TOY STORY

Oh My Gosh -I have been cooking this thing I call pinakbet and as I browsed Lutongbhay.com, it's more like I'm doing bulanglang all along. I"m not a genius with cooking, it's more like gaya-gaya only and besides this recipes are not particularly from visayas. So guys maybe you can ask your Moms for confirmation. Anyways there really is not much of a problem, except that now that I am staying at home I am getting picky about these details, too much time maybe?????

NORTH BY NORTHWEST


I hope this movie title has not been used yet.

Anyhow Ching, I'm glad to see you blogging again. Your new computer is awesome! I'm jelous! I wanted a DVD writer. Oh well, I do look forward to chatting on YM with you. I hope your webcam already works.

KING PIN

Has this been used yet?

Anyway sorry I've been out of commish for a while.. As I have mentioned before, the computer went kaput.. Brian had to order another harddrive from DELL.. In the meantime, I've decided to buy my own computer. It's neato!! It's 2.53 Ghz Pentium IV with a DVD/CD player on the first bay & DVD/CD burner on the second bay. I decided to forgo the internal zip drive because Brian's computer has one and I really wouldn't need it except to access some of the old stuff that I have saved which is no biggie because our computers are networked together! It's awesome! I think I'll be online more from now on. Look for me on AIM, YM & ICQ! And, of course, here!

By the way, just got done watching Sweet Home Alabama.. It's soo good!

New York, New York
A very unpopular movie that gave us a very popular song. Liza Minelli and De Niro, I think (?) - way too long since I saw it. Anyhow, I liked it.

I'm back from Washington state. It was a great visit, I found out a whole lot of family history, spent time with my (semi-estranged) brother and my (semi-estranged) son and his family. Went well, mostly. We all survived, at least. Great to see my stepmom again, got a little hiking in - and LOTS of eating!

Heard an interview with the author of "The Gospel According to Tony Soprano", or something like that. Talks about all the parallels to the book of Ecclesiastes, which is about a man who finds riches, wisdom, and pleasure - and is still unhappy. I'll never view the Sopranos the same way.

Saw "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" last week. What a blast! Kim loved it too. I tried to get her to see it when it came out, she hadn't heard of it, so wasn't interested (We saw "Undercover Brother" instead). So Daf got a big "I told you so" score outta that one!

(the) RUNNING MAN
Hope that wasnt taken yet... So sad to hear about Chings computer going to chip heaven. Should have bought a MAC. Speaking of being out of the loop. I have been so busy cleaning house(work), that it has foregone me from blogging. The tea ceremony is a chinese tradition. Read more about it on the link. The Sopranos' second episode premieres tonight. So far Toni Soprano has a new scheme up his sleeve-Hotels. Moving right along, Toni got an idea in his head to hide is Simoleons in his back yard. He put some in the tool shed, some in bags of nuts, etc. Cant wait for the next show. Gotta go for now. Its about to start.


More to come....

NET

(the) EVENING STAR

Sorry I've been out of commish.. I'm at my mom's right now.. Our computer is kaput! I may not be back for another six months! You guys keep the fort up, okay?

STOP MAKING SENSE

Talking Heads team up with a few of the guys from Funkadelic and Jonathon Demme to make one of the most watchable, listenable, danceable concert films of all time. Special bonus: Tom-Tom Club (led by Talking Heads bassist Tina Weymouth) doing "My Boyfriend", currently being revived in (Honda, I think?) commercials. But, of course, singer/ songwriter/ leader David Byrne is the major presence in this video. If you've never seen it, GO GET IT!

Thanks to Ching for sharing her wedding pix. Did she look happy or what?

Hey Net, tell the hopelessly Anglo among us (that would be me) what the tea ceremony is! It's a Chinese thing, right? At least you guys don't do English jokes with Tagalog punchlines anymore...

Young Hercules


The new season of the Sopranos premiered on HBO tonight. Life is back to normal in the Net household. Had a great time at Em and Werner's wedding. Who wouldnt have a great time? A ten course Chinese dinner; My brother-in-law as the DJ; All of Dot's friends from UB* and of course Open Bar! The open bar made the headlines. Our friend Dave (Nappy) went to the dancefloor with a drink in hand and spilled half of it on Dot's dress. Thank goodness for club soda and a blow dryer.
Em changed dresses 4 times last night from wedding gown to traditional chinese to 2 night gowns. Man, this is where Cher got the idea for her concerts. No drinks on Ems clothes though. After Dot's incident, Billy (brother-in-law) announced through the PA that there will be no more drinking on the dancefloor. The tea ceremony was a tear jerker. Emily had tears in her eyes when she received the traditional red envelope from her mother. Was it the amount? Only Em and Werner know. Going off for now, The Sopranos are showing again on HBO2.

More to come
NET

(the) NEW GUY

"NELL" is void because it's already been used! Vince does enough recycling already!! BTW, when I took the quiz, I got Vern, too!! Brian got Doug which is really ironic because we both HATE Doug! The new season has already started and there's a whole bunch of new designers!

NELL

Wow a quiz about my favorite t.v. show! And I am Vern, I love Vern!



take the which one of the trading spaces cast are you? quiz!

ELECTION

Hi Tita Jo, It's nice to see you blogging with us. I see you're doing a lot of partying with your friends. Please send them my regards. BTW, how's Pogi? I just realized I was too busy going out with Ching and doing all the wedding preparation that I didn't even take as many pictures with you & Pogi at your house. I also wanted to show my mom what a great job you and Tito Rico did on your basement. Anyhow, hope things are going well with you. If you have time, please come and visit me here in Frisco with Ching and Brian!

Hey Daf, I love all those Doris Day and Rock Hudson movies! I used to watch them a lot with my grandma. She was very enamored by him. I like those old movies coz they were very simple yet funny. :)

SPY GAME

Hi Guys, okay you all seem to have lots of fun -blogging --- I want in. So today Ching and Brian calls and says they are coming over to bring me their picture cds, and I was oh oh okay???? It's like I always love to have them come over when they can but today I was on off bed, because I came home early like 5:am this morning from last nights party at Espers (Tejano) Pia has met her.

SEND ME NO FLOWERS

Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Tony Randall. 'Twas a simpler time, everyone kept their clothes on, no one had skeletons in the closet (poor Rock), girls just dreamed of marriage, which equaled life happily ever after. Kim LOVES these movies. I find them wholly irrelevant, but I DO love Kim, so watch them we do...

My vacation starts today - two weeks off! Yippee! I'm flying out to Washington State, will meet up with my brother Matt, we'll be visting our stepmom, Dorothy, and help settle Dad's estate. He died last year, and, we imagine, left everything to Dorothy, but she had mementos, clothes, and the like to pass along. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula, which is my favorite place in the whole world - mountains, rivers, lakes, rain forests, and the ocean all within an hour - rarely colder than 40 or hotter than 80, and, though most of the peninsula is rainy, she's in a town, Sequim, that only gets 18 inches annual rainfall - they even have to irrigate the farms.

I'll also be meeting up with my son Andy, his new bride Sarah, and their son Wesley. I bought their tickets (don't believe the ads - Travelocity came up way cheaper than Hotwire). Ching knows a bit of the Andy story - anyhow, we're trying to put the past behind us and be a family. We had dinner this past Monday, and I finally got to meet Wesley, first time since he came home from the hospital over two years ago. Dinner went well, we're all hoping things keep going smoothly.

The Washington trip is only 5 days - the rest's going to be around Michigan - I still have class, but maybe Kim and I can get away for a few days. That would be nice.

Oh, and Net - you have to go back and fix your recycle - has to start with Y and end with S. I imagine this game will get a lot harder down the road when we've used up a bunch of the movies we all know.

The Others


I must be good to the environment. Doh! Strike two!
I have to say Robert Plant aged like a fine wine. Maybe its all those collonics he had in the 90's

Hope to have less to come....

NET

VOLCANO

Hey All! I don't have anything specific to blog about. I just wanted to wish everyone a HAPPY WEEKEND!

EDTV

You're RECYCLING again, Vince!!

THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME

I love Zep, but this is 2 hours of fingernails on a chalkboard for me. The guys were WAY too high, out of tune, and that sweaty-70's-rocker look has not aged well. Of course, neither have they.

Thanks to Net for being a good sport. George Romero IS way cool.

YOUNG GUNS


Changed it.. read down to my previous POST.


More to come...

NET

DRIVING MISS DAISY

Sounds good to me!

ED WOOD

Strange, strange, strange...

We watched one of Ed's sci-fi flicks first (Plan 9 from Outer Space?), THEN watched this. Very surreal. Too bad Ed never made enough to afford a shrink.

I think Net has to replace his title with another "N" that ends in "D", since Pia built on it already. Can we get a ruling, Ching?

DR. DOOLITTLE

Hey Ching! I got the picture cd yesterday! Thanks! The pictures looked great! It's too bad we didn't have too many pictures together or atleast with your bridesmaids :( Anyhow, I love your hair in your honeymoon pictures! Who braided your hair?

Hey NET! No recycling!

Nightmare on Elmstreet 5: The Dream Child

Okay guys, I still loveGeorge A. Romero even though I had to change the movie I poster since it was a recycle. Man I have to keep up with this blog set. Anyhoot, horror movie genres takes me back being a teen in NEWTOWN High School. As I was chatting to Ching about it, I mentioned that I am a big fan of horror flicks. When I was a teenager, I took a class on movie making and made an attempt at making a horror flick for my final. It ended up being a comedic spoof according to the reviews of my peers! My teacher offered me a free class in movie making course had I applied to St. Johns University. Sad to say, I lost the reels during my move back to Queens.

Speaking of nightmares, if any of you use Windows XP there is a service pack that has been released. It fixes a major problem in the directories that will prevent a hacker from deleting important files on your system directory. LEOVILLE, has intructions on it. Let your friends know about it. Some of you might have trouble downloading the service pack since it is larger than 2 Mb. LEOVILLE has a quick fix but remember this only affects users that have upgraded to XP. If you have Win 98 or Windows ME you are still safe.

more to come.
NET

EVOLUTION

I'm actually looking forward to my next haircut in a month or so.. I'm digging Reese's new do in Sweet Home Alabama. I'm going to ask Man to cut my hair that way! What do you think?

P.S. Pictures of Felix, my new baby kitty, coming soon!

Sleepless in Seattle

Reality Bites is one of my favorite movies! I love Wynona Rider (before her whole stealing scandal) and I also love the soundtrack. Anyhow Ching, you've got a new cat?! How cute! You need to take a photo and send it to me! I wanna see :) BTW, nice hair cut. I can't believe you chopped off all your hair! It was super long already.

REALITY BITES

Traditionally, the groom's parents pay for the tuxes.. But if both the bride and groom are financially independent and are not anticipating any assistance from their parents then the groom takes care of the tux bill. Or the bride and groom together.. But this is 2002. I guess the person who can afford it pays.

LIAR LIAR

Drove down to Brooklyn yesterday. Aside from being home of the Dodgers before they moved to Los Angeles. It is also home for Em and Werner. Dot's friends since she was a freshman at U.B.* Anyway, we picked them up and all of us drove to New Jersey to make adjustments to Em's wedding dress at MarryMeWedding Wedding Palace. Em tried the extravagant gown which needed some hemming. We took video shoots of it and Werner promises to convert it to digital format for internet viewing. Hope to upload it to my briefcase soon. Anyhoot, the trip came without controversy. Em caught me and Werner talking about his bachelor romps and she overheard him talking to me about having his groomsmen only paying for half of their tux rentals. According to Werner, he had the groomsmen try on the tuxes three weeks ago. Werner also added that in his whims of the vernacular, he offered to pay for half of the cost of the men's rentals - unbeknownst to Em who overheard us talking about this.


Now that the secret is out Em needed a word with Werner. Apparently, Em and Werner's budget did not inclued the cost of the tuxedo rentals which is normally paid for by each groomsman. ~sigh. In the mean time, I snuck out of the gown area at MMW and into the alcove where Dot walk to once she heard the commotion between Em and Werner. Dot jokingly asked me if Werner was going to pay for her gown too since she was the Maid of Honor. I shrugged my shoulders in response.

I was glad that the confrontation did not turn ugly. Em and Werner made up and now the question comes to mind. How are the groomsmen going to pay for their tuxes? Oh did I mention that MarryMe Wedding Palace is owned by Dorothy's Aunt?


More to come....

NET

YOU'VE GOT MAIL

Watched Queen of the Damned yesterday.. Not as bad a everyone said it was. Not as good as I expected it to be either.

Spent the day hanging out with Jen. But first, Brian and I took our two cats to the vet.. Oh, yeah! I haven't told you guys yet. Brian finally broke down and got me a kitten! It's all black & super-cute! His name is Felix. We took Felix and Hobbie to the vet yesterday.. Then Brian went off to work and I stayed home with the full intention of veggin' out. Jen calls me up to have lunch with her so I find myself getting up to go to Applebee's. I buy lunch to bring to Brian for a mid-afternoon snack. After lunch, Jen and I go to Planet Hair for my much-needed haircut. My waist-length hair has been reduced to above the shoulders.. It's a modified bob.. Very much like the hairstyle that I had when I was a senior in high school. Brings back memories..

Anyhow, we go shopping at the mall. I took Jen to A&F and to Hollister Co. next door.. Redeemed my Express coupon.. Got some Orange Julius, etc. After that we came back home to try on our finds. Jen wanted to watch Legally Blonde one of my all-time favorite movies (I love Reese Witherspoon -- I can't wait until Sweet Home Alabama is released!). We load it on the DVD and watch.. We wait for Brian to get home from work. Dinner was at mom and dad's: porkchops & leftover sinigang. Yum! Did some karaoke on the "magic mic." Watched the US Open women's finals..

This morning we had brunch with Brian's family at Legends.. Good food! It's his mom's birthday tomorrow.. Anyway, we're going to go see Swim Fan later tonight with Kevin and Stephanie. That should be good.

On Wednesday we get our Road Runner -- yippee!! I'm so excited I don't think I'll be able to sleep for the next three days!

ROCKY

The movie that started it all. I never got it - Stallone's lame, Talia Shire's worse. Some good scenes - especially the meat locker scene - and Burgess Meredith is good as a caricature of a grizzled old trainer, but really left me cold. Sequels were even worse.

Thanks for the encouragement, Net. My Tuesdays and Wednesdays are shot for the next 3-4 months! I roll home 12 or 1am. I'm really dragging butt this morning!

I agree, GREEN MILE was excellent! Very powerful visuals. I kinda saw the "Jesus" character as more a force of nature (I think Hanks even used that line) than as Christ-like, but sometimes I'm too literal in my interpretations.

TWISTER

I appaud you Daf! I want to go back and get my graduate degree too! =( Cant find any time right now though. My sister is a teacher in the NYC Public School System. She got her graduate in Teaching. Fordam University offered her a fellowship after she graduated from Queens College. I can say I am proud of both of you and a little envious. Good luck to you and study well.


In other news, they are preparing a lot of activities for 911. Gosh, it is hard to believe it has been almost a year since the attack at the Twin Towers. Sigh, I still think it just happened yesterday. The Port Authority of NY/NJ is still up in the air about what to do with the WTC site. Should they erect new buildings over the sacred ground that seems to be a burial setting now for hundreds of people? In my opinion, they should forget about building there and just put up a park and a monument. I would rather see new buildings go up around the area than inside the WTC site.


This weekend, after refraining from betting on the Lottery, I bought my first MEGA Millions Lottery ($1). Results? I lost of course. Ching, you can be rest assured that I will donate some of the proceeds to GoldenSushi if I hit it.
In other stories, I watched the GREEN MILE tonight with Dot. I had no idea that it was derived from a Stephen King novel! Big surprise for me. Of course once I found out I began noticing the usual corelation to King's other stories. I am talking about the Jesus Christ/God like theory where King justifies one of the characters as Jesus-like and has the power that overwhelms the other characters. Another corelation is the event of a "miracle" occuring in the story. Here it happens a few times. A very well done movie. Go rent it on NETFLIX.

And Finally, for those of you who are jewish, I would like to remind you that this Friday Sept.6 is the eve of
Rosh Hashannah. Please go to temple...


More to come....

NET

NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

It's all good Daf!! Young Frankenstein ends in "N" and so does Superman!!

Wow! I've gotta work on my timing! I'm changing mine to:

SUPERMAN

Very well-done, light-hearted treatment of the Man o' Steel. Later sequels got stupid. Sad to see how things turned out for Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder, though. My favorite bit - when S'man tells Lois what color her panties are.

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN

One of the funniest movies ever made, and one of Mel Brooks' three best (along with THE PRODUCERS and BLAZING SADDLES). Blucher!!!

Thanks for the kind words, you guys. Had Chorale and Organ last night - this is gonna be hard.

Pia: Check out the book for Never Ending Story - excellent, especially for a translation (from German? I think...). I read it to my kids before the movie came out. One of the best book concepts ever!

Ching:
IMDB has a joint ventures feature:
Joint Ventures
Here are the titles which credit the individuals
Minnie Driver (Actress) ,
John Cusack (Actor)
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) 7.4/10 (13530 votes)

Or was that cheating?

YOUNG GUNS

I'm trying to see if I can put the webcam back on.. I kind of miss seeing myself! LOL!

Anyone who wants a photo CD of the wedding & honeymoon pictures, needs to email me their mailing address -- except for Pia and Sheryll, I already have yours earmarked!

Never Ending Story


I know this is a super old movie, but I thought I'd mention it because it was my favorite when I was five. I still watch it whenever they show it on Disney Channel. :) Anyhow, I haven't seen XXX either. I heard it was pretty good. Jeff saw it with Joey while I was in Kansas for Ching's wedding. I don't like to go to the movies by myself so I guess I will just wait for it to come out on DVD. Ching, did you call me today? Sorry I missed your call. I was probably in class already when you called. Speaking of class, good luck with school Daf. :) I'm sure you'll enjoy it. :) Net, sorry to hear about your tires. Hope you'll find a cheaper place to do your car's 90,000 mile tune-up.

X-MEN

Back to normal letters we go! Yippee!!

After the Fox is actually officially known as Caccia Alla Volpe (1966) where Peter Sellers plays Aldo Vanucci.. I guess we'll take After the Fox. ;-) Have you all seen XXX yet? Brian has.. He saw it the night before our wedding. I haven't, though.. Perhaps we'll rent it when it comes out on DVD rentals. High Fidelity was really good. We saw it when it came out in theaters. Thought it was hilarious! Brian loves Jack Black! I love John Cusack. He has another really good movie with Minnie Driver in it.. Here's a trivia quiz for you.. Can anyone name it?

Daf, so glad to hear that you're going back to school.. I plan to go back to school, too --- someday! Good luck to you!

xXx

I don't know if that's the real spelling - that's how the local drive-in had it before they closed Labor Day. Anyhow, haven't seen it, want to, but Kim doesn't. I'm flying solo this weekend - Kim, Jess and baby are going to Virginia for a baby shower - may be a good time to take in a flick. I thought Vin Diesel was great in "The Fast and the Furious".

Here's what I really wanted to post about today - Jay goes back to school! Starting at Madonna University in lovely Livonia, MI - more white people per capita than any other 100,000+ city in the country. I used to work there, 15 years ago. Apparently still what it always was...

My degree will be in Church Music, may try to work it into a teaching certificate too. I have a 1982 BA in Economics from Wayne State University (a FAR more diverse place), so school this time will just be about fulfilling the major requirements. Wish me luck - I'll need it!

Sorry - I started my post before Net posted his, so I'll respond to his now...

AFTER THE FOX

A Peter Sellers movie, a bit reminiscent of The Pink Panther series, but Sellers is a criminal in this one. Very funny, and Victor Mature does a brilliant portrayal of a faded cinema star in denial.

Sorry to stick you guys with an "X", but there are a few...

EAST OF EDEN

Made somebody's (FHM's?) list of all-time worst movies recently. Gotta agree - the unsexiest movie about sex ever. Rosie, put something on! Please!

But I really want to talk about:

PICNIC,
MEDICINE MAN,
HIGH FIDELITY, and
PECKER...

PICNIC is a 1955 movie with William Holden and Kim Novak. Kim (Ricketts, not Novak) and I were watching the tube the other night, this came on, and she got all hyped - Ooh! Ooh! I know this movie! - turns out she had never seen it, but her musical-loving bachelor brother with the string of male roommates (draw your own conclusions - his Mom's still in denial. We love him regardless.) had the soundtrack LP and used to play it all the time. She had big chunks of the dialogue memorized. Kind of a soapy movie, intense emotions, a bit overblown. Bad apple from the wrong side of the tracks wins the heart of the small town festival queen. I had never even heard of it, much less seen it, but my IMDB research showed somebody (Novak, maybe?) got an Oscar. Also had "Spiderman"'s dad, Charlie's grandpa from "Willy Wonka", Mother Superior from "The Trouble with Angels", and the lady who did the voice for the aunt with the cats in "Lady and the Tramp".

MEDICINE MAN was from the same tubefest - we get some Ontario stations on clear nights, and some real interesting fare - including the Sopranos (uncut). Anyhow, this was a movie neither of us had ever heard of, but we watched. Sean Connery and Lorraine Bracco (speaking of the Sopranos - she's the shrink), 1992. He's a cancer field researcher assigned to the Amazon, she's the corporate shill who's sent to check up on him, and then chemistry takes over. VERY wll played, though Kim and I both figured out the "secret" way before the scientists did. Excellent interplay between Connery and Bracco, though. Kim's hunting down the DVD - we missed the beginning.

HIGH FIDELITY was a DVD we borrowed from my niece. Music geeks in love, or something like that. Cusack is great, sort of a regular guy with (a) a passion for record collecting, and (b) a psychotic approach to dating. While a realtime breakup unfolds, he takes us back to his history of failed romances, looks up the girls to find out if he's the problem, and we bounce in and out of flashbacks while his girlf tumbles into a relationship with a graytail (Timothy Robbins), and he hooks up with Lisa Bonet (mmmm!). The best part of this whole thing though, is the record store, where his goofy sidekicks steal the show. Jack Black absolutely should have gotten a Best Supporting Actor out of this. The outtakes (I love DVDs!) had some cool moments, too.

PECKER is a John Waters flick about a kid with a camera, also from my niece's collection. We watched 40 minutes and lost interest. Waters has this kind of cartoonish approach with his characters that wears real thin after a while. Too bad - I love Christina Ricci, but just couldn't watch any more.

EVITA

Went to the Sunoco garage this morning to get my tire fixed. It took in all about 15 minutes. The guy too the tire off my car then pulled the screw off and placed a red piece of rubber and poked it in the tire. Bang! Zoom! "That will be 10 dollars please" they garage owner says. I looked at my odometer to note the mileage on my car. 89890! Man, I am gonna need a tune up soon. At 90,000 miles I have to get Samantha a new timing belt and other mileage adjustments. I drove to the local Great Bear for an estimate. $495.00 for a 90,000 mile tuneup. Gulp!

More to come...
Net

RUNAWAY BRIDE

I forgot to tell everyone -- the articles THE, A, AN -- drop off --- otherwise, we'll have ten million movies beginning with the letter "T" -- is that cool with everyone?

TERMINATOR

Driving home from Dot's Aunt in Long Island I got a screw stuck in my tire. I wondered why my driving felt different. At first I though it was a pebble stuck on one of the tires but then everytime I hit a bump. The feel of the drive felt like something wasnt right. As I was driving around the block from my apartment, The right tire sounded like it was flat. I pulled over and looked, but it wasnt flat. After I parked my poor Samantha, I looked more closely at the tire in question. As I suspected there was something wrong. Stupid Screw! Now I have to go to the service station in the morning to get the thing taken out and have the tire plugged. ~Sigh


more to come...
NET