Cheeky Humor from Sweden's Got Talent

CAVEAT: NOT SAFE FOR WORK!

These boys are very cute. And funny. And coordinated. Not since Bulgarian Idol's infamous Ken Lee video have I laughed soooo hard!

Enjoy :)

Netbooks.PH The Friendly Gathering 2

For other photos, click here to get to my gallery. Photos courtesy of Monch de Jesus and Rannie Jugueta of Netbooks.PH.

If you own a netbook or are considering getting one, and need advice or tutorials or other sorts of help, Netbooks.PH is the forum for you. You don't need to be a techie, you just have to be interested. We have these friendly get-togethers to promote interaction and an exchange of information between new users, power users, and experts - to help everyone get the best use out of their gadgets. Lurkers welcome!

Access Woes

This afternoon when I was accessing emails from my cellphone I sort of blocked one of my own email accounts. I can use the password on mobile mode, but not from my desktop! Grrr!!! Sadly, I am not able to reset my password because I'd forgotten that my secondary email address they sent the temporary password to is now defunct. @#$%^&*!!!

I have no idea at this time whether I can retrieve my account, but I did set up some redundancies for this very situation. Thank goodness for Scribefire. I can access my Blogger blogs because some time ago I set Scribefire to automatically publish new entries without my having to use my Gmail!

If, like me, you are a Mozilla Firefox 3 fan, this is one extension you can't live without. (And if you don't have FF3 yet, why, maybe it's about time you do. Check it out here.)

Open Source rules!!!

Update: About 15 minutes later, I find I can access my account again! YAY! My second report filed to Gmail got verified.

Emily Blunt as The Young Victoria - Trailer

Emily Blunt is one of my favorite young British actresses (see "Devil Wears Prada", "Henry VIII", etc.). And who do we have to thank for me finding this on YouTube? Rupert Friend. I was checking out the related videos to the "Cheri" trailer (previous post) and found this one. Fortunately Rupert Friend looks better in this movie as Prince Albert. (Apparently, he's Keira Knightley's boyfriend, after he played Mr. Wickham in "Pride and Prejudice".)

Photo courtesy of FilmDETAIL. Read on for the interview.

Martin Scorsese directs, and because he did "The Age of Innocence" and "Gosford Park" magnificently, I am also lining this up on my To Watch list.

Michelle Pfeiffer in "Cheri" (2009) - Trailer

Am a Michelle Pfeiffer fan. Am also a fan of period movies - Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, belle epoque, men-in-wigs (term borrowed from Dondi Limgenco), WW1 & 2, you name it. Am also a Colette fan, although I've never read the book Cheri. The first one I read was The Shackle, followed by Gigi (later turned into that famous movie starring Leslie Caron, which I loved because I learned a new word, "ortolans"), and later, My Mother's House/Sido). I recommend her short novels if you enjoy reading about antebellum life and manners.


Photo courtesy of CineFanatico on Flickr. The costumes are GORGEOUS.

A few minor things bother me, such as Michelle Pfeiffer's Hollywood gauntness. I would have thought aging courtesans had bodies more like Helen Mirren's (a fuller, lusher figure). As it is, she reminds me of - ulk - Nancy Reagan. In a good way, with less shoulder pads. Rupert Friend, in his modern roles, appears more interesting than he is as the dissolute Cheri. You might as well have cast Robert Pattinson in the role - he nailed "pretty". This would have been perfect for a younger Jude Law, even a younger Rupert Everett.

All this, from a trailer! In any case, I'm going to watch this when it comes out. Here's another movie clip on YouTube, you will see what I mean about gauntness.

P. S. I still don't know how to import a Youtube video to Blogger, so this is how it goes for the meantime (I upload to my Multiply first, and then link here).

Luna, La Union - Food Trip

A third of the family opted to sleep near the bonfire, under the stars. They awoke to a rosy dawn on the cool stones.

My dad decided to work up a good appetite, heading to the beach. After breakfast, he and his cousins went off to see some vendors about some yellowfin tuna for lunch. This handsome specimen weighed 22kg. The ladies obliged by preparing and weighing the fish. We bought about 10kg, for sinigang, kilawen and grilling.

We were also able to enjoy a summer's bounty of various fruits, as the balikbayans had not tasted some of the more exotic ones for years. There were Indian mangoes, bananas, oranges, chicos, guayabanos (soursops), and passionfruit. The colors of the fruit, against the warm wood of the table, against the grey stones, made each shot a still life.

Many were quite pleased to see a salad seaweed, "ar-arosep" or "lato" on the table. Its grape-like clusters had some crunch and left a pleasing, mild, briny flavor on the tongue.

Here's some delicious grilled eggplant, mixed with some sliced mild shallots, tomatoes and the local vinegar, for a salad. The region's bagoong, a sauce of fermented, salted fish, was also served as an optional seasoning.

Some horned "cowfish" were also grilled in between damp flat bamboo slats tied together with wire. Their firm white flesh was sweet.

We used our hands, foregoing the spoons and forks, and somehow the food tasted better. There was something about the salt air, and being with the people we loved that made it a feast to remember.

Luna, La Union - Noble House

This is the third leg of the Caccam-Perez international family reunion. It follows the 2 videos posted from Cavite and Baguio City.

Luna in La Union (near Bacnotan) is famous for its beaches of wave-polished, rounded stones. Not sand, stones. Stones of every color, washed up daily onto the beach. We were guests at the house of the Noble family.

Relatives spent some time on the beach to collect stones of different shapes and sizes.

The rustic house had a natural, organic feel, dominated by warm wooden furniture and a stone floor that brought the beach inside. Wide picture windows at each angle kept the house well-ventilated and gave guests beautiful views.

The property is so secluded that guests enjoyed utter privacy. We slept with the windows open.

That night the uncles gathered by the fire, shared beers, and counted shooting stars.

The Sound of Music - In An Antwerp Train Station

It was a bleh day for me, I missed getting to the bank by a few minutes and wasn't able to get any documents updated. I was feeling all kinds of effed up, when I got this in the email when I got back to my desk. Not quite as random an act of exuberance as it appears to be, but it made me smile. I still feel bad about missing my deadline. I have a report to submit tomorrow, that will have to rely on estimated figures, but The Sound of Music really lifted my spirits when I needed it most. Really, really frabjous!

I hope you enjoy it too :) Thanks Unkel Oscar!

To Cheer Folks Up

First posted in the Multiply version of this blog:

Susan Boyle's I Dreamed A Dream (Britain's Got Talent 2009)