long weekend, i arrived at my desk with six new messages on my voicemail. hmmm, who could they be? this is first time, my highest so far was three. i punched my password and started listening, no one is talking on the other line, just indistinct background noise. oh well, must be just someone like me who don't like leaving voice messages. but wait, it's been a while now and the other line isn't hanging up yet. equipped with now i consider a low-tech voice mailing system, i can't delete the message until it finishes. after three minutes of pain listening to intolerable noise, the message finally ended and i happily pressed number seven on the keypad to flush the stupid message to the drain.

now on to might be more important message... but then its not! it's a continuation of the previous one, darn! what a stupid voice mailing system! i thought messages have three minutes constraint but apparently not :( i'm hearing people chattering, i'm trying to determine if it's local or from manila. i heard filipino chattering, hmmm must be from one my relatives, must have accidentally dialled my number. but no, i hear native english talks, canadian english, yes, it's certainly local. i now hear bells ringing, oh darn, the phone owner is inside the church, and he/she won't be able to notice it until the mass has ended, oh mercy me. do i have to wait for another three minutes? oh dear! ..and guess what? i had to. when i heard the "end of message" recording, i banged the number seven keypad to delete.

two down, four to go? i hope the rest of the messages, or at least some of them, are real ones. i am already seeing myself spending my first 18 minutes of the morning helplessly listening to rubbish messages i can't just delete :( i'm beginning to hate our phone system more! message number three... what else but continuation! oh wait, the other line became busy, dit..dit..dit..dit..dit.. it's over! it's gonna be over now!.. what the f@#*? it's not stopping! but hey, could be just ten beeps or twenty max, just have to be more patient. it ended! the busy tone ended! woohooo!!... but wait again, it's the indistinct background noise again, holy mother of s*@#! am i being punished for something i did last weekend? i can't remember doing anything bad!

my head is starting to ache, this is the first time that i have to endure long presence of noise, intolerable, unescapable noise! please, let the pain stop, please. i feel like i'm being tortured now, but at least i am on message five already, the punishment is almost over :) suddenly i hear something distinct, a singing, should be a church song, but wait, it's not! it's country music, the owner is now on a concert? how could that happen when minutes ago he/she's attending mass? now thoughts are running thru my mind, is this a sabotage? a voice mail spam/attack? a long piece of crap prerecorded purposedly for this? who could've possibly done it? i found myself again running list of names in my mind. darn, i'm becoming paranoid! but no, it can't be, someone must have dialled a wrong number, it can't be really for me!

the music became more distinct, became more familiar, something i just heard, something i heard first time in must be a couple of days ago. i knew it, i recognized the song, it's the song *pause* from last friday's *pause* edmonton's 100th birthday celebration *long pause*... *thinking*... the caller is... me?!! i remember using my phones a couple of times that night, and i now remember that one time i had to hang-up an unintended call before calling someone else. the darn-bugger-i-would-kill-once-i-know-who is me! the person responsible for my punishment is my own self! what a nice joke from i don't know where! but i still hate our telephone system, it's still a rubbish piece of technology even though i'm part of the whole mess.

what a way to start my week! i just hope that not everything would be a disaster. better yet, i hope that was the only one :)

four photos

1

2

3

4

12 ways to excite

hall of Edmonton's sports heroes

granny realized i'm taking her picture

... while she's taking someone else's, she's ok with it

portuguese monument

erected to commemorate their early settlement in Edmonton

guy got ass-kicked and my registry blunder

i went to the registry yesterday to pick-up a copy of a driver's handbook, which nel would have to read before she takes the knowledge exam. there's only one person behind the counter and there were two men infront of me, so i had to wait. i took a 20 dollar bill out of my wallet in advance and put it in my pocket, i wanted to finish my turn as quickly as i could. after 15 minutes of standing in line, i learned that the handbook is free of charge!

lesson learned: don't assume everything is for sale

----

on my way home, i witnessed an unfamiliar scene, a guy got ass kicked by a young(but big) lady. it didn't end there, the lady proceeded with cursing him. she's accusing him of talking to the police a while ago and tipping them of something she's probably guilty of doing. the guy's claiming he's innocent but the lady won't believe him. they were still arguing and i'm already quite far away to make out what they're talking. i didn't know how things ended.

but as i continue to walk, a question suddenly popped into my mind, what would i do if i am that guy that just got ass-kicked for nothing? how will i get out of this kind of mess? i wasn't able to answer myself, it's gonna be difficult, i'll just hope that i won't end up on that kind of situation.

downtown alley

100th street, between 101st and 102nd avenue

broke my DVD player and became 35 bucks richer

i was playing around with the component video output option of my DVD player last weekend, it's supposed to provide "excellent picture with very high resolution, better colour accuracy, and less colour bleeding". so i plugged in the component video cable to my player and my TV and then went to the DVD menu and set the video display output to component>progressive scan. whoa, the signal went crazy, i got a disturbed picture on my TV! i must have set something wrong, i'll reset the setting on my DVD... oh, oh, i can't see the menu, i'm dead! i switched back to the video 1 channel of my TV, it's black! the signal is being transmitted on the other cable :( i removed the component video cable, still no effect! what have i done?!! i tried every possible solution and they just didn't work, so after an hour of effort to reset the setting, i finally gave up. the solution... return the player to FutureShop!

FutureShop is just a couple of blocks away from our place so it's really not the worst option. so off we went to the store and easily managed to return it for replacement(i love the thing so i just want it replaced), but the problem is they dont have it on stock anymore! the customer service lady told me they have stock on the southside branch which is really quite far away. i had no choice but to just ask for full refund, which she gladly did. oh, i love the stores here!

on our way out, i saw their current newspaper promo ad, and guess what? my screwed Samsung DVD/VCR combo is on sale for 149! that's 20 bucks cheaper than one week ago, so i removed the ad from the corkboard and asked for a photocopy in the CS. another great thing about the stores here is that almost all of them do price matching, so i just have to find the model on another store, and i should be able to purchase it at FutureShop promo price. i had to check three store before finding it at the small electronics section of Zeller's. indeed, they do pricematch, so i eagerly purchased one, ending up with more that 20 bucks in savings! what a good way to end a screwed morning! incidentally, while at Futureshop, i also noticed that the price of my TV went down by 15 bucks, i got the rebate as well. don't you wish you could do that in Manila? =)

divers...

getting crazy on the springboards

Pet Freindly (sic)

this brand new condo in 109th street claims to be PET FREINDLY!

orange-painted edmonton sky

canon powershot s1 IS @ f3.1, 1/320s, spot metering


Nel's claiming she shot this one, so i'm posting it as well =)